Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

I'm a long time user of Photoshop and it would be great to get some similar zooming and panning functionality into Alteryx.  Such as:

- hold down the "space bar" see a hand and pan across the canvas.
- hold down "CTRL" or "ALT and zoom on the canvas
- use the mouse scroll to zoom on the canvas

While Alteryx is processing it displays information in the module with record/file infromatoin.  Once processing is complete this information is gone, except for in the output window.  Could you add a key combination or button toggle to redisplay this info from the prior run.  It would be very helpful for debugging.

I love the new global search option for introducing new users to functionality and seeing related community posts, but I also primarily use the search bar to grab tools and drag them onto the canvas.  The global search can slow down this functionality by waiting for search results to load and covering up the canvas.  This is particularly problematic if I have another window up side-by-side with Alteryx (e.g. SQL developer, Excel, Tableau, etc.) to view results or debug.  

We can see in this instance in 11 that I have a very small sliver of canvas visible.

Whereas in 10, there was still plenty of canvas during the search operation.

Granted the menu goes away once you start to click and drag, but having half of my canvas covered is still not ideal.  I also seem to have issues with the list refreshing and not being able to grab a tool at times.  

Another great enhancement would be to keep the global search in place for the search bar and add customizable keyboard shortcuts for tools similar to AutoCAD aliases.  This would keep the full search with help functionality in the bar, while providing users who have less of a need for help documentation with a means to add tools without clicking through toolbars.

I often go betwen the favorites group and other groups of tools I'm using but might not be considered favorites.  It would be nice if there was a way for a user to put the their most commonly used tools in a ribbon bar on the top near the run button?  The user could quickly grab and drag that tool to the canvas.  IT wouldn't replace the favorites but be an addition to favorites.  What do people think?  Useful or redundant?  Interested to hear what people say.

Thanks!

The overview window is useful with large workflows. Clicking once centers the workflow on the desired location. I think it would be great if you could double click and it would center on that location as well as zoom to the "Normal" zoom level. Quite often when working with large workflows you are zoomed out and it would be helpful to quickly be able to go to a section of the workflow and automatically be at a level where you can see the the connection progress (without having to zoom in enough times to see it.)

Improve the productivity of creating a canvas workflow by bringing up the 'Search All Tools' when I click on the canvas or create connections.   Currently, you must either search on the top toolbar then drag the tool down or right click in the canvas and navigate the menu.  It would be great to have a similiar functionality of the 'Search All Tools' box anywhere I click on the canvas to quickly add new tools to the workflow by typing rather than dragging from the toolbar. 

Case 1: When I create a connection from a current tool by clicking on the output and dragging to an open are, rbing up the 'search all tools' bar where I click and allow me to search the tools on the canvas.  Once I select enter, the tool selected will be brought into the canvas.

Case 2: when I click on an empty space in the canvas, bring up the 'search all tools' bar where I click and insert the selected tool into the canvas. 

In version 10.5 if the taskbar is auto-hidden and alteryx is the active window - you cannot access the taskbar by moving the mouse to the bottom of the screen.

You have to use the windows key or switch to another application window

I am always coping the open workflow path for various reasons - would love a COPY button right here to copy to clipboard.

Please?

Under options/restore defaults, it would be nice if the canvass could be reset (I sometimes lose windows), but the favorites be left intact.

Thanks!
Susan

Hi - I miss the functionality in 9.5 of being able to set a default tool in a tab and then drag in tools from the tab. This seems to be gone in 10. Is there any possibility of it coming back?

Many thanks - Nathalie

Similar to "Start here" dataflow, it would be useful to specify a path within the User settings to open a dataflow "template" file when the users do not have permission to add or replace "start here" dataflow.

Within our organisation, we are required to have the dataflow summary. We have prepared a dataflow to meet these requirements but currently unable to share it like "start here" template so that every Alteryx session opens the agreed datalow "template" file.

Is it possible to have a "Run Workflow" option in the right click dropdown menu?

Sometimes you may just want to run the workflow at random from the convenience of your desktop without using the Alteryx server's capacity. When that is the case, you have to open the workflow, wait for it to load in Alteryx, and click "run" from the canvas. Instead, I would like to right click the workflow's file path and click "run workflow" from a dropdown menu without opening the workflow itself. When the file is complete, I can either receive a pop up to inform me it is complete, the time it completed, and the runtime or I will just know by checking the date/time modified in my output file. And if you have disabled all output in that specific workflow or it writes out to a database, an email, a server, or somewhere else that may not be able to handle this new feature, the "run workflow" could simply gray out in the dropdown menu to indicate it is not an option for that workflow. I think this would be a very nifty feature for your .xlsx, .tde, .txt files, etc. that output in the same file directories,

Thanks for reading!

Every time I open a new workflow I start with a heading and subheading. 

• Heading: Verdana 8pt bold. Color=black. 
• Subheading: Verdana 9pt regular. Color=gray. 

The aim is to ensure I know what this workflow is for, the date, who it is for and what was happening around me at the time I created the workflow. This helps bring me back to the premise that kicked this whole thing off and puts me in the frame of mind to understand what was happening at the time I created this workflow. 

Occasionally in my workflow I'll have some comments, snippets of code and especially warnings for things to pay attention to when I open or before I run a workflow. 

It would be fantastic if the documentation palette can be expanded to more than just three tools to include some of these comment tools, or a customizable set of tools/macros that will allow me to just set it once and reuse them as needed to keep style and formatting consistent so that I can focus on the workflow while keeping everything documented and tidy. Bonus points for including one that allows me to put my logo/signature on the canvas too. 

My current workaround to this is putting all my styles in a workflow and having that open to copy and paste the comment and update the content. 

When I use the rectangular lasso to select some tools and/or control click them, I want to see a count of selected tools please.

When models are complex and extensive, it can be difficult to locate specific sections of a workflow despite any effort to organize the tools. I believe that it would be beneficial to have a feature that saves focused views of the model, e.g. zoomed into a specific location or set of tools, with a configuration of expanded or contracted containers.

The intent would not to affect the data flow but rather facilitate the data analyst's movement within the file.

Please see the (simple) example below, where the zone if red could be a saved view, onto which the screen would zoom and shift when selected.

Dummy/garbage text is required in the "Write to file or database" field to be able to write files from fullpaths using the "Take File Table name from field" check box and dropdown (also horrible UX/UI IMO). Without which you get a uninformative "Cannot access the folder" error message.

This isn't obvious and makes no sense and should not be required. The User experience here is very unintuitive, can you review this component?

I'm really struggling with the documentation/examples and the UX around node configuration. I often will spend an hour or more trying to solve really basic issues despite looking at the examples.

Sifting through relevant threads on the forum is a chore.

A link to a subforum or even better a wiki subtopic would be helpful, placed beside the Open Example link in the top ribbon.

eg

I love the ability to setup the UI with the different windows (results, config etc) in the places that I want. However, once I have them setup I generally don't want to move the positions much again, resize windows in place, yes, but not move them all together.

I would love the ability to lock the window configuration in place so accidental drags on a title bar doesn't move the windows stay in place. I still want to be able to resize those windows in the space though.

Cheers