Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

The Workflow configuration window currently has "Canvas" as the default tab when clicking on whitespace in a workflow. 

Since workflow orientation, annotation settings, and progress settings tend to be consistent for a user, I think it makes more sense to have the default tab on something that might be more relevant to the user.

Workflow provides information that is useful...location of the workflow and constants related to the workflow.

Runtime has settings that can change often as the user is developing out the workflow.

So either of these would provide better access to more important info that that found on the Canvas tab.

So when you double click a word in Any other program it only highlights that word, for fast easy replacement

ex. [Field Number One]

If you double clicked any of these words in any other program you would only highlight JUST the word.

In Alteryx if you double click the same word you're gonna grab the space to the right of the word AND THE BRACKET on the left making the double click functionality useless.

Please fix.

Connecting tools that are far apart in a big workflow is challenging.

My suggestion:

When you right click on the tool you want to connect FROM one of the menu choices would be "Connect From" which you would select. If the tool has multiple outputs (like a join for example) there would be a sub-menu with list of outputs.)

Then you would navigate to the tool you want to connect to  (I use the overview window all the time) and right click on the tool you want to connect TO and there would be a menu choice "Connect To". Again - if there are multiple inputs then there would be a sub-menu.

I'd expect Alteryx to remember the tool you connected from, so if you wanted to connect to multiple tools (say from an input file) you could just go to the next tool and right click and "Connect To" would be available.

Cheers,

Bob

Using Ctrl + F in Alteryx is a quick and easy way to find various things in a module including tools and keywords. One drawback to this feature is that, after you type Ctrl + F, the cursor does not automatically go to the Find Text: text box in the window that appears. Many times I have typed Ctrl + F followed directly by my search word, as I am accustomed to doing in many other applications such as Adobe, Word, Excel, Google Chrome, etc., but Alteryx does nothing. This minor inconvenience slightly decreases the efficiency at which I am able to navigate Alteryx modules, and would be a great enhancement for the future.

When opening a saved workflow in Designer, the python tool does and jupyter notebook do not load, and instead displays a "404: Not Found" error.  This is resolved by refreshing the meta-data (or running the workflow).  But the message is confusing and would ideally be handled differently. 

Before 2019.3, you could edit the default annotation that Alteryx generated, but now if you go to change the annotation it's either 100% your own annotation or 100% the default annotation left by Alteryx.

I found it useful to retain a portion of Alteryx's default annotation (e.g., a long table name when setting up a database connection) while being able to cull the superfluous portions (e.g., didn't want to see the Source / Catalog). Now, if I want to retain the Table name I have to type it out.

I cannot seem to create a vertical or horizontal tab group of workflows. This feature used to exist in prior versions and I think it disappeared in 2018.3, the release with the revamped UI. Is it just me or is this feature gone? I do still see it in the current documentation.

Hi,

I have a suggestion for selecting multiple tools. You currently have it to where the user can hold down Ctrl and select multiple tools one at a time. Could you take it the next step and allow the user to hold Ctrl and then click and drag over multiple tools, then go to another area while still holding Ctrl and click and drag to select multiple tools again.

For example, I would first click and drag over these tools:

Then hold down Ctrl and click and drag over these tools (I’m trying to select the 5 tools without grabbing the Filter tool and it’s 2 Browses):

It would be great if Tool Container margins were adjusted so tools inside could snap to the grid perfectly. Right now they are just a pixel or so off and it creates slight crooks in connectors. (Minor I know, but it would go a long way to make canvases look clean)

Example:

Hit F2 when a tool is selected or click on an existing annotation box to quickly edit it.  Would save a bunch of time having to move the mouse to that left tray etc.

Idea: Create a UX feature to provide a cursor area magnification.

Problem: One of the challenges of working with Alteryx is quickly navigating around the canvas. Traditional software editors have bookmarks or anchors that let you quickly jump to predefined parts of the code.

Alteryx does not have these. Instead, the tools available are the Find tool, Zoom tools, and the Overview window. While capable, they still require a lot of typing and clicking, panning, zooming, etc.

Solution: Create a small magnification window that would follow the cursor around the canvas. This is commonly known as a Loupe feature in many image editing software such as Aperture.

Benefits: This would allow a user to have a full view of their entire workflow and yet be able to see and configure a specific tool with ease.

Activation: I think this feature could be activated in two ways.
1 - The user could toggle the feature by clicking a keyboard shortcut
2 - The feature would automatically enable once the zoom was out beyond a predetermined level.

Options: The user would be able to shrink or enlarge the size of the magnification window.

Example: I've mocked up an image of what this might look like below.

Please allow the "Manage Data Connections" window to resize ... including changing the widths of the Columns (Name, Connection Summary, Type).

Thanks

ps. There may be other windows that may need to have resizing added to them ... it never hurts.

Hi All,

I think it would be good to have the ability to pick a connection and drag and reconnect that to another tool.

Following are some of the areas where it might come handy

1) In case a tool is there which is having good number of connections and we want to move all connections to a new tool.
In current scenario, I end up deleting my existing connections and then re-establishing those to the new tool.

2) In case there is an existing connection which is separated by a good distance on the canvas and we need to move one side of the connection to a tool near to the existing tool.

At the moment, I am making use of select tool to save me some effort for above cases, in case of scenarios calling for reconnection, I generally put a dummy select tool and reconnect existing connections to select and then delete the existing connection from tool(to select tool) and repoint connection from new tool to the select.

Thanks,
Rohit

Currently, the results window returns varying column widths, not related to the width of the data.  We are able to select an individual column and double click the edge to auto fit the column to the data.  It would be helpful to have all columns automatically fit, and allow us to select multiple columns to adjust at the same time.

I use large workflows with multiple comments and tool containers to document and organize the different sections of the workflow. The issue I continue to run into is whenever I have to move or edit a comment box/tool container or a tool within a comment box/tool container my AlteryX freezes up and becomes unresponsive for a period of time. This issue seems to happen more frequently if you are sharing your screen. Has anyone else experienced this lag? Are there any work arounds to minimize the down time when using comment boxes or tool containers?

Sometime you have two or more workflows open in one instance of Alteryx and you want to easily be able to compare and/or  copy/paste.

Not a big need, but it would be handy to either be able drag the tab to the desktop to take that workflow into a new instance of Alteryx or to right click on the tab to open in a new instance of Alteryx. 

Please create a hotkey to close a container. I have to scroll over and up to close a container and it wastes a lot of time.

Currently you can just give a name to a connection:

But I would like to see the ability to apply additional formatting to a connection, most importantly color. 

Currently you can click on an individual tool and the incoming and outgoing connections will be color coded, but when working in a complicated workflow color coding would make understanding the connections easier, without the need to click on individual tools.

Just like the ability the right click on a tool and say "Make (incoming / outgoing) connections wireless" you should be able to right click on a tool and specify the formatting of all  incoming or outgoing connections.

Let's say I have an Input tool and a Browse tool connected in my workflow (Picture 1). I drag and drop another tool between them, it's fine (Picture 2).

Now I have a Select (or any other tool) connected to the Input tool but not to the Browse (Picture 3). So now my input tool has two output connections.

I want to add a tool, let's say a Filter tool after the Input but to both connections. If I drag and drop the Filter tool where connections are together just after the output anchor of the Input tool it insert the tool only within one of the connection (Picture 4).

The idea (and you might have guess by now) is to automatically add the new tool to all output connections  when it is dropped near the output anchor of the a tool present in the canvas.