Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

It would be easy if there is an alteryx tool or in the input tool a configuration  to put an excel password and it opens the file to use it on a workflow.

Building a custom tool is nice, but the best way to show someone how to use it is to have an example. It would be great if we could package example workflows into a yxi file so our custom tools have samples to start from. 

Hi,

I am not sure if it is only me, but quite often, I am getting distracted. I believe I am not the only person bombarded by the amount of notification/ping on chat etc. That is the reason why quite often, I forgot what I am doing.

Let's imagine a scenario like this. I want to use the date-time parse function. First, I look at the data. I want to figure out what the format is, and I want to start writing a formula.

I know what format it is, and I am writing a formula in a formula tool. I remember the date was the first position but what was next? I got distracted. I don't know the original formula was structured.

Wouldn't it be cool to see the results from the previous tool still when working on the new one?

My workaround is to copy-paste pics into one note when I am working on something but I am not a big fan of a workaround like this 😀

For the Image Input Tool please add:

   1) A wildcard input for filename.

   2) A check-box to choose sub-folders.

When Alteryx Designer detects an existing 32-bit Oracle driver on a user's machine, it displays an error message saying  that it requires a 64-bit driver.  If there is no driver at all installed, it will go ahead and install one. 

Can we get Alteryx to simply prompt the user to install the 64-bit driver instead of the 32-bit driver present error message? 

(I know they can co-exist since removing the 32-bit driver will cause Alteryx to install its own 64-bit driver after which one can re-install the 32-bit driver.)

Thanks!

D

When outputting data to a spreadsheet, the default option is "output to a new sheet". The second time you run your process, you get an error unless you are amazing enough to remember to change the output option to "overwrite sheet".

If you change to "overwrite sheet" for the first run, it actually works just fine and creates the new sheet. 

Can Alteryx just eliminate the "output to a new sheet option" so that users will no longer be concerned that "Alteryx doesn't work" when they get this error after creating their first process? And the rest of us will be able to save the run time with an error, then the change of the option?

Thanks!

The option to "Disable all Tools that Write Output" doesn't currently affect the Publish to Tableau Server output tool.

Yes.  I'll admit it.  I have set up email events and forgot to enter my address into the 'to' field.  The upshot is that an error was occurring in my workflow, the tool went to email me, and then double borked because I hadn't filled in a recipient. 

Lots of tools error out without appropriate configuration applied, it shouldn't be too difficult to get this working on the events panel also. 

Thank you for attending my TED talk on improvements to the Events pane.

If you open a workflow in Designer from the Gallery, make some changes, and then attempt to save it back to Gallery (i.e., Ctrl-S), you receive the Save Workflow dialog (as per attached).  However, if you then realize that you want to make an additional change before saving the workflow and click 'Cancel', the workflow closes without saving.  The expected behavior would be for the Save Workflow dialog to close, but not the entire workbook.  This is terrible functionality and should be fixed because it results in lost work.  Thank you

When developing workflows, it would be great if there was a feature to be able to disable multiple containers at once, rather than having to click on each one individually, for example through selecting all of the required containers and right clicking "disable selected containers".

In the meantime, a workaround is to copy the portion of the workflow being developed onto a new canvas.

when you bring in a comment box or tool container to your canvas it should come in with your preferred defaults for  fill colors, font color & size, etc.  I have specific color schemes to identify what my comments are for and one scheme that I use most often has font size, position & color, and background color that I have to set every time i bring in a new comment box.

 I LOVE working in Alteryx it because unlike excel you set a "macro" to perform repeating operations once and then ignore them to do your real work.  This concept should extend to the little things within Alteryx, i.e. settings for preferred defaults for comment boxes & tool containers. 

I know y'all are working on data lineage for some future offering and it is very much needed. For highest quality results, please make logs a primary source of lineage information. Being able to use dynamic naming with some tools and macros makes the names in the workflows simple foobar placeholders and do not reflect what actually happened. Today Connect doesn't use logs and leaves many lineage gaps because of this

Please move this to a more appropriate category if needed. This future feature work is not part of Connect.

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.

I pull data from APIs frequently in my workflow, which has some potential for error if the API is unavailable.  I would love to be able to develop the workflow without having to add in some text box place holders or record count feature to allow the remainder of the workflow to run without error and potentially be able to try the API again so if "Invalid authentication" route to a section that will regenerate an authentication and retry the data call.  I have currently worked out some hacks to be able to work through the issue but it makes the workflow very messy.  A tool like the Detour tour that goes if value contains 400 go this way.  If value contains 200 then close off this container and continue on the other one.   Maybe the request is to allow the detour tool to be set to a specific value and maybe have multiple route options  if A then do connection one,  if B then do connection two or If C then do connection three.

I think it would be very helpful (and very easy) to add metadata to a yxdb with the name and location of the workflow that created or most recently updated that file. Right now I have to add a column to the data frame with a formula tool with the location, which puts the filepath on every single line, and is not how I want to present a finished product dataset to a superior. Thank you!

Currently, you can only type forward in the Description Window in the Meta Info tab.  So once your description is in there for your workflow, you have to retype the information or type it in notepad and save it back in there. It would be nice if you could type on any previous line in that window.

It would be nice to also have some additional fields that appear to be common among the community, such as Data Sources and Purpose.  That way you could use the Description window for version notes and any other notes for the user.

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.