Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Alteryx offers the ability to add new formulae (e.g. the Abacus addin) and new tools (e.g. the marketplace; custom macros etc) - which is a very valuable and valued way to extend the capability of the platform.

However - if you add a new function or tool that has the same name as an existing function / tool - this can lead to a confusing user experience (a namespace conflict)

Would it be possible to add capability to Alteryx to help work around this - two potential vectors are listed below:

- Check for name conflicts when loading tools or when loading Alteryx - and warn the user.   e.g. "The Coalesce function in package CORE Alteryx conflicts with the same function name in XXX package - this may cause mysterious behaviours"

- Potentially allow prefixes to address a function if there are same names - e.g. CoreAlteryx.Coalesce or Abacus.Coalesce - and if there is a function used in a function tool in a way that is ambiguous (e.g. "Coalesce") then give the user a simple dialog that allows them to pick which one they meant, and then Alteryx can self-cleanup.

cc: @jarrodthuener  @NicoleJ 

Hello All,

I believe there needs to be a new tool added to Alteryx. I am frequently encountering cases where I will have 0 data point feeding a workflow stream that causes my workflows to fail. Because of this, I am having to put in fail safes to keep this from happening.

There should be a tool that if there is no records that are passing into it, anything after that tool will not fail.

For an example, within a workflow I am using a dynamic input that will pull a dynamic file. The file is not always there and the workflow should be able to run if that file is there or not. If the dynamic tool and other tools would process 0 records without failing this would also solve the issue. 

I would be nice to have a tool that will  block off the work stream if there are 0 records passing through the tool. 

Github support. push/pull your workflow code directly to/from a repo. I posit this is the single biggest feature misisng form Alteryx -and I'm be happy to blab on and on to the product team about how not having this is a huge miss.

To rename a workflow, usually we have to save and then name the workflow. Could you please consider adding a feature of renaming a workflow after "Close" & "Duplicate"?

Lets say you have a row of 10 filter tools vertically and there's a select tool coming out of each input for each filter. It can get dizzying to tell the difference. It would be great to be able to select a colour for tools when on the canvas so e.g. in the above I could say " my green selects are the true and my red selects are the false"

Looking for a tool to replicate the Goal seek functionality built into Excel.

Seems it could be solved by using R or iterative macros however a tool would make life much easier,

Hello all,

As of today, if you have admin and non-admin version of Alteryx Designer installed on your computer, and install Business Intelligence Suite, you are able to run either version. It will not run both versions. This means whatever reason you installed admin and non-admin version, Business Intelligence Suite will run with only one Designer. 

I installed my computer Alteryx Designer 22.3 non-admin and 23.1 admin versions, both Predictive Analytics. I also installed BI Suite admin version, and BI suite non-admin version. Alteryx will uninstalled admin version, and kept non-admin version of the BI Suite. So, I can use BI Suite only with non-admin version now.

I'm bringing this idea for your vote to make available for both profiles/versions within Designer.

Thanks for voting

Similar to being able change the parameters of a tool using the interface tools, it could be very useful if Alteryx Designer had an option where the configuration of a tool can be modified by another tool's output (which can only consist of one row & column and may include line breaks/tab characters, only first row is used if there are multiple rows) while the workflow is running, therefore reducing the need to chain multiple apps.

This feature could be made possible as the "Control Containers" feature is now implemented, and it could work like below:

Suppose you need to write to a database and may need to specify a Pre-SQL statement or Query that needs to be dynamically changed by the result of a previous tool in the workflow.

In this case, as the configuration of a tool in the next container needs to be changed by the result of a previous formula, there would need to be an additional icon below the tools, indicating that the tool's result can be used for configuration change.

This icon which will appear below the tools will only be visible once at least one Control Container and an Action tool is added to the workflow, and will automatically be removed if all the control containers are removed from the workflow. User can change the configuration of the destination tool using an action tool, which must be connected to a tool in a container that will be run after the one it is contained in has finished running, as a tool (or several tools) that is contained in the next CC in the workflow needs to be dynamically modified before the container it is contained in is activated.

If a formula tool containing multiple formula fields is added to the action tool, the user will see all the formula outputs similar to connections (i.e. [#1], [#2]...) that can be used as a parameter.

The screenshot below demonstrates the idea, but please note that this is a change where adding an action tool may not mean that this workflow will need to become either a macro or an analytic app, so a new workflow type may or may not have to be defined, such as "Dynamic Configuration Workflow (YXDW)". Analytic Apps and Macros which utilize this feature could still be built without having to define a new workflow type.

Providing user the ability to paste a tool with one of the three options regarding connections:

- Paste with Incoming Connections,

- Paste with Outgoing Connections (where applicable),

- Paste with Both Connections (where applicable)

could make it easier to configure the workflows where many incoming and/or outgoing connections are necessary for a specific source or target tool (i.e. a certain mapping table joined to several data streams in the same workflow after being modified with a formula tool to match with a specific stream).

I have a use case where I am transitioning workflows to someone - 

One workflow leverages the outputs of one workflow as inputs in to another - it would be awesome if I could include a link on a tool or comment box that would automatically open the exact output tool. Right now I am taking pictures and mentioning the names of files and tool-ids. Seems like it would be an easier way. 

Consider, for a moment, Standard Macros as old-school Subroutines in which you would have a library of Subroutines that could be invoked from numerous code sets.  Each Subroutine could have any number of arguments, and when the Subroutine is invoked, the calling code provides the arguments and their values to the Subroutine.

You can do this in Alteryx - but with a very large but.  The source field names being passed to the Standard Macro have to be the same field names the Standard Macro is expecting.  To make the Standard Macros more "library friendly" - allow the calling workflow to alias fields in the dataset for the sole purpose of sending them to the Macro.

Example:  Standard Macro that returns a Vendor ID based on a Location and Item Number.

Macro Input: Location ID, Item Number

Calling Workflow has: Purchase Location and Item Code

The Macro on the calling workflow would have a mapping:

This is Ganesh from Guidelines. 

One of the task in my process is to convert the Pdf to excel sheet for all content. 

Pdf content will all depend upon the number details available. 

Pdf contain table format detail. 

We would like see all the pages of pdf should be in excel sheet with proper format including Table provided in pdf.  

I tried multiple ways but unable to find easiest way of handing the auto fit the all the column in final output. If we have already could you please help me with the solution. 

if not - can we create one additional tool which auto fit and align the data type accordingly. 

2 issue is about post I bifurcate the excel sheet data with multiple workbook data type doesn't show proper. for example Main file contain string and numeric value. post the bifurcate all the number still shows string value only due to every cell has green tick mark. 

Hi 

In a toold like select it would be nice to place curser in Field - and type the first letter of the fields you want to browse through.:
By pressing F here I would just across fields that starts with F.

Sometimes you want to preserve the field order from the sorce, and if you have many fields it takes a while.

Or beeing able to filter - just like in excel:

Same goes for formula box:

Beeing able to click D as an example and click though coloumns starting with D.

Hello,

The release notes quality is not exactly at its best nowadays The 2022.1 releases notes available here https://help.alteryx.com/release-notes/designer/designer-20221-release-notes don't mention at least two cool new features :
-DCM for in-database connection.
-distinction between greenplum and postgresql, which is important for me as I post this as an idea : https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Ideas/Separate-entry-in-in-db-configuration-for-Po...

Note that the corresponding idea aren't also up to date.

It's cool to have new features, it's way better if you gives the full list.

Best regards,

Simon

i investigate a super messy and huge workflow, i have a hard time to trace back the data stream.

it only have around 5 wireless connection, some is easy to find, but some are connect to union..

if have a button to turn all connection back to wire, and better if have option for just solid for temp to show as solid line. it will helps alot.

When we rename a field in canvas it breaks a lot of formulas or config on tools like select tool or unique tool or summarize tool. If designer can automatically update these new field names in all the further tools if will save us a lot of time.

Thanks,

Sanju

Please introduce functionality whereby users can pull up a listing of all input data connections leveraging database queries. This would be exceedingly useful in instances where users can either individually or bulk edit various connection configurations, such as:

1. change connection query
2. change data connection source 
   • for example, if a connection configuration has changed via a new setup

This would be far more useful than scanning through the canvas looking for all of the input tools. Especially if the workflow is highly complex leveraging multiple inputs to various data sources. You could also incorporate a link for users to click on to take them to the point in the canvas where the input tool is located.

I annotate every single tool, every single time. I treat a workflow like documentation. It would be helpful to use markdown in the annotations.