Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

This should be for all tools where formulas can be written and should work for all formulas as well, but I will give you my specific pain point as a easy to understand example.

When I write any formula where I am using CONTAINS, i am always thinking through the issue and writing the formula at the same time so I think [Name] contains "Test"

and I write [Name] and have to go back and add the CONTAINS before it, but when you do that instead of automatically wrapping itself around the field it does this:

Contains(String, Target)[Name] 

Can we get an enhancement that sees if you are writing a formula up against a FieldName it will automatically "ingest" the field name into the syntax and leave you with something like this:

Contains([Name] , Target)

That will leave all the other variables which still need to be completed, but it will save time of having to clean up the text of the formula itself.

****Hopefully this makes sense.  If you need me to expand on this, let me know.  Otherwise hopefully other folks feel my pain and can add their commentary in here as well.

Thanks

Hello,

A few years ago, Alteryx was 4 released per year and now it's only 2 per year (in 2023, as of today, only one !!)

The reasons why I would the cadence to be back to quarter release :

-a quarter cadence means waiting less time to profit of the Alteryx new features so more value

-quarter cadence is now an industry standard on data software.

-for partners, the new situation means less customer upgrade opportunities, so less cash but also less contacts with customers.

Best regards,

Simon

The default variable size is a V_WSTRING of size 1073741823.  If no one catches this, it uses up the memory on the server.  Could the default be smaller?

This is a hybrid idea related to both posts regarding dynamic tool configuration during runtime / without having to run an analytic app.

What I would like to propose is a new optional connection type for the interface tools that can be updated with incoming connections (having a Q letter with white background), namely Drop Down, List Box, Tree and Map tools. This could be a simple R letter in a square for example, which would be located to the left of the incoming question anchor.

Use Case

Imagine an app where there are two control containers and three interface tools (Action tools excluded from the count) outside those containers, one of them is a Text Box connected to a filter tool (via an Action tool) in the first control container with the purpose of limiting the dataset by specifying a city for example, another one is a Numeric Up Down for limiting the dataset by the average transaction amounts that are greater than the specified amount. These two interface tools are contained in a Group Box in the Interface Designer.

The third interface tool is a Drop Down tool which obtains the values (which will be Store Name for this example) from the results of the Select tool (in the second control container that is connected to the output anchor of the first control container) that is connected to an incoming filter tool which is modified by the previously mentioned interface tools. Output anchor of this Select tool is connected to the hypothetical R anchor on the top of the Drop Down tool, which is then connected to an outgoing filter tool that is connected to a series of tools which ends with a Browse tool that displays basic KPI information for the store specified from the Drop Down tool.

The main difference of the R (Refresh) anchor from the Q anchor is that it will enable the user to dynamically update the incoming values (i.e., choices for a drop down tool) without having to run the workflow. Alteryx Designer will automatically execute only the tools necessary to be able to update the values (up to a certain point of the workflow only, which may also be indicated by the boundaries of the control containers containing the target tool) for the R anchor connected applicable Interface tools specified above. This will be possible by clicking the hypothetical confirm button (same appearance with the Apply Data Manipulations button) which only appears next to the Interface tools (or the Group Boxes containing them instead) that are automatically determined by Alteryx Designer to be providing downstream data to the the tools (T anchor of the Filter tool for example) sending values to the applicable Interface tools having an incoming R anchor connection.

I saw that a similar feature recently became available with Alteryx Analytics Cloud Platform with the App Builder product, and I think that Alteryx Designer Desktop could definitely benefit both from this feature and additional App Builder features (that can be adapted to Desktop counterpart) in the upcoming releases.

I usually use the comment tool by:

- dragging it on to the canvas and then

- Repositioning and expanding it to cover the tools I'd like to comment on.

What if I could select the tools I wanted to comment on and then use a key combination or double click so that the comment tool surrounds these tools for me. 

Note: Additional enhancement would be to anchor the comment to the tools selected but I see that this was dropped for consideration: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Desktop-Ideas/Anchoring-comment-boxes-to-tools/idi...

The Find Replace tool has a checkbox to do a case insensitive find. It would be fabulous if the Join and Join Multiple tools had a similar checkbox.

I frequently have to create a new field in each data stream, convert the data I want to join on to upper case, perform the join and remove the extra "helper" fields. Using the helper field is needed in my case in order to preserve unique capitalization (i.e., acronyms within the string, etc.). 

Is it possible to add a search feature to the Summarize Tool that is similar to the search feature in the Select Tool?  Selecting specific fields to summarize in small datasets is fine, but if I am dealing with a table that has 200 fields searching for a specific field can be cumbersome.  Type in a few key letters to filter the available fields would be helpful.

Having the ability to specify columns to be "coalesced" (essentially filled in automatically when records aren't present) across all inputs of the Join Multiple tool would be very useful, and save lots of tedious setup. In fact, I avoid that tool if possible, currently, because of the extra steps necessary in maintaining key column integrity after the join.

In the screenshot below "RecordID" is present in all 4 inputs. When they are joined together, however, not every record is present in all inputs, therefore each of the 4 "RecordID" columns has nulls. We then have to go through an extra step to find the first "non-null" record ID, and put that in a new column (or in the first "RecordID" column).

This could be simply fixed by adding a menu to specify columns that should be coalesced, or auto-filled from other inputs if it's missing in the first one.

The columns in the menu could be based on the first input, and then alteryx would look for columns with the same name in all other inputs and complete the logic below, for instance:

If isnull([RecordID]) then

      if isnull([Input_#2_RecordID]) then

           if isnull([Input_#3_RecordID]) then

                    [Input_#4_RecordID]

           else [Input_#3_RecordID] endif

     else [Input_#2_RecordID] endif

else [RecordID] endif

It would be very helpful to have an output of the workflow into a step by step document. so someone who does not have access to Alteryx can undestand the steps taken to create the flow hence the result or output.

Wouldn't it be great to be able to pick results from a drop down, based on the up-stream tools in the workflow? I had this situation many times, where I had to create a complex, chained app, just because the tools connected to the interface can't run before the interface tools are displayed to the end user.

For example, imagine an app, that based on what column it sees, it lets you drop one by just picking it from a drop down. It would open many development opportunities, and decrease the number of chained apps we need to build.

Right now, the List Box interface tool allows end users to select multiple options of fields for selections, filtering, and formatting/formulating. 

However, it doesn't do quite as good when a use case has over 1,000+ columns/fields. This is made even more complicated with each column/field having somewhat similar naming conventions thereby causing confusion. 

Having a search function, as made available in standard Select Tools, Join tools, and other tools that has filtering capacity, will be most helpful for developers to give maximum flexibility to end users.

As I previously mentioned here, I think that CReW (Alteryx) Runner could hugely benefit from additional enhancements and documentation that would be made for it, especially by adapting certain functionalities found in AlteryxEngineCmd.exe to AlteryxRunner.exe.

Enhancements

Encoding

As you might have already noticed while using the Alteryx Runner (also documented in this page), the AlteryxRunner.exe executable that is being used by Alteryx Runner does not produce the log file in UTF-16 (default Alteryx log output encoding) or UTF-8 encoding.

Therefore, if there exists a tool in your workflow that could produce a message that includes characters that are not supported by the limited Latin code pages (not including Extended Latin) or only supported by UTF-8 / UTF-16 code pages (same applies to workflow/analytic app name, input file names, output file names and directory names), you will notice that the output log is cut off exactly at that character, even if you use an installer such as this, which modifies the input read options of the Read Results section in the Run Command tool in the macro to read the log file produced by the AlteryxRunner.exe in a UTF-8 encoding.

This limits the way in which users can name their files, directories and workflow names, produce custom messages, or render the Runner tool unusable in certain languages.

As the output encoding settings are directly stored in the AlteryxRunner executable, this is unfortunately not an option that can be changed by the end user and requires direct modification to the AlteryxRunner.exe executable file directly from Alteryx development team.

While not being sure if AlteryxRunner.exe is capable of executing workflows or analytic apps that contain characters in their names or their directory names only supported by Extended Latin / UTF-8 / UTF-16 code pages, I would expect that support to be also added in case it's not already there.

Parameters (Command Line Arguments)

- While trying to find if AlteryxRunner.exe supports any command line arguments, I noticed that it is not possible to run an analytic app with custom values (or even if there is, there's no documentation for it, something I have written about below) via AlteryxRunner.exe, so it would be great to be able to run a YXWZ file with custom values (either using an XML file generated while the workflow is running or a "raw xml data stream with no quotation marks or line feeds" provided in the Runner tool as a new option (a text box for XML File Full Path and another one for Raw XML Data Stream toggled by two radio buttons in a check box group named This workflow is an analytic app) added to the interface of the Runner tool in addition to the workflow full path, already included as a text box interface tool). This would save the users from having to generate an analytic app from a template analytic app (at least in some cases where no advanced modifications to the workflow XML would be necessary) just to be able to change the app values stored in the app.

As already specified in the Encoding section above, I would also expect (at least) the XML file (even if not Raw XML Data Stream) to be able to be read in using UTF-8 encoding.

- I think that users should also be able to specify whether to run a workflow or analytic app using E1 or AMP (overriding the workflow settings), just like in the executable AlteryxEngineCmd.exe. In addition to this, if the AMP flag is passed, there should also be an option (or a 3rd option in addition to E1 and AMP) to pass an Engine Compatibility Mode flag.

- As a final addition, I believe it should also be possible to optionally specify the Memory Limit if desired using an additional flag.

I also think that the two last features should also be added to AlteryxEngineCmd.exe, which could benefit from additional enhancements including but not limited to these suggested in this idea post.

Documentation

Parameters

As you might have noticed while reading the two documentations Run Workflows by Command Line and Runner Tool, while there is an advanced documentation on the use of AlteryxEngineCmd.exe, only the use of the Runner Tool itself is documented and not AlteryxRunner.exe. Some of the enhancement requests here are directly a result of this situation (these features could already exist in AlteryxRunner.exe but we would not be aware of it if these were not documented). While such a documentation would not be needed by the Alteryx Designer users (as those arguments could be passed by the choices users make in the macro interface), it might help better understand the capabilities of the executable that makes it possible for a macro such as Alteryx Runner to exist in the first place.

I want a feature to enable join by custom conditions. Currently, in Join tool, allowed condition is only equality of specific fields and specific position, however, in SQL, we can join data by much more flexible conditions like;

SELECT TableA.id FROM TableA INNER JOIN TableB ON TableA.id=TableB.id and TableA.value > TableB.value  

Of course, my idea can be easily realized by using combination of Appendix Field + Filter tool, but I meant to say is that Appendix-Fields is quite expensive operation in calculation cost, and it would generate many unnecessary records, which is annoying us in case of handling a huge dataset.

I suppose this kind of flexible conditions can be specified by using expression editor, thereby configuration window of this feature would look like the below image; Adding one more radio button option, and expression editor similar to one used in Filter tool.

Any positive/negative feedback on my idea would be appreciated. Thank you for your attention!

Problem: In certain workflows, it becomes necessary to arrange columns in a specific order for the output. While achieving the desired order for a fixed number of columns is feasible using the select tool, difficulties arise when dealing with dynamic outputs that introduce new columns during each workflow run.

Example: Consider the following scenario: the INPUT data for the select tool includes a set of Question/Answer columns. However, with every run of the workflow, new columns of this type are introduced. The challenge is to ensure that Question N and Answer N columns are grouped together in the OUTPUT dynamically. Unfortunately, this task is not easily accomplished using the current capabilities of Alteryx.

INPUT:

DESIRED OUTPUT:

With Python/Pandas, this problem can be easily resolved by assigning index values to each column and then sorting the columns based on the assigned index:

So, based on the Python solution, if Alteryx could do the same, it would be great. I personally think that if the Dynamic Rename tool could held the Index Info, and the select tool could also held the Sort option, this would work.

Dynamic Rename: Already can hold Description info, could hold Index Info.

Select tool: Could sort by index and hold this info when the workflow is saved.

Hope this all make sense.

Thanks.

hi team,

Currently the join tool doesn't have option to join the data irrespective of its case sensitivity. this causes issues while doing the analysis.

This tool is widely being taking as a replacement of Excel Vlookup formula (which is also case insensitive),so can we have the similar functionality for Join tool also?

We can have an option like a radio button or checkbox to select if we want to have case insensitivity while joining.

Thanks

Alteryx gods,

It would make me even happier than I am now if it were possible to tailor the completion messaging in the Interface Designer when an analytic app completes.

Currently, we use rendering etc, but sometimes we simply want to be able to create a bespoke completion message.

My example is as follows:

In the app you have the option to download files, or have them emailed to you. If you choose download, the final display is the render tool with the documents listed, however, if you choose email I want nothing to show but the final window with the message "Please check your email" or something. There may be more than one option, and so being able to dynamically change these messages would be very useful.

Help me Alteryx gods, you're my only hope.

*beep boop boop*

I am trying to add additional functionality to my existing workflow.

We have a common workflow pushed to the Alteryx server and there will be multiple people running this workflow.

Every time the workflow is run, the expectation is that an automatic email should be sent to the person who has triggered it(and won't be sent to multiple other people).

Currently, we have it set up using the Email tool but I do not see an option to dynamically update this “To” field to automatically use the email of a person running the workflow on the server.

I would like a new format option within the Designer function DateTimeFormat such that where a date is held in the database

e.g. 2023-01-01

DateTimeFormat([date],%o)

will return 1st not 1 or 01. 

Workarounds exist, but are fiddly given the different options....1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th.....

I am aware that an Auto-Documenter tool is available in the Gallery, but that has not been maintained since 2020. 

It would be great if Alteryx could have that as an added feature to the Designer as an option for end-users to utilize. 

The breakdown of it can be done via XML parsing as such: 

<Nodes>: Configuration of tools

<Connections>: The tools used

<Properties>: Workflow properties

Right now, the current workaround is for users to export their XML, and the internal Alteryx development team has to build another workflow that reads the XML accordingly + parses it to fit what is needed. 

It would be better for Alteryx to build something more robust, and perhaps even include some elements of AiDIN which they are promoting now.