Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Hi Team,

I have an idea where we can use Alteryx to build a virtual Assistant. As we are currently using Intelligent suite extract information through pdfs. Now we can connect the VA and Intelligent suite to offer a complete product.

Please let us know your views,

Hello,

My idea is that the current Download tool does not handle errors and continues its path even if it does not find for example a file in the transmitted URL or if it does not find the hostname it crashes.

In the case of a user with several URLs in a row, this is penalizing.

In the case of downloading files with recording, it still writes a file (thus overwriting the existing file) but which is not openable and is not in the correct format. (BLOCKED file!) Which then causes problems in workflows reading these files.

The idea would be to put a second output to this tool for all the URLs where there was a problem (non-existent hostname, file not found, HTTP KO) and one where it received the expected elements so as not to prejudice the processing. and allow better management of error cases.

Regards,

Bruno

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.

Whether it is a date range or a numeric range, I would like an official tool that can tell me where the gaps exist within the range.

Hi, I have been using different tools for some time now and now I started using Alteryx. It would be better if you can provide a feature to select particular components of workflow and on clicking Run, only selected components gets executed. It would save lots of config  time and resources. In case none is selected, the workflow shall execute all tools/functions as it is currently running.  I am open to test these features, if approved by Alteryx Team.

Please allow disable or ignore conversion errors in SharePoint List Input. 

In SharePoint List Input I see the same conversion error about 10 times. Then....

"Conversion Error Limit Reached".

Can you simply show the error once or allow users to choose to ignore the error? (Union Tool allows users to ignore errors).

I am not using that SP column in my workflow. Meanwhile I have to show my workflow to a 3rd party within the company. SO annoying to see errors that do not apply to my workflow being shown.

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.

Hi Team,

I understand there is no .dmg i.e. direct macOS installation package is available to install directly on Mac instead we have to use other third party apps to install WindowsOS and then use it.

However I would suggest that if Alteryx can have a web version or something called Alteryx Public (similarly that Tableau has for their users) which users can use and explore the tools with limited to basics functions and to understand the UI and experience the tool itself by having hand-on it.

Please find the below Tableau Public snapshot for reference purpose.

I am looking forward as I am keen on exploring Alteryx as a beginner and become expert one day :)

Thanks,

Sachin

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"?

When a workflow runs on the server and the server tells me there was an error with Tool ID 103, I'd like to be able to open that workflow in my designer and search for that Tool ID 103.  We have some really large workflows and it takes a long time to manually locate that tool.

It would be great if you could include a new Parse tool to process Business Glossary concepts formatted using the SKOS (W3C) standard in the next version of Alteryx.

SKOS is a widely used standard for the representation of concept and term relationships. It provides a consistent way to define and organize concepts (including versioning), which is essential for the interoperability of these data.

We believe that supporting SKOS in Alteryx would be a valuable addition to the product. It would allow us to:

• Improve the interoperability of our data sets with other systems (M2M)
• Make it easier to share and reuse our data sets
• Provide a more consistent way to describe our data sets
• Bring down the costs of describing and developing interfaces with other Government Entities
• Work on some parts of making our data Findable – Accessible – Interopable - Reusable (FAIR)

We understand that implementing support for this standards requires some development effort (eventually done in stages, building from a minimal viable support to a full-blown support). However, we believe that the benefits to the Alteryx Community worldwide and Alteryx as a top-quality data preparation tool outweigh the cost.

I also expect the effort to be manageable (perhaps a macro will do as a start) when you see the standard RDF syntax being used, which is similar to JSON.

SKOS, which stands for Simple Knowledge Organization System, is a W3C Recommendation for representing controlled vocabularies in RDF. It provides a set of classes and properties for describing concepts, their relationships, and their labels. This allows KOS to be shared and exchanged more easily, and it also makes it possible to use KOS data in Semantic Web applications.

SKOS is designed to be flexible and extensible, so they can be used to describe a wide variety. They are both also designed to be interoperable, so they can be used together to create rich and interconnected descriptions of data and knowledge.

Here are some of the benefits of using SKOS:

• Improved discoverability: SKOS makes it easier to discover and use KOS, as they provide a standard way of describing their attributes.
• Increased interoperability: SKOS allows KOS to be integrated with other Semantic Web applications, making it possible to create more powerful and interoperable applications.
• Enhanced semantic richness: SKOS provides a way to add semantic richness to KOS , making it possible to describe them in a more detailed and nuanced way.

Here are some examples of how SKOS and DCAT are being used:

• The Library of Congress uses SKOS to describe its controlled vocabularies.
• The Dutch Government made it a mandatory standard for all Dutch Government Agencies.

As the Semantic Web continues to grow, SKOS is likely to become even more widely used.

SKOS

• Reference Page: https://www.w3.org/TR/skos-reference/
• Dutch (NL) Standard: https://forumstandaardisatie.nl/open-standaarden/skos
• WIKI Pedia on SKOS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Knowledge_Organization_System
• Video: https://youtu.be/pbTRDDQ43Sw?si=RG3f-jPBsx2OK8IQ
• Tools: https://csiro-enviro-informatics.github.io/info-engineering/semantic-tools.html

RDF

• Reference Page: https://www.w3.org/TR/REC-rdf-syntax/
• Dutch (NL) Standard: https://forumstandaardisatie.nl/open-standaarden/rdf
• WIKI Pedia on DCAT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Description_Framework

This is a question which is somehow in between Designer and Gallery ideas.

When saving a workflow to the Gallery, the user can select the Assets (elements which are also copied to the Gallery). The point in time during the save process is a bit questionable from my perspective.

Often, I develop workflows locally until they reach a state in which I want to move them to the Gallery so that they can be included in Schedules or be made available to other users. I would like to be able to select which macros or datafiles are copied to the Gallery as well much earlier in the development process. From my perspective, it would be great if the user could set the Assets settings in the "Workflow Dependencies" window as well. I propose 3 possible values for each element (macro or data file):

• "Auto" → decide on asset when saving the workflow to the Gallery (current behaviour)
• "Yes" → Copy this element as asset in the Gallery
• "No" → Do not copy this element to the Gallery 
• "N/A" → The question does not apply to this row (e.g., directory)

It could look like this:

When I open I'd workflow, I'd like the option click on "something" to see content previous created for the workflow.  The content I'd use most frequently is:  How was the INPUT data obtained?  ALL of the Alteryx workflows I will be creating with my current employer will require some level of pre-build of the data sources.  I would like to document the pre-build requirements (could be pages of text, so "comments" aren't optimal) and be able to ask for them as needed.

Optimally, this feature would accept .docx, .pdf and other standard formats.  Another option would be to support a URL that would link me to the content.  For my purposes, this would be even more advantageous as all of our knowledge content is on-line.

All the input tools like Input Data and Dynamic Input will have a new flag  "Skip on fail" that will process all the data, or none of the input data, or partial of the data requested and will return the data that could be read and do not return any error in the WFs.

If the 'Skip on fail' flag is false - the system should act like it is now.

if the 'Skip on fail' flag is true - the system should return the  only the accepted or manager to read data on the default out put, and can have a second output connection for the error log, so we can parse it and do something with it, but the WFs should still run,

It will very good to connect multiple 2 or more tools by rightclicking and join. similar to cut and connect around.

I think double clicking. a tool will automatically take it to canvas is a good idea and hence a shortcut with it will be nice to have.

As mentioned in detail here, I think that the addition of a "run as metadata" feature could be very helpful for making the analytic apps more dynamic in addition to enabling the dynamic configuration of the tools included in analytic apps chained together in a single workflow using control containers, therefore mostly eliminating the need to chain multiple YXWZ files together to be able to utilize the previous analytic app's output (this of course doesn't include the cases where a complex WF/App would have to be built by the previous app in chain to switch to it, but Runner helps solve this issue to a certain extent provided you don't have to provide any parameters/values to the generated WF/App).

The addition of this feature would be somewhat similar to running an app with its outputs disabled, without having to run the entire app itself, but rather only certain parts specified by the user in a limited manner. Clicking the Refresh Metadata button (which will be active only if there is at least one metadata tool in the workflow) will update the data seen in the app interface (such as Drop Down lists, List Boxes etc.), provided the user selected the up-to-date input file(s) (or the data in a database is up-to-date) where the data will be obtained from.

To explain in detail with a use case, suppose you have two flows added to separate Control Containers where the second CC uses the field info of a file used in the first CC to enable the user to select a field from a drop down list to apply a formula (such as parsing a text using RegEx) for example. After specifying the necessary branch in the first CC where the field info is obtained, the user could select these tools and then Right Click => Convert to Metadata Tool to select which tools will run when the user clicks on the Refresh Metadata button. The metadata tools could of course be specified across the entirety of the workflow (multiple Control Containers) to update the metadata for all Control Containers and therefore all tabs of a "concatenated app", where multiple apps are contained in a single workflow.

With this feature, all tools that are configured as metadata tools (excluding the tools that have no configuration) will be able to be configured as a "metadata only" tool or a "hybrid" tool, meaning a hybrid tool will be able to be configured separately for its both behaviours (being able to change all configurations for a tool without any restrictions in each mode, MetaInfo would dynamically update while refreshing metadata). Metadata only configuration of a tool could be left the same as the workflow only configuration if desired.

For example an Input File marked as a hybrid tool could be configured to read all records for its workflow tool mode and only 1 record for its metadata tool mode. This could be made possible with the addition of a new tab named Metadata Tool Configuration in addition to the already existing Configuration tab, and a MDToolConfig XML tree could be added to reflect these configurations to the XML of the tool in question, separate from the Configuration XML tree, and either one of those XML trees or both of them would be present depending on the nature of the tool chosen by the user (workflow tool, metadata tool or hybrid).

This would also mean that all the metadata tool configurations of a tool could optionally be updated using Interface tools. You could for example either update the input file to be read for both the workflow tool mode and metadata mode of an input tool at once, or specify separate input files using different interface tools. As another example, the amount of records to be read by a Sample tool could be specified by a Numeric Up/Down tool but the metadata tool configuration could be left as First 1 rows, without being able to change it from the App Interface.

Hybrid tool (note how Configuration and MDToolConfig has different RecordLimit settings):

    <Node ToolID="1">
      <GuiSettings Plugin="AlteryxBasePluginsGui.DbFileInput.DbFileInput">
        <Position x="102" y="258" />
      </GuiSettings>
      <Properties>
        <Configuration>
          <Passwords />
          <File OutputFileName="" RecordLimit="" SearchSubDirs="False" FileFormat="25">C:\Users\PC\Desktop\SampleFile.xlsx|||`Sheet1$`</File>
          <FormatSpecificOptions>
            <FirstRowData>False</FirstRowData>
            <ImportLine>1</ImportLine>
          </FormatSpecificOptions>
        </Configuration>
        <MDToolConfig>
          <Passwords />
          <File OutputFileName="" RecordLimit="1" SearchSubDirs="False" FileFormat="25">C:\Users\PC\Desktop\SampleFile.xlsx|||`Sheet1$`</File>
          <FormatSpecificOptions>
            <FirstRowData>False</FirstRowData>
            <ImportLine>1</ImportLine>
          </FormatSpecificOptions>
        </MDToolConfig>
        <Annotation DisplayMode="0">
          <Name />
          <DefaultAnnotationText>SampleFile.xlsx
Query=`Sheet1$`</DefaultAnnotationText>
          <Left value="False" />
        </Annotation>
        <Dependencies>
          <Implicit />
        </Dependencies>
        <MetaInfo connection="Output">
          <RecordInfo />
        </MetaInfo>
      </Properties>
      <EngineSettings EngineDll="AlteryxBasePluginsEngine.dll" EngineDllEntryPoint="AlteryxDbFileInput" />
    </Node>

Please also note that this idea differs from another idea I posted (link above) named Dynamic Tool Configuration Change While the Workflow is Running in that the configuration is updated while the WF/App is actually running and for example the Text to Columns tool in the second CC is dynamically changed using the output of a tool in the first CC, unlike selecting an input file and clicking Refresh Metadata from the App Interface before the workflow is run.

Attached is a screenshot and an analytic app to better demonstrate the idea.

Thanks for reading.