Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Simple request to revert back to the functionality that generated an error at the onset of running the workflow.  

File has a different Schema than the first file in the set- This is error received in Dynamic Input Tool, when there is change in data type any column in the file.  My File has a column Which comes in " V String" Data type but suddenly it comes in " Double" then this error will come.

Tool should ignore this error and consider incoming data in a data type defined while in configuration, so request to provide feature to configure data type in Dynamic Input Tool.

When creating annotations in the new image template tool as part of intelligence suite, a feature improvement would be the ability to modify the annotation, to change the dimensions of it.

Currently the only option is to cancel and redraw but being able to edit and drag the existing annotation would be a great addition. This is because the sizing and position of the annotation is important in the OCR process, and when there are many annotations on a page a user is likely to only need to make minor adjustments instead of deleting and redrawing. A mock up is below.

In the new Intelligence Suite tools the PDF Image Template tool allows a user to select portions of the document to be OCRed downstream by the Image to Text tool, however there is no way to currently zoom in and out of the document to draw the annotations, the only way I have found is to stretch the configuration window and the PDF width will autoscale, but doing so will lose the annotations.

So the request is to have zoom in/out and pan options within the configuration pane to improve the UX.

We have discussed on several occasions and in different forums, about the importance of having or providing Alteryx with order of execution control, conditional executions, design patterns and even orchestration.

I presented this idea some time ago, but someone asked me if it was posted, and since it was not, I’m putting it here so you can give some feedback on it.

The basic concept behind this idea is to allow us (users) to have:

• Design Patterns
  • Repetitive patterns to be reusable.
  • Select after and Input tool
  • Drop Nulls
  • Get not matching records from join
• Conditional execution
  • Tell Alteryx to execute some logic if something happens.
  • Record count
  • Errors
  • Any other condition
• Order of execution
  • Need to tell Alteryx what to run first, what to run next, and so on…
  • Run this first
  • Execute this portion after previous finished
  • Wait until “X” finishes to execute “Y”
• Orchestration
  • Putting all together

This approach involves some functionalities that are already within the product (like exploiting Filtering logic, loading & saving, caching, blocking among others), exposed within a Tool Container with enhanced attributes, like this example:

The approach is to extend Tool Container’s attributes.

This proposition uses actual functionalities we already have in Designer.

So, basically, the Tool Container gets ‘superpowers’, with the addition of some capabilities like: Accepting input data, saving the contents within the container (to create a design pattern, or very commonly used sequence of tools chained together), output data, run the contents of the tools included in the container, etc.), plus a configuration screen like:

1. Refers to the actual interface of the Tool Container.
2. Provides the ability to disable a Container (and all tools within) once it runs.
   • Idea based on actual behavior: When we enable or disable a Tool Container from an interface Tool.
3. Input and output data to the container’s logic, will allow to pickup and/or save files from a particular container, to be used in later containers or persist data as a partial result from the entire workflow’s logic (for example updating a dimensions table)
   • Based on actual behavior: Input & Output Data, Cache, Run Command Tools, and some macros like Prepare Attachment.
4. Order of Execution: Can be Absolute or Relative. In case of Absolute run, we take the containers in order, executing their contents. If Relative, we have the options to configure which container should run before and after, block until previous container finishes or wait until this container finishes prior to execute next container in list.
   • Based on actual behavior: Block until done, Cache, Find Replace, some interface Designer capabilities (for chained apps for example), macros’ basic behaviors.
5. Conditional Execution: In order to be able to conditionally execute other containers, conditions must be evaluated. In this case, the idea is to evaluate conditions within the data, interface tools or Error/Warnings occurrence.
   • Based on actual behavior: Filter tool, some Interface Tools, test Tool, Cache, Select.
6. Notes: Documentation text that will appear automatically inside the container, with options to place it on top or below the tools, or hide it.

This should end a brief introduction to the idea, but taking it a little further, it will allow even to have something like an Orchestration layout, where the users can drag and drop containers or patterns and orchestrate them in a solution, like we can do with the Visual Layout Tool or the Interactive Chart tool:

I'm looking forward to hear what you think.

Best

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

Using a wide-screen monitor and canvas, I typically initiate a workflow by clicking the RUN button.  But, in my canvas, I am usually working in the left or middle portion of the screen.  The Run button is to the far right and find myself moving to the right to click the button and then back to my workflow location. 

I'd like to be able to have this relocated or optionally functionality to move this button (maybe even creating a customized personnel quick access toolbar or button panel) to the left portion of the canvas window.  Sure, there is a key board shortcut, but if the button is provided, than it implies that it is a valid UI feature.  I've also seen and liked the ability to have this as a right-click menu enhancement. 

When using Dynamic Input with databases, the Database may be returning errors or other information that the tool cannot parse into a dataset.

It would be great if we could see the 'raw' response from the database somehow, as this might provide insight into why we are not getting the expected results. 

If the tool could output an optional error column that has the unparsed response from the database server, it might allow us to debug the problem ourselves. 

If the returned data is actually a string response from the database, but one that is flawed in some way, we might still be able to parse data out of it to 'ride over' the error.

When viewing results of a workflow that has Errors, could we add External error resolution data if the user clicks on the error message?  Like browse everywhere it could lookup the error in help and in community posts.  

cheers,

 mark

There are three places that provides the log information:

1) Regular results window:

Pro: In the process sequence so the user can understand the order of the process.

Con: Doesn't have info on how long each tool takes to process.

2) Workflow -> Runtime -> Enable Performance Profiling

Pro: Processes are sorted in the processing duration descending order which helps to identify the ones that took long to run.

Con: Doesn't show the process sequence.

3) Actual Alteryx log file:

Pro: There are timestamps for each process so the duration can be calculated.

Con: Not ready accessible and not user friendly to be seen from the interface. Not clickable to see more details in the workflow.

I think it will be SUPER HELPFUL to integrate all three together to show in the process order along with the running time.

As @Jonathan-Sherman pointed out in his blog post we love that the toolbar is back in version 2020.2!

One way that this toolbar could be enhanced, however, is to allow the use of the save button while a workflow is running. The user can still click File->Save while the workflow is running, but it would be quicker to be able to use the button on the toolbar.

I know we have the capability to copy a Tool, and paste it into a Connection. This step requires having to right click on the connection to select the option Paste In Connection. I don't know how many times I've tried to copy tool, click on connection, and do Ctrl + V to paste just remember that it does work that way. It sure would be nice if it did.

Configuration window - Add feature to zoom in or out of the configuration window similar to the canvas.  There is alot going on in the Configuration window and it would be helpful (especially for those of us with eyesight challenges) to be able to zoom in/out similar to the Canvas. 

When I proceed with this command in a python tool:

from ayx import Package

Package.installPackages(package='pandas',install_type='install --upgrade')

in Alteryx it only updates to 0.25, but the Latest version is 1.1.2.

When I would like to upgrade from the Python side i get the following:

ERROR: ayx 1.0.54 has requirement pandas<0.25.0,>=0.24.2, but you'll have pandas 1.1.2 which is incompatible.

Can you please make sure we can upgrade to the latest version of pandas without any compatibility issue?

This is important because of json_normalize. Really useful tool, available from pandas 1.0.3!

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.

The Dynamic Input tool fails when attempting input a set of Excel files with the following error:

Error: Dynamic Input (1): The file "Test2.xlsx|||<List of Sheet Names>" has a different schema than the 1st file in the set.

Each spreadsheet contains two tabs and all tabs contain the same columns.

The root cause of the schema error is that maximum sheet name length in the two spreadsheets is different.  The first spreadsheet uses "East" and "West" for sheet names.  The second spreadsheet uses "North" and "South" for sheet names.  The Dynamic Input tool uses the longest sheet name when defining the effective Schema.

Excel limits sheet name length to 31 characters. It would be helpful if the Dynamic Input tool used 31 as the minimum string length when defining a schema from Excel sheet names.

The Input Data tool exhibits similar behavior when using a wildcard in the filename and the "Import only the list of sheet names" option.

A batch macro can be used as a workaround.

So I discovered this neat little tip today where if you have a browse tool in your workflow and click on the hyperlink (2 in the picture below) whilst the workflow is running, it will open a pop-out browse rather than show the data in the results window, meaning you can still see all of the messages). However, If you click on the Tool name/ID (1 in the image) is locks the results window to that tool. Idea for a fix here

And this lead me to think that Alteryx must be populating the temporary browse anywhere in memory as it's running, so it would be great if it was possible to either click on the tool anchors or the tool names in the results window whilst the workflow is running to see the browse anywhere data.

Currently in 2020.2 (but I assume all versions), when you have a workflow running and click on the Tool Name/ID (1 - in the picture below) in the results window it is then not possible to click on the canvas OR get back to the messages for the full workflow as it is then locked to that tool.

The idea is that it should be possible to get back to all of the workflow messages if you click on a tool name in the results window whilst the workflow is running.

However, a neat little tip that I found is if you click on the input, output or browse hyperlink (2 in the picture below), it will open a pop-out browse rather than show the data in the results window, meaning you can still see all of the messages)

This leads me to think that it could and should be possible to see browse anywhere data whilst the workflow is running if this is fixed. Here's a separate idea for that.