Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

All built-in tools have their names, descriptions, help URLs, etc. localized to the currently selected locale. Custom tools should also be able to do this.

Specify localized configuration values

Developers should have a way to specify localized values for any locales they choose to support. Similar to the deprecated .yxlang files, this can be done with supplementary `ayx_workspace.[locale].json` files that redefine a subset of configurations which support internationalization.

/* ayx_workspace.jp.json */
{
  "tools": {
    "MyCustomTool": {
      "configuration": {
        "long_name": "カスタムツール",
        "description": "これは日本語です",
        "help_url": "https://mywebsite.com/help/jp/my-custom-tool"
      }
    }
  }
}

All built-in Designer tools have an associated example workflow that can be opened by right-clicking a tool and selecting Open Example. This feature is invaluable in helping users familiarize themselves with a tool and explore all of its features. Custom tools should be able to specify example workflows of their own.

It is currently possible to specify an example workflow, but

1. The workflow must be specified by modifying a tool's `Config.xml` file, where changes may be overwritten by the SDK.
2. All paths are relative to `[AlteryxInstallDirectory]\Samples\[locale]\02 Learn_one_tool_at_a_time`, and there is no easy way to install workflows into this directory.

Specifying an example workflow

Developers should have a way to specify the example workflow associated with any custom tool. This would likely be done in the `ayx_workspace.json` file.

{
  "tools": {
    "MyCustomTool": {
      "configuration": {
        "example_path": "configuration\\MyCustomTool_1_0\\example.yxmd"
      }
    }
  }
}

Note that a workflow may depend on some external files as well. It would be ideal if an `assets_path` could be defined to easily allow any arbitrary assets to be included with your tool. (This is currently possible, but must be done by manually modifying the .yxi archive; it isn't handled by the SDK). This would easily allow for example workflows to be specified as a path relative to `assets_path`, and if the workflow contains any relative paths to files within the assets folder, they can be resolved.

{
  "tools": {
    "MyCustomTool": {
      "configuration": {
        "assets_path": "configuration\\MyCustomTool_1_0\\assets",
        "example_path": "example\\example.yxmd"
      }
    }
  }
}

Localization of the example workflow would also be supported when localization of the plugin configuration is supported.

When a plugin is created, it can be labelled with any tool category, existent or non-existent. If the category does not exist, Designer will create it and give it a default icon. It would be nice if a category icon could also be specified, specifically for this case.

Specifying a tool category icon

Developers would have a way to (optionally) specify the tool category icon for their plugin. This would likely be part of `ayx_workspace.json`.

{
  "name": "My Plugin",
  "tool_category": "Custom Category",
  "tool_category_icon_path": "configuration\\tool_category_icon.png",
  "package_icon_path": "configuration\\package_icon.png",
  ...
}

Behavior when installing a plugin

If a plugin has a tool category icon specified, Designer should do the following when installing the plugin:

• If the tool category already exists and has an icon, no changes are made
• If the tool category already exists and does not have an icon set, the category is updated with the specified icon
• If the tool category does not exist, the category is made and its icon is set to the specified icon

This prevents changing the icons of existing categories (including built-in categories), but would prevent subsequent plugin versions from updating their tool category icons.

Use case

The company Acme Corporation develops a plugin for interfacing with Acme-related products, and would like all its tools to be grouped in a new category called "Acme" whose icon is the Acme icon.

It would be nice to create our own custom categories to be able to organize tools. It would be similar to how the Favorites category works, but any number of additional categories can be created.

Creating a new category

The user would have a way to create a new category and enter the following information:

• The category's name
• The category's icon
  • There could be a number of premade icons to select from

Adding and removing tools from custom categories

The user would have a way to add tools to or remove tools from the custom categories.

In many programming languages, errors can be thrown and caught so that the final program does not fail even if a procedure or function produces an error.

I would like to propose something similar for Alteryx, using the Control Containers. Already now, a Control Container outputs the log in the container to its output stream on the upper right corner:

Still, the workflow produces an error:

My idea is to optionally avoid the error output to the log but only report the error through the control container's output log. The error message in the output log should be "degraded" to a warning. The output log of the control container should stay unchanged. The configuration of the Control Container could look like this (addition in red):

This would help a lot if stuff produced by others is used (e.g., third party macros) which might fail while this might be normal behaviour for the workflow.

It would be very helpful to have a find and replace work in duplicated formula.  especially if it is long.

Hi,

I was thinking that this might be nice addition - while Joining two inputs at the bottom there is always possibility to check if we want to include Unknown columns. Maybe we could specify if we want to join Unknown columns only from Right Input or Unknown only from Left Input. I know I would use this in my workflows. 

Thanks

Alicja

Hello, I believe this feature will be useful for many people.
The idea is to select multiple instances of the same tool and the configuration that we set will be applied to all the selected tools. Furthermore, it will be useful to be an easy way to select all instances of the same tool across a workflow with a shortcut in order to edit them more easily.

After closing the Table or Query option on an Input Data tool, the table layout in the Visual Query Builder view gets reset to stacking the tables/views on top of each other. It would be great if the layout stayed the way I left it the last time I closed it.

Idea

Currently

Using File Browse on Excel files first of all is inconsistent between running the Analytical App in the Designer and in the Gallery:

• In the Designer, the user is not being asked which Excel workflow shall be selected.
• In the Gallery, the user is always asked which Excel workflow shall be selected.

Depending on the use case, both behaviours can be the right one:

• To load a specific Excel file worksheet, the dialog for workflow selection is appropriate.
• When working with the entire Excel file (copying, getting the list of worksheets, etc.), the dialog is not helpful.

Thus, my idea is as follows:

• Add a checkbox to the File Browse tool which determines whether the worksheet selection dialog shall be opened (and the output will be <filename>.<ext>|<worksheet>) or not (and the output will be <filename>.<ext>) in case of Excel file selected.
• Make behaviour consistent in Alteryx Designer and Gallery.

This is a general request for uniform methods of connecting to data sources. The management of data connections is currently varied, and configurations/updates are completely different across connections. 

Enhancement request for the option to Encrypt ODBC credentials instead of just hashing them

Why we don't add the search feature in the Multi-row formula same as the formula tool?

I have been very excited about Dark Mode.  Its arrival in 2023.1, whilst only in Beta and with plenty of work to do, means it's party time at my house.

It made me think we need a switch on the main Alteryx page to make it easy to flip between light and dark modes. 

it would be beneficial to add the same action available in the message result window to be added in the brows tool for the distinct value.

like the copy options. 

Hi!

Under User Settings, if you could add options to change what Alteryx shows in the tool configuration window. Currently, it shows Field, Type, Size, Rename, Description. I've been using Alteryx for almost 20 years, I've never used the Description field for anything. If Alteryx provided the option to remove it from the view for users who never use it, then the Rename field would no longer get truncated, which is a field I think is more widely utilized.

When a macro that is not "installed" is inserted to a workflow (from a folder), its dependency can also be modified (including the macro inputs, if there are any) from the Workflow Dependencies settings.

I would like to suggest that the macro tools and the relevant files have separate buttons for dependency configurations.

One use case for this would be when a user saves a workflow in a specific location after configuring the paths as All Relative and moving the workflow to an entirely different folder afterwards, making it difficult to find the original location of the macro used in the workflow, also introducing the chance of breaking the workflow when opened and saved with the undefined (question mark sign) macro tool if the underlying workflow XML is not examined by a text editor.

Currently, Dynamic Select and Multi-Field Formula tools both have the option to select fields by type (like Numeric, String).

It is however not currently possible to select which fields will be selected by using a formula in the Multi-Field Formula tool.

Due to having to use at least two tools to select which fields I need and apply formula (optionally changing the data type),

- I first Dynamic Select the fields by the suffixes I have in the field name which specify the data type (like Name_String, Spends_Double)

- I then apply the Multi-Field Formula (at least trim the whitespaces from the fields due to working with CSV files containing fixed whitespace in fields) and change the data type if necessary,

- Finally, I Join Multiple the fields back using the RecordID field I previously added as a key.

This also changes the order of the data and there might be some scenarios where the user does not want the field order changed.

By embedding the Dynamic Select via Formula option to the Multi-Field Formula tool, it will become possible to select which fields will be subject to formula and (optionally) data type change in one tool as opposed to having to use many tools.

Hi Team,

With Sharepoint Tool 2.3.0 , We are unable to connect Sharepoint Lists with service Principal Authentication as it requires SharePoint - Application permission - Sites.Read.All and Sites.ReadWrite.All in Microsoft Azure App. However, as those permissions will gets access to all sites in respective Organization community, it is impossible for any company to provide as it leaks data security. Kindly provide any alternative or change in permsiions for Sharepoint Connectivity with thumbprint in Alteryx.

Regerence Case with Alteryx Support : Case #00619824

Thanks & Regards

Vamsi Krishna