Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Adding "Lightning Bolt" connectors to the standard workflow tools to allow dynamic automation of the settings would be a game changer. I believe that this would enable us to create universally dynamic and adaptive workflows which could be used as drop in solutions for most datasets. This would turn the standard tools into a dynamic ones and dramatically reduce the tool count to accomplish dynamic tasks, and make complex workflows much easier to internalize. Making standard workflow tools more dynamic would allow us to easily dynamically incorporate conditional tests / values / fieldname selections / bypass / etc into tools like detour / filter / formula / unique / transpose / crosstab / summarize / Outputs / etc. I would also like to see the ability to utilize a bool field to bypass any given tool in a workflow. That way we could do things like conditionally bypass an entire formula tool which would dramatically simplify complex formula construction, turn on and off inputs / outputs, simplify error avoidance, etc.

In order to build complex dynamic conditional workflows with the current tool capabilities, most of us are forced to use custom macros (often a multitude of workflow specific ones as well), constantly add and remove formula created fields for message relay, and create complex multi-routings / tests / unions in a standard workflow with large numbers of tools and containers. This hides many of our tasks within short-term use fields / custom macros and it makes the rest of our workflows voluminous and less intuitive.

On the User Interface side, I recommend a simple approach. Next to the standard tool setting there should be a dynamic input option which allows you to select the source field in the lightning bolt connector. Next to that, there should be an icon that can be clicked on to pop up a short text description and a basic screen shot of data in the correct format for dynamic input. I would also like to see a check box at the bottom for manual tool "bypass" which can also be dynamically controlled. (This would especially be helpful on outputs, but it would also be helpful to allow formulas and filters to be kept in place for future use even when they should not currently be used) Turned off tools could be highlighted in a red background or something.

This would be useful for anyone creating dynamic and adaptive workflows, but it would especially expand Alteryx Designer's capability to attract more custom software developers like me.  It would dramatically reduce the need for a large number of complex workflow specific macros that clutter our systems. Users that find the traditional workflow tool approach easier for them could easily use the tools as normal by simply using the standard manual settings. Advanced users could simplify the creation of universally dynamic and self adaptive workflows.

I hope have a flexibility to adjust the print area workflow.

in the canvas.

it similar to excel print area, so we can adjust all the area easily.

for security. it may add function to check whether all tools is covered in print areas.

it is hard to cut the workflow to pieces when it is huge. 

The data view of any anchor is searchable. I want to search the metadata view please.

The SQL compiler within the Input Tool places a space between operators causing a SQL syntax error.

Eg.

SELECT * FROM [DataSource] WHERE [Dimension] != 'abc'

Becomes

SELECT * FROM [DataSource] WHERE [Dimension] ! = 'abc'

The compiler should not add a space in this instance as it violates the syntax rules and triggers an error.

With all the talk of #TeamVertical and #TeamHorizonal an idea emerged for diagonal orientation. Now, it's a funny idea at first glance, but actually having the ability to control the general organization of a workflow could be very helpful. Imagine if there was a dot or arrow like in word that would enable us to tilt the canvas to fit our screens better. Like below, but leaving the text horizontal.

This solves the problem with the Left Join anchors moving to the top and instead allows anyone to rotate their workflow to what fits the case.

Thanks!!

#Team45Degrees

Alteryx can enhance the interactive dashboard capabilities by adding more visualization options, such as heat maps, treemaps, and network diagrams. This will allow users to create more informative and engaging dashboards, and enable them to better communicate insights to stakeholders. For example, Alteryx can add support for heat maps and treemaps, allowing users to visualize data density and distribution, or network diagrams, allowing users to visualize relationships between data points.

Alteryx should take a look at the BI platform so they can integrate the Dashboard Capability and remove the dependency of Visualization tool and become one stop solution

Issue:

Oftentimes when a workflow has an error, the error message is very long and is difficult to read in the results window. Currently, if you hover over the error message in the results window, the error message will popout but only for a couple seconds. Reading the error messages is a crucial step in troubleshooting the issue with a workflow, however, with the current experience it becomes very difficult to read the entire error message prior to the popout expiring.

Solution:

Simply double clicking any message, especially an error message, in the results window should have a permanent popout window presented to the user. This message window will allow the user to scroll down to read the entire message (if lengthy), popout the window further, minimize the window, and exit the window entirely. 

It would be great if I could see my save history in the debug menu. Currently it looks like this:

I'm not asking to be able to undo saves, I just want to be able to see where the workflow was saved within this menu so that I can easily see what actions have been taken since my last save. 

All,

I'd like to be able to disable the notification to update Alteryx toward the top of the screen.  The longest choice is only one year...I'd like to turn it off forever, since we control versions used internally and it is driven by the server version.

Folks are updating their software when they shouldn't and causing issues for each other.

Thanks for any advice.

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 we use search option it might be helpful to see also tool category where we can find searching tool.

I think adding a highlight color option to the fields in the select tool would be a helpful field organization feature. Many times I am appending data/joining data, and I would like to visually separate the original fields from the appended ones, and then sort on the highlight colors chosen--and maintain these colors through the workflows. For example my raw data customer fields would be highlighted in blue: ID, First Name, Last Name, Address and my appended ones in, say, yellow: (marketing fields such as Dwelling Type, Household Composition, etc). Then it would allow to easily sort and visualize by append through the workflows.

Hello Alteryx,

Would it be possible to extend the "Cache and Run" functionality also to tools with multiple outputs? Our clients use the R and Python tools very frequently and the runtimes tend to be pretty long. For the development purposes, it would be great to have the caching possibilities also on these tools.

Thank you very much for considering this idea.

Regards,

Jan Laznicka

While it is good to have the test tool stop outputs based on tests, it isn't too insightful to users on the full details of these error messages. It would be more useful to have an output location for a test if these errors appear so that end users can troubleshoot instead of the workflow developer having to work through all of the error messaging.

There are workarounds for this that can be used, but they are often extensive and require the addition of significant logic. Adding optional outputs to the test tool would be a simple fix that could save a lot of hours of debugging when end users find an error.

Hi,

I am not sure why it is so complicated to troubleshoot formula tools in Alteryx. When I am getting an error with information parse error at char (char number) why we don't get this information highlighted in the configuration tool at the left. 

It should be crystal clear for the user where he needs to troubleshoot his workflow. We can say that the formula tool is showing us where the formula is working, so it isn't so bad.

When working with a multi formulas tool, it isn't easy to figure out where the mistake occurred.

Can we highlight somehow this specific character and make users life easier?

Dear Alteryx Gods, I beseech thee!

The most common use of the Browse tool in the Alteryx Designer is to pop the results out into a full window. Can we PLEASE have a single button to do this rather than this functionality being hidden under the action menu?

M.

Passing data to the next app running in a chain from the gallery varies from challenging to impossible. An impossible situation I've found is when the same user needs to run multiple instances of the app simultaneously. Very difficult is just allowing two different users to run simultaneously without risk of passed data mixing between the two.

This idea would add the capability to pass values from one app in the chain into user variables in the next app in the chain.

Hello Alteryx Support,

I’m a Business Analytics Manager at Evernorth. My team and I use Alteryx Designer 2020.2 x64 for daily data preparation + analytic purposes; primarily, the desktop version but also have access to the company Alteryx Server ‘Gallery’ as well. Recently, we ran into a challenge and after asking around we still couldn’t find a solution.

Our Need:

We are seeking a solution to ‘add an example link’ in our custom built macro.

Our Challenge:

We don’t have the proper permissions to save and/or write to the “C:” designated folder location required to host the file as specified within the Alteryx Community help documentation (e.g. outlined below). --> We understand this is an internal IT obstacle that will take time to work out from a corporate data governance perspective, which is why we are seeking Alteryx Support.

At the end of the day, we are reaching out to see if your team can help us understand if there are alternative solutions that we can explore. Making the assumption, that is…that we can’t take the suggested approach in the documentation. See below for details about what we are trying to achieve.

Current macro state (…as viewed by Alteryx Designer users in the user-interfaces top tool panel for viewable macros):

Desired future macro state:

***Help Documentation***

What we currently know: (According to…How to add an example link in the custom tool - Alteryx Community)

Prerequisites

1. Alteryx Designer

Procedure

1. Place the sample workflow in the %ALTERYX_INSTALL%\Alteryx\Samples\%LANG%. A separate folder can be created to store the workflow. An example of a directory: C:\Program Files\Alteryx\Samples\en\MyTest
2. Add in the "Example" tag with "Description" and "File" child tag in the tool configuration file of the custom/user tool.

Example:
 
    <metainfo>

 ...
     
            Open Example
            Path to the workflow
       

... 

Limitations

1. The sample workflow can only exist in %ALTERYX_INSTALL%\Alteryx\Samples\%LANG%. The link will fail  if the file is located in a different path.
2. The sample workflow needs to be distributed separately from the custom tool installation since it has to be stored in %ALTERYX_INSTALL%\Alteryx\Samples\%LANG%.

Thanks for your support and consideration to create a feature enhancement that allows Alteryx Designer users to 'add an example link to their custom tool' without having to go to the C:\ file location in order for it to work!

Respectfully,

Corey

I am facing an issue regarding the result window. The tabbed document function is disable for the result window. I did not see the entire result window. Kindly find the below mentioned screenshot for your reference.

Request to reverse the feature.