Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

I want to create Descriptions for my fields in addition to those Alteryx auto creates, Text to Columns tool for example. I want to load these descriptions automatically into Tableau Hyper files so when I use the Tableau describe field feature, I will see them there. It also sets up the potential to create a data dictionary in the Tableau workbook based on these descriptions. Please give the option to load field descriptions into Tableau hyper files. Thank you.

We have a need to be able to trace the lineage of fields being processed through Alteryx - and it has to be done at a field level to satisfy our regulator.   In essence, we have to be able to show exactly where a particular field came from, and demonstrate that we can trust this field.   NOTE: If we could do this - then we could also use this information to make EVERY canvas faster, by checking for unused fields and making suggestions to remove these unused fields early in the flow.

In order to do this - it would be great if there were an option to force explicit field names in the Alteryx XML so that we can trace a specific field.

• Alteryx currently only makes a note of a field name if it is changing that field which is very economical - but it makes tracing fields impossible.
• Desire is for every tool to write the field list to the XML definition for every field that it knows about (just like it looks in the UI)

cc: @AdamR_AYX @jpoz @Claje 

Example:

Here's a simple canvas:

- 3 fields coming in from an input

- Select tool with these 3

- output of three fields into a file

These three fields are not mentioned anywhere in the XML

The Select tool already has some really useful column rename options like add & remove prefix.  Please add uppercase & title case to these options.  I know I could do this with the Dynamic Rename Tool, but this will involve adding two tools if I'm already doing other select type options like removing fields.  Anyway, I'm assuming this would be an easy add for the DEV team and would make my life a little easier! 

Many thanks!

I would like to see an included select window for (nearly) all tools. Sometimes almost half of my workflow are select tools because I try to minimize my data and improve naming as much as possible.

Example:

1) Removing unnecessary columns

2) Removing Lat/Long columns

3) Removing not needed columns from distance tool.

Another example would be the typical usage of cross-tab. In 90% of my cross-tab usage, I put a select tool behind it.

I think it would be good to have an included select window in nearly all tools. There are probably tools that don't need them, but I think it would be a good addition to many tools.

I would suggest to add an included select tool for (at least) these tools:

- Input Data

- Cross-tab

- Tile

- Formula

- Multi-Row Formula

- Multi-Field Formula

- Text To Columns

- Cross Tab

- Transpose

- Create Points

- Distance

- Trade Area

- ... 

the SQL Editing screen has recently been changed (thank you @JPoz  and team!) - and now has syntax indenting and keyword coloring.

Could I ask that you make a minor change in the indenting, where the on part is indented underneath the Join?

Select

    Field1,

    Field2,

    field3

from

    Table1

    inner join table2

        On Table1.key = table2.key

        and table1.keyb = table2.keyb

    inner join table3

        on table3.key = table1.key

        and table3.date = table1.date

As a Left-hander I use my Mouse in my Left hand and use my Right hand for keyboard short cuts.

In many windows products that means I can use the CTRL-INSERT, SHIFT+INSERT, SHIFT+DEL for copy, paste, and cut.

In Meta-info windows in Alteryx I can do this, but in the workflow windows I can not.  I'd like the functionality added.

Creation of a Multi Append Fields tool instead of having to use Multiple Append Fields to join man different columns.

I would like to suggest the functionality of converting an In-DB tool to Input Data automatically as it is done with Input Data so that it becomes an automatic Macro input.

The reverse would also be interesting, converting the Input Data, when it is connected to the database, to In-DB.

Hi Alteryx Designer Dev Team,

There are times where you want to create a variation of a particular pipeline and the data transformations in the beginning of the pipeline are similar but need slightly different configurations. To save time, can we have a right-click context option for each tool to be able to copy/paste or duplicate tool with existing configuration. This saves time by only having to change a few options in the duplicated tool. This is common for tools like, input, output, joins, groupings and reporting tools. An example where this functionality is handy in reporting: you may have a particular way that you always do your charts and instead of configuring the chart options from scratch each time, you copy paste the chart tool with current configuration and then you only have to make minor changes such as the data connections. 

Thank you

Hello,

It would be helpful if some of your tools had an optional input.  For example, the directory tool is of course very helpful at the beginning of a workflow, however I have several workflows that create or pull in files, rename them, edit them, etc.  I then need the directory tool to check that folder for the newly created files and then to feed that downstream.  The problem is that when I have the directory tool feeding into the workflow, it fires immediately noting that no files are in the folder.  I would love if the tool had an optional input so you could choose to put it in the middle of a workflow in an attempt to force it to hold off on firing until its turn.

Even better would be if the dynamic directory tool would allow for dynamic folders to be fed in rather than pinpointing a specific file....since it has an input, that would suffice and the user could either pick the regular directory or the dynamic directory if they wanted it to fire off in the middle of a workflow.

The new Paste Before/After feature is awesome, as is the Cut & Connect Around.

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Ideas/Paste-Before-After/idc-p/510292#M12071

What would be even better is to allow the combination of the two. E.G. It is not currently possible to copy or cut multiple tools and paste before/after, as this functionality only works for a single tool that's copied.

Thanks,

Joe

I see many posts where users want to view numeric or string data as monetary values. I think that it would be friendly to have a masking option (like excel) where you could choose a format or customize one for display.  The next step is to apply the formatting to the workflow so that folks who want to export the data can do so. 

cheers,

mark

Currently when you add an event to notify you of workflow failure / success - you have to enter the SMTP settings every time.    It would be more efficient to set this up as a user setting which can be used for the default across all canvasses that this user creates.

It would be nice if we could right click on a Tool from the canvas and add it to Favorites from there.

TIBCO Data Virtualization is a Data Virtualization product focused on creating a virtual data store consolidating data from throughout the enterprise.  It can be accessed via a SQL query engine, and has a variety of supported connectors, including an ODBC driver.

This data source can be connected to via ODBC in Alteryx today, but error messaging is unclear/unhelpful, and attempting to use the Visual Query Builder causes Alteryx to crash.

Adding TIBCO Data Virtualization as a supported ODBC connection would empower business users to leverage this product and easily utilize this enterprise data store, enhancing the value of the Alteryx platform as a consumer of this data.

I built some workflows which will input full or sample data in multiple Input Data tools based on changing the value of a user constant. These workflows have email events enabled after run.I want to change the email subject based on whether the workflow ran in full or sample mode. That's my use case. I know that I could do this using the Email tool and that's not going to work in my use case. If the workflow fails, there won't be an email. Also, I don't know if the Email tool is blocked by just my Gallery or by all Galleries.

To generalise this, I want to dynamically change email event subjects, bodies, and more by either using expressions/constants from the workflow or by having an expression editor directly in the event itself.

Thank you.

I love this tool,  but think it would be improved by including an option to create a column per delimiting character.  This could be added in the number of columns selector box.  In the case where 1 row has more delimiters than another, null columns can be created.  Without this option you have to Regex count the delimiters, select the max and then embed the Text to columns tools in a macro and then pass the max columns as a param.  Would be nice to resolve all this in the main tool.

Thanks, nick

At the moment one of the Union Tool errors reads: "The field "abc" is not present in all inputs".

It would be useful if the tool said "The field "abc" is not present in Input(s) #x,y..."

If there are a lot of inputs on the tool it can take a while to find which input is missing the field.

Hi Alteryx,

Today, Alteryx is can connect to AWS Aurora DB, but it is only for MySQL.

How about AWS Aurora PostgreSQL ? Will it be included in the next release ?

Best Regrads,

Samuel