Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Hi there,

When creating a database connection - Alteryx's default behaviour is to create an ODBC DSN-linked connection.

However DSN-linked connections do not work on a large server env - because this would require administrators to create these DSNs on every worker node and on every disaster recovery node, and update them all every time a canvas changes.

they are also not fully safe becuase part of the configuration of your canvas is held in the DSN - and so you cannot just rely on the code that's under version control.

So:

Could we add a feature to Alteryx Designer that allows a user to expand a DSN into a fully-declared conneciton string?

In other words - if the connection string is listed as 

- odbc:DSN=DSNSnowFlakeTest;UID=Username;PWD=__EncPwd1__|||NEWTESTDB.PUBLIC.MYTESTTABLE

Then offer the user the ability to expand this out by interrogating the ODBC Connection manager to instead have the fully described connection string like this:
odbc:DRIVER={SnowflakeDSIIDriver};UID=Username;pwd=__EncPwd1__;authenticator=Snowflake;WAREHOUSE=compute_wh;SERVER=xnb27844.us-east-1.snowflakecomputing.com;SCHEMA=PUBLIC;DATABASE=NewTestDB;Staging=local;Method=user

NOTE: This is exactly what users need to do manually today anyway to get to a DSN-less conneciton string - they have to craete a file DSN to figure out all the attributes (by opening it up in Notepad) and then paste these into the connection string manually.

Thanks all 

Sean

We aren't getting a huge amount of help from support on this, so I'm posting this idea to raise awareness for the product teams responsible for the Salesforce connectors and the embedded Python environment.

This post from user Dubya describes the issue in detail:

I have a workflow with several salesforce tools in it, which works fine on my machine. But we need another alteryx user in our office to be able to access, run and maintain the workflow too, via their machine and copy of alteryx designer.

However we're finding that the salesforce inputs and outputs can only be authenticated on one machine at a time.

When the other new user opens the original workflow from the shared network location, the salesforce tools display an error "Salesforce Input (1): {'error': 'invalid_grant', 'error_description': 'authentication failure'}" and the tools fail to load any data. But we can see the full query in the tool and we can even set the custom query option and validate the query successfully, which suggests the source is being correctly connected to and queried, but we just cant run the tool.

The only way to run the tool successfully is to change the credentials and re-authenticate the tool. However this then de-authenticates the original machine, and when we open up the workflow on there and try to run ying the workflow brings back the same error.

We've both tried this authentication back and forth on our own machines and each time one of us re-authenticates, it de-authenticates the other, leading to it triggering the error.

Can someone help explain what's going on and how to fix it, as this doesn't bode well for our collaboration.

We're both running:
The latest build of version of designer 2021.2 (original machine also running desktop automation)
Salesforce Input Tool v4.1.0
Salesforce Output Tool v1.3.0

My response here identifies that this is a problem for our organization as well:

We're experiencing the same issue. It appears to be related to how the tool handles password and security token decryption. I've found that when you modify the related registry entry from "true" to "false", you can see in the tool's xml that the encrypted password and security token are still in there. I'm not sure what else is going on behind the scenes beyond that, but that ought to be addressable by the product teams handling the Salesforce connectors and the Python installation embedded in Designer.

The only differences in our environment compared to u/Dubya's are that we're running on 2020.4 and attempting to use Salesforce Input Tool v4.2.4.

This is a must have for anyone who needs the ability to share workflows among multiple users. This is part of a series of problems that these updated connectors have been plagued with since introducing them years ago, and no one at Alteryx seems to care enough to truly fix the problems. Salesforce is a core system for our organization, so having tools that utilize the latest version of Salesforce's APIs is very important to us. The additional features that the Input tool provides are welcome, but these bugs have to be sorted out in order for us to extract any kind of value out of them. If the "deprecated" Salesforce tools were ever to be removed from Designer while there are issues with the "new" connectors, we would have no choice other than to never upgrade Designer/Server again and be forced to look for another product to serve as our ETL platform.

Please, please, please address this.

Hello!
I am making this idea request in response to this question:
https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Is-it-possible-to-enable-Performance-P...

Currently, one of my favourite settings to enable in Alteryx is the performance profiling, as i get to see exactly how much time is being used at each step, and its a quick reminder to double check those tools that take a while for optimisation. However, i have to enable this on every new workflow that i open as the setting only applies to the current workflow, and it can be frustrating executing a large workflow only to realise after waiting for it to run, that this setting was not enabled.

What i'd like to propose, is an extra set of settings within the User Settings, default tab (which is currently):

To something like:

Which would simply enable these settings as a default, when a new workflow is made. 

Let me know what you think! I think a couple of the other settings in there could see use, especially as the AMP engine develops and those who want to see all macro messages, for example.

Cheers,
TheOC

Can we please have a tickbox (ideally one that remembers your preference to be ticked or unticked) on the Save to Gallery pop up that would allow us to save a (timestamped?) copy of that workflow on a local drive (perhaps one that is preset in the user settings)?

If the workflow configuration had a run for 'x' number of iterations option it would make debugging macros a lot easier. My current method consists of copying results, changing inputs and repeat until I find my problem which feels very manual. 

The Problem: Sometimes we are developing workflows where we use a data connection that the developer has access to but not necessarily the people running the workflow do.

For example,

• A workflow is pulling from one database to another, with some specific transformations. 
  • This workflow is used by many people, some have Designer for other purposes.
  • The workflow also writes to a log table, documenting different parts of the workflow for auditing purposes.
    • This log table is not something that the people running the workflow should have access to write to other than when running this workflow
    • This log table outputs using a data connection so that it is not embedding passwords (a company-wide best practice)
    • For someone to run this workflow with this set up, they would need access to this log table's data connection
  • If the log table data connection is shared to that group of users, now any of the users with Designer can go write whatever they would like to that table since that data connection has access to. 
  • This also makes the log table unsecure for auditing purposes.

The Solution: We are looking for a way to have a data connection in a workflow without giving all of the running users full access to use that connection in their workflows. Almost a proposal of two tiers of permissions:

• Access to use a data connection in a workflow you are running
• Access to use a data connection in a workflow you are building

Please provide the ability to toggle on a dark mode for the Designer. The new version of Alteryx has changed the UI from a blue to a white. Its straining on the eyes with the lack of any contrast in the toolbar. I know about the ability to change the canvas colors, but it would be nice to toggle the entire UI from a white to a grey.

1.  I would like the tab color/contrast of the active tab to be more prominent / discernible.  It does not really stand out. 

2.  I would like the ability to set default colors for different open workflow types -- standard workflow, macro, analytical app, so I can use color to quickly distinguish between tab dependencies or simply what is what.

3.  I would like the ability to change the color of any tab at any time (similar to Tableau Desktop, but with greater color choice).

When working in the Designer, I sometimes have to undo changes. And this experience is quite often very confusing and annoying.

For every change in the workflow, you have to press undo once. However, quite often, one user interaction results in other actions such as automatic move of the donwstream tool, change of size of a tool container etc. In such cases, you have inserted a single tool but need to press undo a couple of times to get back to the original situation. It is, however, often not clear how often. In most cases, I fail using undo at the end and revert my changes by hand.

Please change undo towards undoing one user-action in one undo step.

In case there might be users who like the current behaviour, you might make this a user setting how to deal with the undo history.

Hello,

Please add UI-related Themes to choose from such as a Dark Theme, so that all aspects of the UI changes accordingly.

Without a Dark Theme, it is very difficult to work in Designer for a long time.

Add these themes under User Settings --> Themes tab

Thanks!

Dear UX Usual Suspects,

I've created a video for you to observe the idea:

With 400+ fields available, I find it challenging when I am validating my formula output to look at the "Referenced" fields of data plus the new data fields.  It would be oh-so-nice to press a button and look only at the "valuable" data.

How about you?  Do you want a little of this idea @Hollingsworth @T_Willins  @Aguisande @NicoleJ 

Cheers,

Mark

Working with larger and larger workflows becomes difficult to navigate. I have been using the Right Click on Blank Canvas>Zoom to container recently, but the order in which the containers show doesn't seem to be intuitive. (Not by tool ID, rather the order they are in the XML.)

This has been asked in the past but I couldn't find an idea post: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Can-I-set-the-order-in-which-container...

It would be useful to have the ability to change the list to be in alphabetical or tool ID order please.

Admittedly I haven't used the Compare Workflows functionality too often in the past. In using it today, however, right away I found that navigating the workflows being compared wasn't the easiest thing to do. I'm open to ideas on how this could best be accomplished, but it would be nice to be able to navigate around each workflow simultaneously (currently you must move around in one canvas then click to the other then move around in that one separately). Maybe this would best be accomplished by one of the following ways:

 - Allowing scrolling in both tab groups at the same time ( i.e. if I scroll in one tab group, that same movement occurs in the canvas of the other tab group)

 - Allowing movement in both workflows simultaneously from the Overview window

 - Connecting the results windows for the two workflows being compared so that you can easily click to navigate to the tool/part of each workflow with changes with just one click

Presumably, if you're comparing two workflows, they should roughly have the same general layout so hopefully this sort of dual-tab navigation would be plausible (and could be turned off in settings if it is unwanted). I believe this would make it much easier to find and navigate to the places on both canvas where changes have occurred. 

User settings currently only allow for setting a default fill color for containers. Would like to be able to set default text and border colors as well. Thanks!

I totally get that we want to use a local disk drive for TempDirectory.

Let us override Alteryx (currently Alteryx overrides the user override) and choose a network directory.  If the local temp drive is full, let the user choose.

Cheers,

Mark

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!

As of version 2023.1 once a workflow is locked, it cannot be unlocked. If Alteryx can unlock it, can it be made into a user option?

My idea has two parts. See the images for examples.

1. Add an option on the lock screen so the user can get an unlock passkey.

Passkey is either generated by Alteryx or set by user

2. Change the behavior when trying to open a locked file by giving the user an option to enter the unlock passkey.

Same behavior if there is no passkey

Dialog box with passkey input and cancel button if a passkey exists

This would be useful as a way to revise or edit a workflow or update the expiration date on the existing workflow without having to reload or resave a new file.

In order to make it easier to find workflow logs and be able to analyze them we would suggest some changes:

• In the log name instead something like "alteryx_log_1634921961_1.log" the log name should be the queue_id for example: "6164518183170000540ac1c5.log"

This would facilitate when trying to find the job logs.

 To facilitate reading the log we would suggest the following changes: 

1. Add the timestamp 
2. Add error level 

For the example of current and suggested log: 

 Please consult the document in attachment.

In the suggested format the log would be [TIMESTAMP] [ERRORLEVEL] [ELAPSEDTIME] [MESSAGE]