Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

With the release of 2018.3, cache has become an adhoc task. With complex workflow and multiple inputs we need a method to cache and save the cache selection by tool. Once the workflow runs after opening, the cache would be saved at the latest tool downstream.

This way we don't have to create adhoc cache steps and run the workflow 2X before realizing the time saving features of cache.

This would work similar to the cache feature in 11.0 but with enhanced functionality...the best of the old cache with the new cache intent.

Embed the cache option into tools.

Thanks!

In some of our larger workflows it's sometime tedious to run a workflow in order to see some data, when adding something in the beginning of the workflow. Running und stopping it as soon as the tools gets a green border is sometimes an option.

It would be convenient to have an option in the context menu to run a workflow only until a specific tool.

In effect, only this specific tool has an output visible for inspection and only the streams necessary for this tool have been run - everything else is ignored and I'm fine to not see data for the other tools.

This would speed up the development of small parts in a larger workflow much more convenient.

Regards

Christopher

PS: Yes, I can put everything else in a container and deactivate it. But a straight forward way without turning containers on and off would be preferable in my opinion. (I think KNIME as something similar.)

We are working on building out training content in a story mode and would like to have short snippets playing in a loop for people to see embedded in the workflow. Currently you can add a .gif to a comment background and it will provide a still image on the worklfow itself but functions as a gif in the configuration display. The interesting part is when you are running the workflow the .gif works and then it pauses it when the workflow has completed!

Example GifGif upload in comment and playing in the configuration windowGif in workflow when uploadedGif after workflow run

As per this discussion, I'd like to create constants that stay with me as I create new workflows rather than creating a user constant across multiple workflows.

This could perhaps be done by editing an xml file in the bin.

Please offload map rendering, in Browse Tool, to the video card using DirectX or OpenGL, the software rendering currently used is embarrassingly slow and disruptive.  

when using the R-Tool for simple tasks (like renaming files, for example) in an interative macro - there's a delay on every iteration as the R Tool starts up R.

The following are repeated on every iteration (with delays):

Can we look at an option to forward scan an alteryx job to look for R Tools, then load R into process once to eliminate these delays on every iteration?

I love Workflow Meta info, especially the ability to put the Author, the search tags,the version, the description, etc...

But why can't we use it as Engine Constant? It doesn't seem very hard to implement and it would change life for development.

Problem:

Currently, the scheduling via designer controller is independent of the gallery. So, even after a canvas is deleted, the scheduler still continues to execute the cached version of the canvas, as long as the scheduler exists.

Note, this issue does not occur when the canvas is directly scheduled in the gallery, and only occurs when you schedule via the Designer on the controller directly.

Steps to replicate issue:

1) Publish a canvas into gallery

2)Schedule the canvas to run daily via the Designer --> Options --> View Schedules --> Select Controller --> Create new workflow and schedule

3) Delete the canvas from gallery

4) You will notice that the canvas is still getting run on the defined schedule, even though you have deleted the canvas

Observed in Alteryx 11.5.1

Idea Recommendation:

Golden copy of a canvas should be the version existing in the gallery. Once the gallery instance of the canvas is deleted/replaced with a new version,

• All related artifacts to the old version should be marked as "Deleted"
• All existing schedules should be stopped from being executed
• We should continue to retain all meta data attributes and execution history related to the old version (should not be wiped out) but clearly marked as archived/deleted

@SeanAdams @LizaNemchynova

Hello,

we have several environment in our organization : dev, recept, production.

In order to make that change safe we intend to make several connection (standard alias)  like

PRODUCTION_HIVE

DEV_HIVE

RECEPT_HIVE

In our workflows, we want to use aka:%Question.v_environment%HIVE

Sadly, this solution does not work despite the value defaut. 

In the Overview pane - can you please show which tools have completed the current run, when viewing this pane during a canvas run?   That would allow for a progress check at a glance.

We have to run the full workflow at a time, if you can please think of something like partial running of the workflow and also while designing the flow if we add new tools, we have to run the entire flow again. 
Why can't it hold the intermediate data to avoid re-running the entire code.

It appears that the Workflow Dependencies window does not report dependencies from all tools. In the example image, you can see that the file input from the Amazon S3 Download tool is not listed. Some tools may have dependencies that do not easily fit the current field structure of the window, but maybe the input/download tools could be listed with an asterisk or partial reference.

Missing Amazon S3 Dependency

Hi,

I think it would be great if the run time of a workflow could be displayed by tool or container. This would make refining the workflow at completion a lot easier and also help with thinking of better solutions. Even cooler would be some kind of speed heat map.

Thanks

Ability to run. Workflow from failed tool onwards .

If a workflow has 10 tools , if some tools failed with error(at tool5) , in an etl world we don’t want to run it again from beginning, instead we fix the tool (tool5)that had error and run from that tool and finish workflow .tool 5 to tool10.

 Hi there,

When working through a question with our team on how Excel & MS SQL represent dates, we did a quick test and confirmed that SQL and Excel are both storing dates & date-times as a number (technically the offset from a fixed date) which really helps for things like BI applications where a fact table may store a very large number of dates on each record (entered date/time; updated date/time; transaction date/time; etc)

However, when we look at the same in Alteryx, it seems to be storing these dates as plain text (see screenshot below) - meaning that instead of an 8 byte field for every date and datetime; which can be compressed using offset logic like in Parquet, these appear to be represented as a 19 byte field for date-time.

Would it make sense to change the internal representation to a number to make date-offsetting and processing easier (all date-logic then becomes simple addition / subtraction instead of string manipulation)?

Note: You can see this in the screenshot below.   the date field has 10 bytes; and the date-time has 19 bytes (where both of these are stored and represented in MSSQL in 8 bytes in total)

Hi,

     I would like to see Global Variable being made available in Alteryx. I have seen the Global Constant being made available under Workflow "User" configuration. But this is constant and needs to be defined at Design time.

How about a Process Id that needs to be auto genearted and the same needs to be available across the formula tools used with in the workflow.

During development it seems the syntax checker or whatever process runs behind the scenes after a tool is modified reviews the full workflow. 

Ex - Just from observation if I modify the file name in an output tool I don't see why it would rerun the full syntax check process.

This reduce the time waiting to continue development.

We often build very large Alteryx projects that breakdown large data processing jobs into multiple self contained workflows.

We use CReW Runner tools to automate running the workflows in sequence but it would be nice if Alteryx supported this natively with a new panel for "Projects"

Nice features for Projects could be:

• Set the sequence
• Conditional sequence
• Error handling
• Shared constants
• Shared aliases
• Shared dependencies
• Chained Apps
• Option to pass data between workflows - Input from yxmd Output - no need to persist intermediary data
• Input/output folder/project folder setups for local data sources in dependencies window
• Ability to package like "Export Workflow" for sharing
• Results log the entire project

Countless times I've been asked by management how long a process will take to run and I really can't say beyond an educated guess (using input file size and complexity of workflow). Yet, when downloading files off the internet or moving files around in a network, Microsoft will give an estimated time of completion (e.g. 10 minutes remaining till files are downloaded). It would be so great if Alteryx would show something similar with regard to how long a workflow will take to finish running. Not sure if you can create an algoithm based on the nubmer of tools, import file size, network connection etc. to give a ETA on when a workflow may finish running but it would be super helpful for me when working on high priortity project so I can communicate with the business side.

Thanks!