Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

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. 

Hello,

Working on Dataiku DSS and there is a cool feature : they can tag tools, parts of a worklow.. and then emphasize the tools tagged.

Best regards,

Simon

I would love a tool to be created for looking up a value in a table based on a condition. It could be called "Lookup." One input to the tool would be the lookup list, the other is the main database. Inside the tool you could enter functions that can query the lookup table and return the results either as an overwrite of an existing field in the main DB or as a new field in the main DB, similar to the options in the Multi-Row Formula tool.

Here is a link to my post in Community that explains the problem. The solution, in a nutshell, was to create a Join (which resulted in millions of additional rows), run the conditional formula, then filter to get rid of the millions of rows that were created by the Join so only those that met the condition remained (the original database rows).

Here is the text of my Community post describing my project (slightly modified for clarity):

Table 1:  A list of Pay Dates (the lookup table)

Table 2:  Daily timekeeper data with Week Start and Week End Date fields.

The goal:  To find the Pay Date in Table 1 that is greater than the Week Start Date in Table 2 and no more than 13 days after the Week End Date in Table 2.

[Table 2: Week Start Date] < [Table 1: Pay Date]

and [Table 2: Week End Date] < [Table 1: Pay Date]

and DateTimeDiff([Table 1: Pay Date], [Table 2: Week End Date], 'Days') <= 13

There are many different flows I could use this type of tool for that would save time and simplify the flow.

Thanks!

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.

Hello,

This is a popular feature on other tools, such as Talend (now Talaxie) : the ability to export the workflow as a vectorized screenshot in svg.

Why ? it helps to build documentation, svg being vectorized, it means the picture can be zoomed in without losing quality.

Of course, that would mean before that Alteryx use svg for icons as required here https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Desktop-Ideas/svg-support-for-icon-comment-image-e...

Best regards

Simon

Hi is it possible to look at alteryx workflows being run when a file has been dropped into a file or somehting along those lines? I.e an external activty has taken place

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

Hi,

Due to our setup, we need to have the path defined as Environment variables, so they will point to different paths in case a user opens the WF locally or the server is running it.

The issue is that the path of dependency does not accept the windows defined variables:

Thank you!

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"?

Hello all,

When using in-database, all you have in select or formula are the Alteryx field types (V_String, etc..).

However, since you're mostly writing in database, in the end, there is a conversion of Alteryx field types to real SQL field types (like varchar). But how is it done ? As of today, it's a total black box. Some documentation would be appreciated.

Best regards,

Simon

Hello all,

Sometimes, when you have too much time to retrieve your tables metadas, you can have this message

Initialization Timed Out: Workflow must be run for field meta info to be accurate.

From what I understand, it's Alteryx and the source system that drives the time out value. However, I have some cases where the long time is "normal" and that really hurts the user experience.
So, I would like the ability in settings to change the default value.

Best regards,

Simon

Hello all,

Apache Doris ( https://doris.apache.org/ ) is a modern datawarehouse with a lot of ambitions. It's probably the next big thing.

You can read the full doc here https://doris.apache.org/docs/get-starting/what-is-apache-doris but to sum it up, it aims to be THE reference solution for OLAP by claiming even better performance than Clickhouse, DuckDB or MonetDB. Even benchmarks from the Clickhouse team seem to agree.

Best regards,

Simon

I think it would be great to have a tool that allows you to update a dataset with another dataset. For example, this could be used in updating an archive table on a daily basis as data changes. Having a tool available that streamlines this data operation would be helpful to simplify workflows.

In the tool, you would be given the option to select your primary key fields, which are the fields used to identify records. Additionally, you have the option to perform an insert, modify, or delete operation, according to the primary key fields that you choose in the configuration.

Obviously this is something that anybody could create a macro for if they wanted to. But it would be nice to have a tool in place so that we dont have to worry about it. I think this would be a nice use case to bolster Alteryx usage as a data engineering tool for relational database management in particular.

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 Data Sets description (Meta data) formatted using the DCAT (W3C) standard in the next version of Alteryx.

DCAT is a standard for the description of data sets. It provides a comprehensive set of metadata that can be used to describe the content, structure, and lineage of a data set.

We believe that supporting DCAT 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.

DCAT, which stands for Data Catalog Vocabulary, is a W3C Recommendation for describing data catalogs in RDF. It provides a set of classes and properties for describing datasets, their distributions, and their relationships to other datasets and data catalogs. This allows data catalogs to be discovered and searched more easily, and it also makes it possible to integrate data catalogs with other Semantic Web applications. 

DCAT 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 DCAT:

• Improved discoverability: DCAT makes it easier to discover and use KOS, as they provide a standard way of describing their attributes.
• Increased interoperability: DCAT allows KOS to be integrated with other Semantic Web applications, making it possible to create more powerful and interoperable applications.
• Enhanced semantic richness: DCAT 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 DCAT is being used:

• The DataCite metadata standard uses DCAT to describe data catalogs.
• The European Data Portal uses DCAT to discover and search for data sets.
• The Dutch Government made it a mandatory standard for all Dutch Government Agencies.

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

DCAT

• Reference Page: https://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-dcat/
• Dutch (NL) Standard: https://forumstandaardisatie.nl/open-standaarden/dcat-ap-donl
• WIKI Pedia on DCAT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Catalog_Vocabulary

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

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

There should be a quick way to delete all unwanted tools for specific output/browse tool in workflow. This would be useful when we have huge multiple cross connect workflow. By deleting all not requited tools, it would make it easy and faster to test as segregated.

The ability to output to Amazon Workdocs via a special Output tool would be very helpful for anyone looking into using Workdocs for personal or professional purposes.  This is similar in functionality to the OneDrive connector.