Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

In this blog post http://www.chaosreignswithin.com/2019/06/alteryx19-nashville-we-turned-it-up-to.html, Mark mentioned there is report of Runner macros not working correctly on Windows 10 Enterprise. So I decided to create test workflows to reproduce this error. I've attached 4 files, which you'll need to download and place in a folder to reproduce this error.

Here is the error I produced. The ListRunnerDriver.yxmd goes into an infinite loop.

Here is the state of the folder is when I aborted the ListRunnerDriver.yxmd.

I wasn’t able to reproduce this error with 1 child workflow, which isn’t how we use List Runner macro. So if you did your testing with 1 child workflow, you would not have seen an error.

After I added a 2nd child workflow is when the error occurred, which is how we typically use List Runner macro, more than 1 child workflows.

NB: I used only List Runner and Log Parser macros from the Crew Macros Pack. 

Steps to reproduce the errors:

1. Create a folder

2. Copy all attached files in say folder.

3. Open ListRunnerDriver.yxmd

4. Run ListRunnerDriver.yxmd.

5. Look for errors.

ListRunnerChild.yxmd and ListRunnerChild2.yxmd each are a simple workflow with 2 tools: Text Input and Output tools. They write to 2 different Excel workbooks. In this case, only the ListRunnerChild.yxmd produced an output.

When List Runner macro tried to run ListRunnerChild2.yxmd is when the infinite loop started.

The ListRunnerDriver.Log.xlsx has the messages, but in this case, with the infinite loop and errors, this output is never written.

Sometimes, when I am working with new data sources, it would be nice to have a dockable pane that would allow me to view the schema of all of my connected data sources. That way I could rename fields and change data types as needed without having to jump from one select tool to the other to see how the schemas compare.

When you get an error message in an R tool it's almost impossible for a newbie to figure out what has just happened...

For eg. the normal R package randomForest sets 32 as a max number of classes for a given class variable

Thus when you happen to run randomForest on anything with > 32 classes you get an error, imposssible to figure out without searching on the net or better surfing on the community.

How about a basic rules checker providing message on the configs sayin;

"X" and "Y" variables are categoric and have more than 32 classes,

you have to fix thembefore running an RF tool in order to succeed"

Hi,

As per our project, we need to publish the image into a PDF file which will be downloaded from web URL. when we download the image from web URL that will be saved as TIF format in our local machine. This TIF format is not being supported by Alteryx.

The tool needs an enhancement (to support TIFF) which can be used for converting tiff format to other  format OR directly tiff image should be usable in the report.

Thanks,

Raju Miyapuram

In previous version of Alteryx, when the user selected records in the Browse tool, a count for those records would show next to the display that shows the total record count. When you separated the windows (Browse map is in one window, Browse data in another) that feature went away on the data side (it still shows in the map view side). The only way to know how many records the user selected to is launch a whole other window showing just the selected records. Could you please bring back the selected records display, like in the attached image?

I´ve looked in the forums, and the idea is new, although it has similarities to others. Since Alteryx already supports Crtl+c and Crtl+v - why not support "F4" as well. In ALL MS-Office programs it repeats the last step and thus eases the burden on mouse and user...

I realize that repeating a whole process might (!) not be feasible - but single steps (e.g. "Formatting to the similar size like the last item....") would already be very helpful.

Since Tableau does not offer this - and it has a lot more to format and repeat - Alteryx could gain in UI-friendliness...

Occasionally, the Calgary Loader tool will not write out all fields passed to it.  This seems to happen after writing out a certain number of fields then later, when rerunning, adding a new output field.  Very annoying because you don't know it will happen until processing is complete and you examine the result.  I usually manually delete the calgary files prior to rerunning, to avoid the versioning, but it still happens.

Also, please make the versioning optional with a check box, default off.

I have a process that sends out about 1,500 emails. Every once in a while, it will get stuck at some Percentage and I will have to eventually cancel the workflow, figure out how many emails were sent, and then skip that many emails in order to avoid sending duplicate emails. The process of figuring out how many were sent is currently taking the % of the tool at cancellation minus 50%(since that is where it starts), Multiplying it by 2, and then multiplying that % by the number of lines to get the approximate line of data where it froze up, and then reaching out to individuals to see if they received the email to narrow down exactly where the error occurred. 

Example: 60% - 50%= 10% * 2 = 20% * 1249 = 249.8.

This has been pretty accurate in the past, but obviously is not ideal. Is there no way for it to show us how many were sent even if we cancelled the workflow mid processing of the tool?

Our company is loving the Insight's Tool, but I am constantly being asked by users if they can export the data behind the graphs that is feeding in. For example we have an inventory dashboard for vehicles that starts at a Corporate level, but is drillable down to a "Regional" and then even more focused "Managed Area" level. Once users get down to the "Managed Area" level they want to export the line level data that is feeding into the Insight chart to actually view, work, and action the data at a vehicle level. 

Essentially an option to export the data feeding into the graphs. 

Since we know Alteryx uses R for a lot of its predictive and data analysis tools. It takes a while to run the workflow whenever there is R based tool is involved. I was told by a solution engineer that its because its opening and closing R in the background.

Sometimes my workflow has a bunch of tools which are running R in the background and it takes forever to run the workflow.

I think there should be a user setting which allows user to choose if the want to start R along with Alteryx and keep it running in the background.

Thanks,

Hi All,

I believe the following would help improve the functionality of Select Tool.

The idea is to have a defaulting option for each of the field in the Select Tool (which I believe should be a light weight Tool i.e. not adversely impacting performance and gives best exhaustive picture of all columns flowing through a (/particular point in ) pipeline).

Following are some of the cases where defaulting might come handy -

1) Fields which are supposed to hold monetary data - instead of Null, one can put 0.00 to help roll up summary properly.
2) Fields which are supposed to hold dates (say expiry date) - instead of Null, one can put some enterprise standards like 31-12-2099 to avoid mixing Nulls and 31-12-2099.
3) Fields which are supposed to hold purchase quantity/number of employees/number of merchandise - instead of Null, one can put 0 (and not 0.00) again to help with roll up summary.
4) Fields which are supposed to hold Currency - instead of Null, one can put USD.
5) Fields which are supposed to hold dates (say this time create date) - instead of Null, one can hardcode actual date, or an additional feature to put Now() kind of functions.

At present one of the options of achieving same might be to put a Formula Tool and to code whatever is desired inside the Formula Tool.

Benefits of having the functionality inside Select Tool would be -

1) It would be more user friendly and call for faster build to just write '0.00' or 'USD' or '31-12-2099' as compared to writing IF IsNull()... statements.
2) Inside Formula Tool, user needs to pull desired fields from the drop down and hence exhaustive view of all fields passing through pipeline is not available.

Pain in selection of fields from drop down and writing actual formulas might be aggravated with the number of columns increasing and might be more prone to human omission related errors.

Thanks,
Rohit Bajaj

Hello,

If I go to Options --> Advanced Options --> System Settings, why do I have to click [Next] button several times before I can get to the "Engine" tab at  the very bottom? Why not simply create a user-friendly UI screen where we could directly navigate to the section we desire?

Please improve the UI.

Thanks!

If you copy a text box named ClientCode to another workflow, the name of the box will be reset to text box(#) in that new workflow. That can be a snag if the workflow the text box is contained in is deployed to gallery as an app that is ran via the gallery API... the API parameters will be looking for a text box named ClientCode but is now named text box(#). This happens almost in the background without the developer knowing they have renamed the text box and the ES eventually failing. This can be annoying; it would be great if the name were inhereted. 

If you copy a text box named ClientCode to another workflow, the name of the box will be reset to text box(#) in that new workflow. That can be a snag if the workflow the text box is contained in is deployed to gallery as an app that is ran via the gallery API... the API parameters will be looking for a text box named ClientCode but is now named text box(#). This happens almost in the background without the developer knowing they have renamed the text box and the ES eventually failing. This can be annoying; it would be great if the name were inhereted. 

This is more of an enhancement than a new idea.  When building an application and upon success using separate browsers to display the results, it would be nice to be able to give the browser windows a title.  Currently you see Browse (22) and Browse (38) etc.  My app checks a certain key value in multiple tables/files and presents the table results if found.  I need to rename the data to know which file the data is coming from whereas if the browser windows had a title, you would know from which file they represent.  The titles could be added in the interface designer (see attached)

Sometimes when I'm working on a workflow a connection string between two tools will take a path that either causes the workflow to become more cluttered or overlaps another tool etc. I usually format these strings to be wireless but if I am presenting my workflow to someone who is unfamiliar with Alteryx, wireless connections can cause much confusion. It would be great if I could determine the path a connection string takes, much the same way you can draw/manipulate a line in ppt or word (i.e. if the string could have nodes that could be dragged around tools, containers, etc.)

Thanks!

When you use a Find Replace tool, it would be GREAT if you had a select all option for what you want to append to the find data set.

It would be extra GREAT if you added the ability to draw a box over the ones you want to add, or have a feature where you could select the first on on the list and hold the shift+ctr to select multiple lines at once.

🙂

1. An ability to right click on a connection and disable it to prevent any processing beyond that connector.

2. An ability to right click and make a tool 'transparent' (on certain tools like filter, with perhaps icon color change to show it is transparent) to see what happens with/without that tool much further down the road in large workflows.

3. An ability to left click on empty space between tools and connectors (the background) and drag the workflow around for faster navigation in large workflows. I know that there is an overview feature for faster navigation, but this should add further ease in navigation process.

4. An ability to make container any shape (lasso-like) and not just rectangular. It would make for much clearer distinction between containers.

5. How about a 'done' button in the new interactive chart so I don't have to 'close'out of it? After making all the adjustments, having to 'close' the display is not very reassuring.

6. How about third dimension (for size) in the scatter tool?

I am not sure if some of the features I requested are already there, if so please point me in the right direction. I did try to search in ideas and community section, but wasn't able to pinpoint to any specific topics I bring up above.

I am using the 2018.3.5.52487 version.

I would love to see the ability to have a hyperlink (or even more formatting options) in my app output message. 

Currently I when I have an app that runs and I want my users to move off to a different web location they have to copy and paste the url that I have rather than just clicking a link and going to the external report.