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.

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,

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!

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)

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.

Can you please enable option to select multiple performance measures in AB Trend tool. 

Currently we can only choose one metrics

Hi,

Noticed an issue in the Browse tools, specifically if you’ve run a module once, where browse tools are displaying information, and then you add new browse tools into the process (without clicking run yet). What I’m seeing is if I’m looking at the “existing” Browse that is showing data, and then click directly onto a Browse tool that was added after the run (not remembering I just added it), the “new” Browse tool is showing the previous Browse tools info, I literally have to click on the canvas, and then back to the new Browse tool for Alteryx to recognized there isn’t any data to display in it yet. My point being it can be misleading to the user if they don’t recognize the wrong info is being displayed (because as you click back & forth between the two, the data stays the same, making the user think the issue is in the process rather than just the display, can waste a lot of time backtracking for no reason). I’ve seen this behavior over at least the past 3 engine updates, just FYI.

Please add a tool to edit different cells in table randomly and update the source after editing. Similar to the "Edit Top 200 rows in SQL". That would be very much helpful

When outputting to files in avro format, it would be nice to have Alteryx either throw an error/warning or automatically add a prefix when field names do not conform to the Apache Avro specifications. For example, if I were to try to output an .avro file with a field named "2018 actions", Alteryx could throw a warning/error to remind me to rename the field, or Alteryx could change the field name for me to something like "X2018_Actions".

We are limited to vertical and horizontal flow charts.

Being able to move the green entrance and exit nodes to vertical or horizontal positioning in the same chart would aid creating more efficient flow layouts.

The developers should check out Factorio too. Quite a few idea in there on flow charting.

EG:

This is an interface issue but I wish Alteryx can allow user to scroll across the ribbon toolbar (e.g. In/Out, Prep, Join, Spatial tools...) when the toolbar is active.

That is, for example, when I click on "Transform" and notice my tool is not there, I can quickly scroll my mouse to move to other toolsets. Microsoft Office is a best practice for this and I think this will make it much efficient to locate tools.

For most of our "Production" mode, we launch our apps with an xml file containing the parameter send to the app.

We would like to have the path of this file in the Engine Constant.

When working on the Weekly Challenge #108, I was trying to design a non-macro solution.

I ended up settling on the Generate Rows tool and was trying to find a way to generate rows until I had reached or exceeded the maximum density, however, I ran into an issue where I'd always have one too few rows, since the final row I was looking for was the one that broke the condition I specified.

In order to get around this, I came up with the following solution:

Spoiler

 

Essentially, I just set my condition to twice that of the true threshold I was looking for. This worked because I was always doubling the current value in my Loop Expression, and so anything which broke the 'actual' condition I was looking for ([MaxDensity]), would necessarily also break the second condition if doubled again.

However, for many other loop expressions, this sort of solution would not work.

My idea is to include a checkbox which, when selected, would also generate the final row which broke the specified condition.

By adding such a checkbox, it would allow users to continue using the Generate Rows tool as they already do, but reduce the amount of condition engineering that users are required to do in order to get that one extra row they're looking for, and reduce the number of  potentially unseen errors in their workflows.

Hi,

I am sure that I can't be the only person that would be interested in an output tool that allows categorical fields on both axes.  THis would allow you to visualise the following example and I would suggest that this was either similar to the heatmap with boxes or the colour / size of the entry was determined by a third numerical value - such as 'Confidence' from the table below.  THere might be ways to extend the idea as well as having a fourth parameter that puts text in the box or another number but it would be useful and not too hard I am sure.

Many thanks in advance for considering this,

Peter

It may just be me, but after I upgraded to 2018.2, the Table/Query edit window doesn't take up the full window when I maximize the parent window. 

I'm surprised no one else has mentioned this, maybe it's just me.  See attached.