Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

On the Reporting palette, the Map Legend Builder tool has an extra "the" in the tooltip. I have enclosed an image below. Full disclosure: it isn't a bug, it doesn't affect functionality, and it's trivial. This is version 2018.3.4.51585.

 

Hi!

 

It would be cool if the Overlap tool also worked with report layouts, instead of just the map image. For example, once I've pieced my different report tables into one layout, it would be cool if I could just add my company logo using image tool, add a Overlay tool, and add the logo to the top corner of my finalized report. I realized there are other ways of doing it, this would seem the most straight forward though. Just an idea.

 

We encountered an issue with clob data.  Looks like alteryx is very slow performing while loading clob data to Oracle database. We need to figure a better way to handle the clob data.

Unless I'm missing the basics, I'm unable to scroll and pan during module runs.  I can zoom in and out, but not scroll or pan.
On large modules, I would love to be able to scroll to different areas to see progress/status of different key points in the process.
Guidance from the experts would be much appreciated!  Thanks!

For example, in the Properties tool (I say that generally because it could be in more than one place in that tool) all the user to enable to visibly see the path of the variable in the flow on the canvas.  As shown in the mock-up image below (as crude as it is, I think you get the idea).  This would allow you to trace the path forward and backwards in the flow, seeing where the variable entered and when it exited.  This could be something you can turn on and off like the grid option.

What if you had the option to connect tools without the lines going across the canvas?
This might be useful in cases where one connection is close but another is far away.
Of course, it would need to be easy to turn these on and off, and to jump from one end to the other.
The idea came up at a SoCal Alteryx users group this summer. Would other people like to see something like this?

Most of the times we end up having multiple new workflows open and would have to scram through every tab to identify the correct one. Also when we try to search on Auto saved workflows it appears as  New workflow -1,2,3 etc.

 

If there could be an option to temporarily name the workflow (like name sheets on excels) before we save,it would be easy and user friendly to identify the workflow as there are multiple iterations that we do before saving few workflows. 

 

 

AutoSave View

 

 

When opening an Excel workbook or Word document, the Microsoft start screen enables users to minimize or cancel opening. These would be convenient features to add to the Alteryx start screen. Because the Alteryx start screen appears in front of everything you have open, I feel the ability to minimize it would add a lot of value. Additionally, the ability to close it would be beneficial for those times when you accidentally click the wrong workflow, for example.

I'm a brand new user to Alteryx. I have Designer + Scheduler. I had read about the advantages of MongoDB. I went into the Scheduler System Settings and changed it to MongoDB to find that the service didn't start, among other issues. 

 

Come to find out, MongoDB is not supported for Scheduler-only installs/licenses. 

 

Therefore, I believe that the option to change the db storage for scheduler-only installs should be disabled. 

I'd like to be able to quickly  see how many records were read from my inputs and written to my output so the Files choice in the result window is handy:

 

 

However it also shows all the Browses which if you have a large workflow can make you scroll to find the actual files. In the above example 10 of the 54 are files, the rest Browses.

 

I would prefer the Files button show JUST the Inputs and Output and not the browses. Either ditch the browses or add a separate button for that.

 

Cheers,

Bob

 

I want to check out which things downstream are receiving data from the true and false branches of this filter.

I could step through them one by one.

It would be much easier if I could simply select the tool and see directly which tools are connected to which output by colour, or line style.

When attempting to save from Designer to Gallery the last step of the save is the validation step.  The validation step, as I understand it, checks to make sure there's a valid license on Gallery.  This counts as one of the processing "threads".  If your organization is constrained by the throughput on Gallery, this can cause delays. 

 

Our business only has the 2-thread service level for Alteryx Gallery.  Consequently, if someone is running long, drawn out workflows on Gallery, this can create delays in saving the file from Designer to Gallery.  It can also cause delays if there's a long "line" of workflows waiting to run.  I presume that the save attempt is put in line along with the other jobs on Gallery that have to run.  If this is the case, it could take a long time to complete the validation--tens of minutes or longer.  

 

That window being open keeps the user from being able to use Designer at all.  Very inefficient.  There should be a requirement that the user has both valid licenses on Designer and on Gallery before they can run anything on Gallery.  However, the validation of both of those is already accomplished by virtue of the fact that Designer checks for a license whenever the program loads.  Also, if Gallery checks for the license anytime the workflow runs, then the second half of this check is already accomplished and, therefore, renders the check when saving to Gallery unnecessary.  Please correct me if i'm wrong on this. 

 

Change #1) Please the validation of Gallery license when saving from Designer to Gallery.

Change #2) Please adjust Designer such that you can continue to edit workflows on the same session while other files are being saved to Gallery.

Change #3) If we can't get #1 or #2, please change the queueing process to put attempts to save to Gallery in the front of the line because they should take <1 second to validate the license while other workflows could take many minutes.

*This is an idea from @sayuri  from the Portuguese Community*

 

• Create a button to add any tool to all output anchors of selected tools (similar to “Add All Browses”)

 

As you may be aware localisation is the adapting of computer software to regional differences of a target market, Internationalization is the process of designing software so that it can potentially be adapted to various languages without engineering changes.

 

The idea is to make Alteryx designer tool, the web help content and example workflows to be multilingual (Possibly with the use of "lic" language files or similar) Hopefully the sotware and tutorials will all be localised by crowdsourcing initiatives within the Alteryx community. 

 

I sincerely believe this will help the tool get a lot of traction not in US and UK but in other parts of the world,

Highly likely Mandarin and Spanish would be the first two language versions...

 

Top languages by population per Nationalencyklopedin 2007 (2010)Language Native speakers(millions) Fraction of worldpopulation (2007)

Mandarin	935 (955)	14.1%
Spanish	390 (405)	5.85%
English	365 (360)	5.52%
Hindi	295 (310)[2]	4.46%
Arabic	280 (295)	4.43%
Portuguese	205 (215)	3.08%
Bengali	200 (205)	3.05%
Russian	160 (155)	2.42%
Japanese	125 (125)	1.92%
Punjabi	95 (100)	1.44%

In instances where many tools need to be connected to one tool, I think a "Connect All" type of function might be useful.

 

For example if you had 4 threads of data that all ended in a select tool and needed to be connected to a Join Multiple tool, you could grab all of the select tools and the Join Multiple tool, right click, and then select "Connect All" which would connect each select tool to the Join Multiple tool.

 

I think this could be implemented a few ways:

 

1) Right-click and select action

2) Keyboard shortcut

3) Holding shift on a selection of origin tools and then clicking on the shared destination tool

 

I've added a screenshot of a quick Photoshop representation of this idea.

 

 

The RegEx tool has a drop down list so that user does not need to go KnowledgeBase; the specifier list should be added to the DateTime tool so user has a quick reference.

 

Users would benefit from this concept if done elsewhere as well

When you have a huge workflow with a lot of connections, it turns confusing to identify each one of them. So, i think it would be helpful to include an option that allows users to keep the predetermined connections color or assign, for example, different shades of blue for each one of the outgoing connections of tool.

From discussions the new distribute auto spaces when distributing. Any chance we can get a spacing setting in the user settings. Settings would be like we do our grid spacing except we would separate the horizontal and vertical spacing(set number of pixels for horizontal/vertical). This would allow people to have a different vertical spacing compared to their horizontal spacing. Particularly helpful for heavy formula usage. Thanks.
Also take into account ability for it to stay snapped to grid. Example I use a 72 px grid size for ease of lineups. With the new distribute it pulls between those grid snaps

I think it should be done ASAP.