Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

I'm adding a 'Dynamic Input' tool to a macro that will dynmaically build the connection string based on User inputs. We intend to distribute this macro as a 'Connector' to our main database system.

 

However, this tool attempts to connect to the database after 'fake' credentials are supplied in the tool, returning error messages that can't be turned off.

 

In situations like this, I think you'd want the tool to refrain from attempting connections. Can we add a option to turn off the checking of credentials? I assume that others who are building the connection strings at runtime would also appreciate this as well.

 

As a corollary, for runtime connection strings, having to define a 'fake' connection in the Dynamic Input tool seems redundant, given we have already set the 'Change Entire File Path' option. There are some settings in the data connection window that are nice to be able to set at design time (e.g. caching, uncommitted read, etc.), but the main point of that window to provide the connection string is redundant given that we intend to replace it with the correct string at runtime. Could we make the data connection string optional?

 

To combine the above points, perhaps if the connection string is left blank, the tool does not attempt to connect to the connection string at runtime.

A typical macro does the same job every time. I therefore want it to have the same annotation each time.

I want it to have a default annotation that I save in the Interface Designer. This annotation will be shown on the canvas whenever the macro is added.

We are starting to use Alteryx as a full ETL DW build tool (and blogging about it too..)

 

Compared to other tools in the market there do not seem to be the usual SCD(slowly changing dimension) and other "standard" tools or templates to start building.

 

It would be great to have a template/Macros/guide to starting to build a DW solution. It is rather daunting starting with a blank page!

 

 

When I first started using Alteryx I did not use macros or the Runtime Tab much at all and now I use both a lot but...I can't use them together. 

 

When working in a macro there is no Runtime Tab. While working on a macro and testing it you can't take advantage of any of the handy features in the Runtime Tab.  I am assuming a macro will inherit any settings from the Flow that calls it, can't find anything in the community or "help" to confirm that though, but this is not helpful while developing and testing.

Hi All,

 

Did you all experience when building a iterate macro this situation?

 

When you have no idea why the output is different from what you want,

hence, you remove the rows/ data to force the data run only 2 iterate, review the result.

then, you add back the rows/ data to force the data run only 3 iterate, review the result 

then 4, 5 and etc... until we found the issue.

 

so it was important that we can view how the result of each iterate to enable us to identify the issue quicker and more efficient.

 

Example output

The output may like below: (with a option to let user to choose of cause)

 

if input data is 3 and the macro is to multiply 2 and power of 2 every iterate. (1st iterate=3*2^2, 2nd iterate=12*2^2)

Iterate	Amount
1	12
2	48

 

just add one column in front to show the iterate and rest is the result.

 

 

There is currently no way to export interactive output from the network graph tool. I would like to be able to export a png of the static network graph image, a pdf of the report, and a complete html of the whole (which means including the JSON and vis.js files necessary for creating the report).

 

 

Hi,

 

when I right-click on an Input tool, I can select "Convert To Macro Input" from the context menu. I would like the similar functionality when right-clicking a Browse tool to "Convert To Macro Output".

Hello gurus - 

 

I think it would be an important safety valve if at application start up time, duplicate macros found in the 'classpath' (i.e., https://help.alteryx.com/current/server/install-custom-tools, ) generate a warning to the user.  I know that if you have the same macro in the same folder you can get a warning at load time, but it doesn't seem to propagate out to different tiers on the macro loading path.  As such, the developer can find themselves with difficult to diagnose behavior wherein the tool seems to be confused as to which macro metadata to use.   I also imagine someone could also arrive at a situation where a developer was not using the version of the macro they were expecting unless they goto the workflow tab for every custom macro on their canvas.  

 

Thank you for attending my TED talk on the upsides of providing warnings at startup of duplicate macros in different folder locations.  

 

 

 

Think of a pivot table on steroids. In my industry, "strats" are commonly used to summarize pools of investment assets. You may have several commonly used columns that are a mix of sums and weighted averages, capable of having filtering applied to each column. So you may see an output like this:

 

Loan Status	Total Balance	% of Balance	% of Balance (in Southwest Region)	Loan to Value Ratio (WA)	Curr Rate (WA)	FICO (WA)	Mths Delinquent (WA)
Current	$9,000,000	90	80	85	4.5	720	0
Delinquent	$1,000,000	10	100	95	5.5	620	4
Total	$10,000,000	100	90	86	4.6	710	0.4

 

Right now, I feel like to create the several sums and weighted averages, it's just too inefficient to create all the different modules, link them all together and run them through a transpose and/or cross tab. And to create a summary report where I may have 15 different categories outside of Loan Status, I'd have to replicate that process with those modules 15 times.

 

Currently, I have a different piece of software where I can simply write out sum and WA calcs for each column, save that column list (with accompanying calcs) and then simply plug in a new leftmost category for each piece of data I'm looking at. And I get the Total row as well auto-calculated as well. 

This should be quite easy to implement. I think it would be great if could we have:

1. A User repository for macros in the Users folder, e.g. My DocumentsMy Alteryx Macros

This would make it easier to install macros without needing any administrator rights

2. A right click operation on a yxmc file (or a menu operation in Alteryx) that Install the macro ie. will move any macro into the folder above.

This would make it very simple to show new users how to install any macro you send them

Both these ideas will make it easier for partners and the Alteryx user community to share macros.
 

Here is a thought I posted about on my Alteryxuser blog: http://alteryxuser.blogspot.com/2015/02/alteryx-and-github-place-for-sharing.html. I interested in hearing your comments!

When building macros - we have the ability to put test data into the macro inputs, so that we can run them and know that the output is what we expected.    This is very helpful (and it also sets the type on the inputs)

 

However, for batch macros, there seems to be no way to provide test inputs for the Control Parameter.   So if I'm testing a batch macro that will take multiple dates as control params to run the process 3 times, then there's no way for me to test this during design / build without putting a test-macro around this (which then gets into the fact that I can't inspect what's going on without doing some funkiness)

 

Could we add the same capability to the Control Parameter as we have on the Macro Input to be able to specify sample input data?

Would be nice to have a place where general use macros or packages could be published by the community and then used within the designer.

Thinking of something along the lines of the NuGet package manager: https://www.nuget.org/
 

Idea:

A funcionality added to the Impute values tool for multiple imputation and maximum likelihood imputation of fields with missing at random will be very useful.

 

Rationale:

Missing data form a problem and advanced techniques are complicated. One great idea in statistics is multiple imputation,

filling the gaps in the data not with average, median, mode or user defined static values but instead with plausible values considering other fields.

 

SAS has PROC MI tool, here is a page detailing the usage with examples: http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/sas/seminars/missing_data/mi_new_1.htm

Also there is PROC CALIS for maximum likelihood here...

 

Same useful tool exists in spss as well http://www.appliedmissingdata.com/spss-multiple-imputation.pdf

 

Best

"Enable Performance Profiling" a great feature for investigating which tools within the workflow are taking up most of the time.This is ok to use during the development time.

It would be ideal to have this feature extended for the following use cases as well:

 

• Workflows scheduled via the scheduler on the server
• Macros & apps performance profiling when executed from both workstation as well as the scheduler/gallery

 

Regards,

Sandeep.

 

 

Never noticed this, because I always use the custom filter option, not the basic.  But I had a user come to me asking why his app wasn't updating his filter properly.

 

He configured the filter tool thusly (dummy data):

 

And here is the what the action tool looks like when you connect it to the filter tool:

So he simply highlighted the "Bob" line and picked to update "Bob".

 

However, since he used a basic filter, and not a custom one, this is how he should've configured the action tool:

I realize that "well, it's spelled out for you - there's an expression section & a simple section in the action tool".  But for beginners or even non-beginners, it might not be obvious.

 

It would be nice if when you connect the action too, it only displayed the appropriate option (either custom or simple, but not both).

Currently there is no option to edit an existing macro search path from Options-> User Settings -> Macros. Only options are Add / Delete. Ideally we need the Edit option as well.

 

Existing Category needs to be deleted and created again with the correct path, if search path is changed from one location to another.

 

 

When developing modules and looking to refactor/improve areas where tools should be placed into a macro (for re-use, or for module cleanliness), it would be nice if I could simply select all the tools that should be in the macro, right click, and have an option to "Create as Macro". The option would create a new module/macro, copy the tools to the canvas, and create the necessary macro inputs and outputs automatically. Additionally, the original module could be updated to replace the selected tools with the newly created macro.

The "Detour" tool is incredibly useful in Macros. However, it really isn't much use in the normal workflow area.

 

We need a "Detour" tool suitable for normal Workflow (not from within a Macro) which would greatly aid in workflow controls and logic.