Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

When building join operations in Alteryx, it can be time-consuming to manually scroll through long lists of fields to find the right one to join on, especially when working with large datasets or unfamiliar schemas.

It would be great to have a search-as-you-type filter in the Join tool’s field selection interface. Similar to the existing field selector search, this feature would allow users to start typing a field name and instantly see a filtered list of partial matches. This would significantly speed up the process of identifying and selecting the correct join fields and reduce the risk of selecting incorrect fields due to visual clutter.

In complex Alteryx workflows, it can be hard to navigate between different tool containers - especially when there are dozens spread across in a large canvas.

I would love a feature where users could create a 'table of contents' using clickable text or bookmarks at the top of the workflow. For example, Clicking on a text label named 'Output Calculation' would automatically scroll to view to the Tool Container named 'Output Calculation'.

Suggested Implementation ideas : 

• Text boxes or Comment Tools support clickable links that scroll the canvas to a specific container or tool.
• Add a new 'Bookmark' or 'Jump To' action tied to container names or Tool IDs.
• Right click on a text label or container and choose 'Link to' or 'Scroll to this container'.
• Use CTRL + Click or ALT + Click behavior on a text comment to jump.

This would massively improve usability and workflow navigation, especially for large teams or workflows that are shared across departments.

Inspiration : 

Tools like POWER BI and TABLEAU allow similar dashboard or bookmark style navigation . Implementing this in Alteryx designer would be a game changer.

Currently the simulation sampling tool doesn't accept model objects from time series tools as a model input. It would be beneficial if it could so one could run simulations from Time series output (or a new tool is built to offer this functionality) 

I would like a function to be added that pulls the weekending date of an entered date.

For example, the week ending date for today, 2025-06-10 would be 2025-06-14.

It could be called DateTimeWeekEnd and look like DateTimeWeekEnd("2025-06-10","Saturday")

The value entered first would be a date or field with an optional parameter to choose Saturday or Sunday for the week ending date. I would think Saturday would be the default week ending date but I am not sure.

I've seen a few older threads on this but wanted to bring it up again.

I have numerous workflows in which I have built in "fail safes" to prevent passing bad data out to downstream databases/reports.  I have Message tools that provide a specific message on whether the fail safe was triggered or the new/refreshed data was passed through.  The problem with the Message tool is that it is very easy for the message to get lost in the myriad log results so you don't automatically see it.  The same is true for using the Browse tool to view a dynamic and more easy-to-read message/result, you still have to make the overt decision to click the Browse tool to review the result/message.  

Admittingly, on their own, these "issues" seem minor.  However, when running multiple workflows as part of a group or on a regular basis, some of which can be very large and complex, its easy for these "minor issues" to become major inconveniences to utilize as they are intended or they just get lost in the static of everything that happens when a workflow runs.

Having something similar to a Report Text tool that can render an image and formula-driven text/conditions (font and background color controls) directly and conspicuously on the canvas would be AWESOME and go a long way to providing immediate/easy-to-see information regarding the results of the workflow.

I ask/encourage the Alteryx team to explore providing this capability.

It would be nice to track changes. The function would need to have an on and off switch. Some workflows are large and you want to go back to the changes you've made. My team has 2 identical workflows one for production and one for validation. Tracked changes would help manage changes between both workflows. The tracked changes could be something like highlighting the tools red once changed, and after the function is turned on. I have attached a sample image for your reference. Thank you.

Hi,

I would like to see an option within the 'Find Nearest Tool' (and maybe other Tools like it) to exclude from results when a particular Target field equals a particular Universe field.  This could be added right under the 'Ignore 0 Distance Matches' in config window.  You could have drop-downs (like a filter tool) to pick the fields etc.  Example of what I'm doing:  One Address may have multiple accounts and it's in Target and Universe.  Ignoring 0 Distance would drop all the other Accounts at the same address.  I only want it to ignore the Universe Address if it has the same Account Number and the Target Account Number.  That is a little deeper drill than just ignore 0 Distance but not too hard to add.

As it stands, I don't ignore 0 Distance.  I have a formula after the 'Find Nearest' to drop  Target Acct Nbr = Universe Acct Nbr.   Then a 'Multi-Row Formula' tool to fix the find nearest order.  This works, but I thought it might be nice to have it in the tool.

1. Image Processing Tool functionality should be available in Reporting tools.

2. Image Output Location should allow for a temp file location

3. Image Processing should allow lock of aspect ratio when Cropping (like Scale)

4. Image Processing should allow for fieldname selection for Crop, Scale ...etc to allow for custom calculations.  Being able to generate custom values for width and height based upon the values generated in from image profile would be useful

I want to have the ability to share workflows with non-Alteryx users so they can see what steps were followed within my workflows in order to create the output(s). Without a read-only viewer Alteryx users are forced to screenshot and write out the steps they followed in the workflows to document what they did which can be extremely laborious and time consuming when workflows get into the 50+ tool range. A read-only viewer would save Alteryx users time and give non-Alteryx users a sneak peak into how Alteryx works as well. It could peak the interest of non-Alteryx users to learn more about Alteryx and possibly convince them to download a trial and eventually purchase a license, so it could improve documentation methods as well as be an asset for marketing to non-Alteryx users. For reference, Tableau offers a similar solution called Reader.

It would be great to be able to use keyboard shortcuts to be able to switch between the different tools in the canvas, or use the keyboard shortcut to select different tools from the Tool Pallette (similar to Excel).

It will be very useful if there will be tool that will be actually a template of a batch macro and one for iterative macro.

In this way the person can drop the tool to the canvas and connect it to his flow, so there is no need each time to build one.

Obviously if there is 1 macro input, a control parameter and macro output as default, then the person can adjust as needed, but at least there will be a ready template to go.

For tools that have 2 input or output anchors, the ability to right-click the tool and select "swap connections" to swap the connections coming out of the 2 input or output anchors. Let's say, with 5 connections coming out of the Unique's U Anchor and 3 coming out of the D anchor, we need to disconnect and reconnect connections 8 times in order to switch everything between U and D. Even if the tool has 1 connection per anchor, this would still be faster than removing + connecting each connection manually. Tool examples include Append data, Join, Unique, Macros with 2 inputs or outputs, etc.

Hello,

For those unfamiliar, static type checking in Python is a process that analyses your code without executing it, highlighting any potential errors such as type mismatches. An example of this is MyPy (https://github.com/python/mypy), this tool allows developers to easily address issues before runtime - which is a personal gripe of Python (and why I love Alteryx so much).

I believe that integrating static type checking, such as MyPy, into Alteryx Designer could vastly improve the users experience. A user of Alteryx Designer expects intuitive feedback - generally through the error red exclamation marks or messages, and this change should align the Python tool to the expected functionality.

Data Connections and Workflow Credentials are key part of migration process for workflows to Gallery.

They are provisioned for each user upon request.

When a developer leaves the organization, there is no easy way to identify all the Data Connections and Workflow Credentials assigned to that user.

Current options in the Gallery is for the Admin to browse through each Data Connection and Workflow Credential, navigate the Users tab and identify the list users. 

For a large organization with many Data Connections and Workflow Credentials it will hard to manage this since.

1. If the workflows change ownership, the new owner has to be given access to the Data Connections and Workflow Credentials.

2. Remove user access to the Data Connections and Workflow Credentials.

A Gallery page in Admin should include all Assets a user owns/has access to which includes the following. By selecting a user, the list should populate.

1. Workflows
2. Schedules
3. Collections
4. Data Connections
5. Workflow Credentials

We have implemented a solution to capture this information by getting the details from MongoDB. Also an automated process where the list goes to the manager when a developer leaves the organization so that he can manage the assets by identifying a new owner for the assets.

In the new version, we have an easy way to change ownership of a workflow in Gallery. In the same manner other Assets also should be taken care.

Most tools do not result in record changes: Select Tool, Data Cleansing, Record ID, Formula, Auto Field, Multi Field/Row, etc.  It would be nice to be able to tell Alteryx which tools to display the Connection Progress; specifically the Record Counts.  It would reduce the clutter/noise and allow the Record Counts to only display for the tools that matter to the analyst/user.  Right now it displays for all tools regardless of whether the records changed or not.  My hope would be to tell Alteryx to only display the Record Counts for tools like: Input, Output, Filter, Join, Summarize, Crosstab, Unique, etc. and ignore all other tools.

I would like the ability to configure a default naming convention for yxdb files created through the "Cache and Run Workflow" feature.  For example, the naming convention could be <YXMD filename>-<ToolID>-<CreatedDateTime>.yxdb.

This would make it easier and faster to identify and re-use yxdbs.

Cache function is very useful when executing very long db request.

I'd like to see a checkbox option (in workflow runtime settings for example) to enable/disable automatic caching of first execution for all inputs tools.

I used to use a software before (LabVIEW) and it had the capability to exchange code via snippets or as part of png images. I think this will impact not only community, but also facilitate the code exchange

Include a tool specific configuration to allow for the ability to turn off annotations on that specific tool instead of the global setting to turn them all off.

This would especially be useful for the SORT tool.

I find myself wasting multiple clicks in order to eliminate the annotations every time I insert a sort tool into my process flow, since it is rare when I actually need to include an annotation.