Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

I used to use a software before (LabVIEW) and it had the capability to exchange code via snippets or as part of png images. I think this will impact not only community, but also facilitate the code exchange

Would it be possible to Hide all annotations by default rather than each time a new workflow is created?   It's a simple thing but can save time.

Workflow configuration

Include a tool specific configuration to allow for the ability to turn off annotations on that specific tool instead of the global setting to turn them all off.

This would especially be useful for the SORT tool.

I find myself wasting multiple clicks in order to eliminate the annotations every time I insert a sort tool into my process flow, since it is rare when I actually need to include an annotation.

When creating a series of workflows, it is most common to run each tab in order from left to right. When saving them as workflow group, the order is not preserved and cannot be controlled. Recommendation: Always open workflow group tabs in the order at time of last Workflow Group save.

The Find and Replace tool currently replaces text or appends fields by reviewing the first word in the string and evaluating if there is a matching value in the lookup replace table. If there is, it returns the replace text or it continues onto the next word in the string and repeats until a match is found or not found.

However the functionality should be that the entire string is evaluated and the first match in the replace lookup table is returned. This is similar to how the VLOOKUP formula functions in Excel. 

This makes workflows easier to maintain as the ordering of the lookup table can be amended to return the appropriate value. The ordering of the source string is far trickier to automate/change. 

I have seen workarounds where append fields is used to append all lookup values to each row and then find rows which contain the string and use a sample tool to return the first row, however this causes processing issues when working with large number of records/ lookup values.

The functionality should either be changed or at least a setting which can be toggled to switch between the two options.

Hi all 

Currently when you set your workflow to don't write outputs (disable all tools that write output) under runtime of the configuration of workflow- the render and green output tools become greyed out and do not write an output (as expected). 

However, this is not the case for connectors - for example, if you use the SharePoint output tool and click disable all tools that write output, it will not be greyed out and still write an output. Is it possible for these connectors to also not run when this is selected in the configuration? As otherwise currently, you have to add it to a container and disable it.

In conjunction with the "First N% of Rows" and "Group by column (optional)" features, an additional option that would be great to have would be to tell the tool to take at least 1 record per group. If I am telling the tool to take the first 3% of records and grouping by a field, but one of the groups only has 5 records, it won't return any records for that group, as 3% of 5 is .15, so the tool rounds that down to 0. If I could also choose an option for the tool to always round up, that would also be sufficient.

In the formula tool, you can generate uniform random values using the RAND() function.

I would like to have similar functionality to get normal random values by calling RANDN().

As a workaround, the values can be produced from a Python tool using 

numpy.random.randn()

Python documentation on numpy.random.randn.

The full script below produces 100 random normal values in a column called 'Normal_Rand'.

The zip file has both a direct workflow and macro solution to produce the random normal values.

Would like to have the ability to filter to searched fields. Having the ability to search for already known fields, and then selecting those fields, temporarily, and isolating them for view. While there is the selection of fields under "X of Y fields", this still requires manual clicks and could be tedious when there could be a large amount of fields.

While you could also use the SELECT tool, that would still require manually searching for the field and isolating it for viewing. This could possibly be an enhancement for the SELECT tool or it could be an enhancement for the "X of Y fields".

I'd like to suggest that Alteryx make annotations able to be hidden or visible by right clicking or hovering over a little highlighted corner similar to comments/notes in Excel.  Have a highlighted corner of tools when there is an annotation. When hovering over the colored corner, user is able to view the annotation otherwise it is hidden and out of the way of the tool box. 

Hello all,

My idea is very simple, and this is most likely I'm used to do. After highlighting the fields in the select tool, the next action is to click Options and to apply what to do. My idea is just after highlighting, right click on mouse button to go exactly on Options menu. Just a simple right click. I think this behavior is most likely comes from Microsoft, I'm used to select multiple lines or cells and with right click to do the next action. It's a simple, but powerful. What do you think?

Albert

The DateTime Tool currently displays incoming date-time data types in a dropdown menu and "If no date-time columns are present, the field appears dimmed and shows 'No Suitable Input Fields Available'". However, considering the complexity of date formats, it's beneficial to directly view the data type of incoming date-time data instead of relying solely on visual inspection. While Designer filters options based on string or date/time types automatically, having visibility into the data type ensures a more sound interpretation of the input for analysis purposes.

When making changes to a UI, it would be beneficial if I could move objects horizontally instead of only vertically. Additionally, being able to resize items in the interface designer could improve end user experience. Currently I have List Boxes that are cutting off some words in a workflow and if I could extend the box or wrap the text then I wouldn't lose any context. 

The second idea is the freedom to sort the workflows in collections that I control in anyway that I choose.

The Directory tool should also retrieve the author/creator name of a file along with an audit trail of anyone that made changes to the file. The audit trail option may need to be a different preparation tool but the information would be useful.

Providing detailed information about inputs, outputs, data sources and assumptions provides useful information to us that may not always be obvious within a workflow, especially one with many tools used. While the comment tool is useful, and I enjoy the customization options, I think some updates to the annotation tool would be useful.

One improvement I would like to see is the ability to summarize and download all annotations to a PDF document; color coding the annotations according to the tool used would also be helpful. Having this information readily available for presentation purposes or for enterprise-wide users of workflows would be beneficial. 

If this is already possible, please let me know!

Dear Alteryx

Typing econometric formulas within the Formula tools can be very tyring when formulas are long and complex

What would be very nice, would be to have the possibility the get a a kind of "Formula" format (in adition to double , string, datetime ...).

When the format is set to Formula, Alteryx automatically detect that it is a formula and use it as such.

It would allow to import easily external models formulas without to type or paste them within Alteryx

Many thanks

Arno

When opening the File Open dialog in Designer for loading a file from the Gallery, the default location inside the Gallery is set to "All Locations". 

In most of the cases, a developer does not want to work on a workflow produced by a random other person having stored a workflow in the Gallery but on his own workflows. Thus, the default should be "My Private Studio".

Please apply the change to open the file open dialog with "My Private Studio" selected.

Hi, I have been using different tools for some time now and now I started using Alteryx. It would be better if you can provide a feature to select particular components of workflow and on clicking Run, only selected components gets executed. It would save lots of config  time and resources. In case none is selected, the workflow shall execute all tools/functions as it is currently running.  I am open to test these features, if approved by Alteryx Team.

Hello,
Frequently when using the 'Show Field Map' option in a Macro Input I utilize an Action Tool with the 'Update Select with Reverse Field Map' action later in the workflow. When trying to use workflow debug to test the functionality of the macro, Designer throws an error stating the 'Action ReverseFieldMap: can't update from a macro input in an Analytic App.' This makes sense since there are no user supplied fields names in the input data stream to use for the reverse field mapping. However, this prevents me from using of the workflow debugger. The workaround is to manually delete the Action Tool prior to using the debugger. I can then test the macro to ensure the proper functionality. I don't expect the fields names to be anything other than those I supplied as Template Inputs to the Macro Input. This workaround is cumbersome especially if the workflow requires multiple reverse mapping actions. Not to mention I have to remember to undo the delete when updating the workflow after testing.

I suggest an automated process is needed to remove any Action Tools using the reverse field map action from a workflow when the debug workflow is being built for testing. If needed, maybe supply a prompt indicating they were removed. This would allow a smoother transition between macro development and debugging.