Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

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.

My request is to allow navigation to specific System settings without having to click through the entire process to get to the specific section of the settings you want to change.

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).

The Join Tool tells you which records did not match (Left and Right) but it does not tell you what fields it did not match on.  This could quickly help the analyst determine which fields they need to look into to determine why there are unmatched records.  When joining on 5+ fields it becomes difficult to determine why some records did not match without manually inspecting each record which is time consuming.  The column title could be: Unmatched Field(s) and the values should be concatenated separated by commas.

When the name of a field is changed early in a workflow, all corresponding tools that use the renamed field should have the option to auto update the field name. This way I don't have to manully update the name of each effected field. 

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.

Hi there

My idea is to have an option to copy and paste a tools configuration to a different tool of the same type somewhere else on the canvas.

Example:

Say I have four summarise tools dealing with four different data streams, I envision a 'Copy Tool Configuration' option after right clicking on a tool and then a 'Paste Tool Configuration" which can be applied across the multiple instances of the summarise tool by overwriting. This would preserve the tools anchors incoming and outgoing connections.

Benefit:

This would increase the speed of developing workflows. Naturally this would be significantly quicker than copy and pasting tools, and then re-wiring anchors. Additionally, this would potentially reduce human error when iteratively developing workflows.

Regards - Rhys Cooper

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.

The current approach gives me both Record Counts and Total Record Size in KB, but I don't need or want the KB.

The option I am requesting does not currently exist.  It would remove the KB and leave you with just the Record Counts.  KB is useless to me.  I only care about Record Counts.  This option would help reduce the noise/clutter of the KBs.

To increase Performance on some old Buissness Logic, i am trying to switch an existing system to In-DB tools. This has given me a lot of headache because there is no Multi-Field Formular Tool in the In-DB section. It is a very tedious job to run through every workflow to manually set the same regex for a table with more than 20 Fields. 

I have had the idea to implement such a tool myself but i think this could be helpful for other developers in Alteryx Desktop too, so i am bringing this up here.

The Idea is to have a similar approach to the new Multi-Formular Tool like the other already existing Tool in Preperation. 

Hello,

Unless you're lucky, your input dataset can have fields with the wrong types. That can lead to several issues such as :
-performance (a string is waaaaaaaay slower than let's say a boolean)
-compliance with master data management
-functional understanding (e.g : if i have a field called "modified" typed as string, I don't know if it contains the modification date, an information about the modification, etc... while if it's is typed as date, I already know it's a date)
-ability to do some type-specific operations (you can't multiply a string or extract a week from a string)

right now, the existing tools have been focused on strings but I think we can do better.

Here a proposition :

entry : a dataframe
configuration :
-selection of fields
or
-selection of field types
-ability to do it on a sample (optional)

Algo :

The output would be something like that

Best regards,

Simon

Hello,

A lot of time, when you have a dataset, you want to know if there is a group of fields that works together. That can help to normalize (like de-joining) your data model for dataviz, performance issue or simplify your analysis.

Exemple

order_id item_id label model_id length color amount

Here, we could split the table in three :
-order

order_id item_id model_id amount

-model

model_id length color

-item

item_id label

The tool would take :
-a dataframe in entry
-configuration : ability to select fields.
-output : a table with the recap of groups

<style> </style>

field group field remaining fields

Very important : the non-selected fields (like here, amount), are in the result but all in the "remaining" group.

Algo steps:
1/pre-groups : count distinct of each fields. goal : optimization of algo, to avoid to calculate all pairs
fields that has the same count distinct than the number of rows are automatically excluded and sent to the remaining group
fields that have have the same count distinct are set in the same pre-group

2/ for each group, for each pair of fields,
let's do a distinct of value of the pair
like here

item_id label

if in this table, the count distinct of each field is equal to the number of rows, it's a "pair-group"

here, for the model, you will have
-model_id,length
-model_id,color
-length,color

3/Since a field can only belong to one group, it means model_id,length,color which would first (or second) group, then item_id and label

If a field does not belong to a group, he goes to "remaining group" at the end

in the remaining group, you can add a link to the other group since you don't know which field is the key.

<style> </style>

field group field remaining fields

Best regards,

Simon

PS : I have in mind an evolution with links between non-remaining table (like here, the model could be linked to the item as an option)

Hello,

As of today, DCM is great to store credentials. But once we want to dive deeper in technicity, like using macros or Applications, it's really bad. One of the things I hate is that we can't retrieve any informations from the DCM connection, just the id. Not good for logs, really bad for understanding and have some conditional logic related to connection type or name.

Here an example

Nice, I managed to retrieve an id but I have no idea of what it means : what kind of connection? what's name?

Best regards,

Simon

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.

Dear Alteryx, 

One day, when I pass from this life to the next I'll get to see and know everything!  Loving data, one of my first forays into the infinite knowledge pool will be to quantify the time lost/mistakes made because excel defaults big numbers like customer identifiers to scientific notation.  My second foray will be to discover the time lost/mistakes made due to 

Unexpanded Mouse Wheel Drop Down Interaction

Riveting right?  What is this?  It's super simple, someone (not just Alteryx) had the brilliant idea that the mouse wheel should not just be used to scroll the page, but drop down menus as well.  What happens when both the page and the drop down menu exist, sometimes disaster but more often annoyance.  Case in point, configuring an input tool.

See the two scenarios below, my input is perfectly configured, I'll just flick my scroll wheel to see what row I decided to start loading from 

Happy Path, cursor not over drop down = I'll scroll down for you ↓

Sad Path, cursor happened to hover the dropdown sometimes on the way down from a legit scroll = what you didn't want Microsoft Excel Legacy format?

And you better believe Alteryx LOVES having it's input file format value changed in rapid succession., hold please...

Scroll wheels should scroll, but not for drop down menus unless the dropdown has been expanded.

Oh and +1 for mouse horizontal scrolling support please.

My idea is essentially to borrow the keybinding/command ethos of Vim for Alteryx. For those who are unfamiliar, Vim is a text editor from a time before the mouse and the GUI became dominant forms of interacting with PCs. I think the key ideas to take from Vim are the Modes, Commands, and Grammar.

Vim is mode based for its typing. You start out in Normal mode and enter other modes through key commands. For example, to enter Insert mode, you just type 'i'. This mode allows you to enter text into whatever file you have open at the moment. There's also the Visual mode which is for highlighting sections of text for processing with other commands. This means that key commands can take on a variety of meanings in different modes, adding depth in a limited key range.

The Grammar is another key aspect. Rather than hold an arcane combination of modifiers and letters, Vim uses an Operator-Count-Motion approach. The operator will be the primary action: y for yank/copy, d for delete, c for change, v for visual select. The Count is how many objects you want this operator to be applied to. The Motion is where and what you want to work with: w for a word, s for a sentence, p for a paragraph, ( for a set of parentheses, b for brackets. There are also options that extend this so you can have a series of commands like d2w (delete 2 words), di( (delete inside parentheses), yap (yank/copy all of a paragraph), etc. Below is a cheat sheet displaying a wider list of the possibilities with the motions.

The Command mode is the last piece of the puzzle. By typing ':' while in Normal mode, you bring up a command prompt. Here you can enter any of a number of commands including changing user settings via keywords. For example, :s/old/new/gc will search through my file and attempt to find and replace every old term with the new term, the c at the end means that Vim will ask for confirmation before each change. I could also do things like :set nohl which will turn off highlighting for items found during searches. It's easy to imagine using similar functionality to make configuration changes to a wide set of tools or simply to selectively delete tools without using the mouse or scrolling to them.

To take it a step further, current menu functions could be turned into commands, imagine typing v6t to select the next 6 tools on the canvas. You could follow this by typing :Contain %V to wrap the selected tools in a container, perhaps with extra arguments a specific color palette could be applied as well! I say all this to say that the way forward for shortcuts in Alteryx is to break away from the one-handed modifier heavy paradigm that so many programs follow today. By creating commands that can duplicate the actions found in drop down and right click menus, as well as providing a means of navigating the canvas without a mouse, Alteryx can go to the next level in terms of efficiency and ergonomics.

Let me know what you think, if you need more concrete ideas on what this might look like in practice, I can add that. Thanks!

P.S. If you work on side projects outside of Alteryx, consider giving NeoVim a try, it adds a lot of extensibility and customization to classic Vim