Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

I have been developing and accumulating custom functions over the years and they have proved to be very useful.  I am submitting these here.  I hope they are found to be beneficial.

Functions included in the attached file include:

• DateTime
  • StandardDate(String) - Transforms any valid string to the standard date format yyyy-mm-dd
• File
  • FileDirDepth(Path) - Returns the zero based depth of the path (zero being the root)
  • FileGetFolder(Path, Depth) - Returns the folder name given the zero based depth in the path (zero being the root)
• String
  • LeftPart(String, Separator) - Returns the left part of a string up to the first separator
  • RightPart(String, Separator) - Returns the right part of a string after the first separator
  • Split(String, Delimiter, Index) - Returns the zero indexed part of a delimited string
  • CleanSpace(String) - Trims string and replaces multiple spaces with a single space
  • UnicodeToASCIIBasic(String) - Replaces all Unicode Characters with ASCII Basic equivalents
• Test
  • InList(Variable, List) - If Variable is in List returns True. List must be pipe delimited
  • IsValidEmail(String) - Returns True if string is a valid email format
  • IsUUID(String) - Returns True if string is a valid UUID

To make these functions available in Alteryx, place the attached xml file in the folder C:\Program Files\Alteryx\bin\RuntimeData\FormulaAddIn if you have a standard installation. If the install is non-standard, find the \bin\RuntimeData\FormulaAddIn folder and place the attached xml file there.  Ateryx will need a restart for the functions to be available.

Would really love there to be a way to store environment related config variables without requiring the use of an external config 'file' that you need to bring in in every workflow.

Functionality should be similar to how the Alias manager works (although allowing aliasing of more than just DB connections)

The sort of things that would typically be included as such a variable would be:

• contact email address for workflow failure/completion
• other external log file location
• environment name
• environment specific messaging

If this could be set for different subscriptions or collections it would be fantastic. If not, at the server level would suffice.

I know this has been suggested before, but it would be great if calculations and transformations could be cached between workflow executions.  Perhaps the browse tools could be configured as caches.  Any spot that has a browse tool fixes the value of that node between runs provided that there are no upstream tool changes. The cache could be optional (or flushed) to allow for dynamic input data that could change between executions, even if the tool chain didn't.

I love that Alteryx lends itself to good workflow documentation, but I'd really like to be able to add a bit of basic formatting within my comment boxes. I tend to have one large (read: verbose) box at the top/beginning of the workflow describing the purpose of the workflow and quirks of the datasource to watch out for, and it would be easier to read these if I had some simple options like Bold, Italic, Underline, numbered list, bullet list. You know, the sorts of things you can do in basic HTML email? Those. I want them!

Hi all,

Would it be possible to update the What's new page for 2019.4 to include the key features in this release (in my mind, one of the biggest features is the SQL formatting)?

Currently if you go to the What's new link in Designer, it takes you to the right webpage, but there is no content for 2019.4

Additionally - would it be possible to keep a few releases on this page - often people skip 2 or 3 updates so it's worth keeping the top highlights of the last 4 releases there so that people can see the new features and explore them.

The great thing about What's New pages is the ability to explore new features, so it's worth linking out to examples on a page like this if possible.

Currently, the Open Recent (from the File toolbar) generates a list of the 10 most recent workflows opened in Alteryx Designer.  It would be useful to show even more (20-25?) workflows through this method as there is enough open space on the screen to do so.

Hello,

Well, the title is pretty simple : it appears that the tendancy right now is to  have web version of any software on a server.

A few notes about that :
-a lot of Alteryx competitors are already in this mode and it's hard to sell you're still with a desktop-only mode for design, even if the product is far better.
-a good idea is the one used by Qlik with Qlik Sense : they still have a desktop and a web version of Sense but the desktop works mainly as an hidden browser plus an engine. The web version is cool too because you can make your own application, or your own data connection etc..
-the main interest of a web implementation of Alteryx would be to reduce installation on client computers (and that means packaging the installer, managing the data connection, the paths, the access to macros... etc) and to have a better control of the users.

PS : this idea is soooo simple and so obvious I'm surprised I didn't find it. It may be a duplicate.

I just downloaded Alteryx Designer 2019.2 yesterday and got busy straight away but couldn't help notice that while I like the general look and feel of the tool and general design language, I'm concerned that configuring the tools I work with will require so much scrolling.

Could we add the ability to set the zoom level of the configuration pane like we do in the workflow window or have some form of control on how the config pane sizing of contents.

I have attached the config panes using the crosstab tool as an example with 2018.4 on the left and the new 2019.2 on the right. I took care to snapshot both versions the same dimension for a more apples to apples comparison.

Now that 2019.2 is officially released I'll raise this here as I know it was raised as part of the beta testing. With the new interactive browse tool when filtering results the record numbering restarts.

For example in this window from a weekly challenge, I originally have this:

Then when I filter on the Allocated column for records where the Allocated amount is 0, I get this:

And as you can see the Record on the left hand side is numbered 1 - 15, so when trying to locate one of these lines to check the formula is working as expected it makes it difficult to isolate, where as if I knew that filtered record 10 was actually record 394 in the data I can then scroll to that point.  

I know a solution to this would be to add a record ID field to the data, but this is not always needed.

I often encounter situations where I need to apply the same formula to several columns. Doing this requires copy/pasting the formula several times  and then updating the variable names in the formula for each output column. I wish there was a built in "Current Output Column" variable so that I could build one formula and use that for each column. 

For example: 

So far, Alteryx Products are offered in 6 different languages, which is a great thing indeed !!

However there is a lack of a toggle option to effortlessly switch the interface to a different language.

As a standard feature users should be allowed to switch language without re-installing the product (applicable to all Alteryx products)

 Ref: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Knowledge-Base/How-to-Change-Alteryx-Designer-Language/ta-p...

Feature: If an instance of Alteryx is already running then on double clicking a *.yxmd file in Windows Explorer it should open in a New Tab of existing instance instead of launching another instance of Alteryx.

Issue: Each new instance of Alteryx puts load on the system memory due to an additional AlteryxGui.exe process.

Workaround: Currently we can drag & drop the *.yxmd file from Windows Explorer onto the running Alteryx instance to open in a new tab of the current instance but the same behaviour on double clicking the *.yxmd would be highly appreciated. 

Right now - if a tool generates an error - there is nothing productive that you can do with the error rows, these are just sent to the error log and depending on your settings the entire canvas will fail.

Could we change this in the Designer to work more like SSIS - where almost every tool has an error output, so that you can send the good rows one way, and the error rows the other way, and then continue processing?    The error rows can be sent to an error table or workflow or data-quality service; and the good rows can be sent onwards.   Because you have access to the error rows, you can also do run stats of "successful rows vs. unsuccessful"

This would make a big difference in the velocity of developing a canvas or prepping data.

Can take some screenshots if that helps?

The are a lot of SQL engines on top of Hadoop like:

• Apache Drill / https://drill.apache.org/
  Schema-free, low latency SQL Query Engine for Hadoop, NoSQL and Cloud Storage
  It's backed up at enterprise level by MapR
• Apache Kylin / http://kylin.apache.org/
  Apache Kylin™ is an open source Distributed Analytics Engine designed to provide SQL interface and multi-dimensional analysis (OLAP) on Hadoop supporting extremely large datasets, original contributed from eBay Inc.
• Apache Flink / https://flink.apache.org/
  Apache Flink is an open source platform for distributed stream and batch data processing. Flink’s core is a streaming dataflow engine that provides data distribution, communication, and fault tolerance for distributed computations over data streams. The creators of Flink provide professional services trought their company Data Artisans.
• Facebook Presto / https://prestodb.io/
  Presto is an open source distributed SQL query engine for running interactive analytic queries against data sources of all sizes ranging from gigabytes to petabytes.
  It's backed up at enterprise level by Teradata - http://www.teradata.com/PRESTO/

My suggestion for Alteryx product managers is to build a tactical approach for these engines in 2016.

Regards,

Cristian.

Can we have an option to save a workflow in a prior version for backward compatibility? I think Tableau offers this functionality.

Example:

If I have 2019.4.8 and a colleague has 2019.1.x, I cannot share my workflows because my colleague will receive a notice that the workflow was built in a newer version. I want to be able to save my workflow in 2019.1.x and send to my colleague.

This is predicated on the workflow not containing any tools/features not present in the older version. In that case, give me a warning about the specific tools/features that are not backward compatible. Thank you.

Hi Dev team,

As well as this much needed UI feature to scroll through workflows https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Ideas/Scrolling-functionality-added-to-Workflow-sh...

Could you please change the order of workflow names in the 'Active Documents' button to be ordered in the same order as the workflow tabs and not alphabetically as it currently is?

When you have more than 5 workflows open (or less if they have long names) it's so tricky to quickly and easily cycle through them to find the ones you need. This is especially important when demoing, training and presenting to others!

Thanks,

Joe

When Alteryx Designers are installed, I'd like to be able to disable the option for Designers within my organisation to 'Save to Alteryx Gallery' (The public Alteryx Gallery) - It causes confusion amongst users who are trying to interact with our internal Alteryx Server environments.

Thanks,

Ciaran

As an admin - we currently need to download a large number of different binaries for every release; then package them for internal deployment; then send them out.

This creates unnecessary work for our admin teams, our packaging teams, our deployment teams etc.

This problem is becoming more acute now that Alteryx is shipping add-on tools via the public gallery - so our standard desktop designer can now require 10 or more separately packaged installs.

Can we please change the download experience to allow enterprise admins to:

- Select the components that they want in a standard download

     - This would allow for a menu selection across all the starter kits (e.g. Tableau; microsoft; qlik); the standard designer; the predictive

     - it would also allow for a menu selection across public gallery assets so that we can include things like the model comparison tool and other new predictive capabilities

     - the addins for Microsoft R Server

     - database drivers

     - Connect data loaders

     - Server components

- Given this set a name (like "Standard designer install") since in a large enterprise we will have several different configurations (some for super-users; some for standard users).    In our world we'd have "Standard Designer"; "Admin"; "Connect Controller"; "SuperUser" as our starting list.

- Then download one installer which is the aggregated set of these in one place 

- ... and finally allow the Admin to be notified when any component in the install set changes so that they can download the new version.

cc: @dataMack @AshwiniChezhiyan @LizaNemchynova @revathi

I am using a Dynamic Input within a Batch Macro to allow the user to read (dump) data from multiple Oracle tables with varying schemas.  If a table read has 0 rows output, then an error message like the following is displayed at the end of the job execution:

Because it is always possible to return 0 rows from the read, I'd like to mute the error message.  If this message is present, I don't want to STOP the macro/application.  I do however want to stop the application if an ERROR Message that I care about is encountered (e.g. Output file is not defined).

Cheers,

Mark