Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

hello!
Currently when using any spatial data or tool, by default, i have to select a reference base map each time:

This can be confusing for new users - as they may not realise within the browse tool (and other spatial tools) that you have to select this, especially with it being such a small setting at the top of the browse tool.

Now this can be solved by going into the User Settings, and changing this in the default settings:

However as mentioned, for new users this really isn't clear, and can be a roadblock in development. It would be fantastic if Alteryx defaulted the reference base map to Alteryx Light (or, any of them, other than [None]) to make these tools useable out of the box.

Thanks,
TheOC

@NicoleJ recently asked a question about what default save options that we might want to apply to when we save to SERVER.  I'll answer for both SERVER and to DESIGNER here as ideas.

SERVER:  When I save a workflow to the server, I'd like to have Alteryx automagically do the following:

1.  Respect my CANCEL RUNNING WORKFLOW on ERROR default setting.
2. Respect my SHOW MACRO MESSAGES default setting.
3. Respect my Enable Performace Profiling default setting (OFF should be recommended).
4. Respect my AMP Engine Compatibility Mode setting (if AMP is turned on).
5. Modify any non-relative path dependencies to UNC.
6. Respect my DISABLE All TOOLS that WRITE Output default setting.
7. USE GLOBAL Default for Temporary Files

If any settings or rules (e.g. dependencies) don't match default, please WARN me or give option to reset automagically.

For DESIGNER saves, please do the same as SERVER plus:

1.  Respect my DISABLE ALL BROWSE TOOLS setting.

If anyone wants to chime in with more settings, please do so.

Cheers,

Mark

I am working with complex workflows which use multiple files as input, located on network drives. Input tools are Input Data, Directory, Wildcard Input, Wildcard XLSX Input (from CReW macros).

Regularly, I experience very slow Designer when working on the workflows (Window freezes for quite some time), especially when working from home. Switching off Auto Configure did not really help because I the column list sometimes does not converge even after pressing F5 multiple times, and when actively working on workflows, I have to press F5 all the time...

To improve this issue, I would like to propose a "Disable Auto Configure of File Inputs" which would not watch the loaded files but still would update the configurations downstream. This could include to not check automatically whether Macro files on network drives have changed. F5 could be used to update all configurations manually.

My testing has shown that when a datetime field is input from a Snowflake table, the Input tool will convert the data to reflect the datetime as local time to the machine the workflow is run on. 

For example, this is a data set from a direct query to Snowflake...

This is what is coming out of the Input tool with the machine set to Pacific time...

However when setting the machine to Central time, the results from the Input tool are...

This obviously can wreck havoc with inconsistencies of subsequent reporting off of this data. 

Since Snowflake carries the UTC offset as part of the data, it would be nice to have the ability to disable this "assumption" by Alteryx that the results should convert the datetime to the machine datetime. This way the data could pass through with the datetime values that are held in the database.

Please have the option to place Calendar tool side by side in the Interface Designer. Currently they are only allowed to be placed vertically i.e. on top of each other. By placing the calendars side by side, the interface will look more organized and intuitive to the user. This is particularly useful when there is a need for a companion calendar tool. For example, allowing user to pull data between a date range. In this situation, arranging Date1 and Date2 side by side will be intuitive than placing them vertically.

When you download a workflow from the Alteryx Gallery to edit, the first typical step a user will take to debug is to run their workflow. This is potentially dangerous, as your user may not know what input data they are loading into what may be production data tables (as an example, when you are building apps you will typically have placeholder data in your inputs).

It would be great if the default option when editing a workflow stored on the gallery was that the 'Disable Tools that Write Output' button is checked, meaning people do not accidentally post incorrect information.

Ben

I've recently been playing with the 'Encrypt Workflow' capability within the platform, and it's great, apart from the fact that it is not possible to edit an encrypted asset, meaning users will have to store an unecrypted version of the file.

It would be great if the 'Serial Numbers' could be extended to allow certain users to be able to not only run the workflow but also edit the workflow. 

Pretty simple one, but one that would be hugely valuable, preventing the need to maintain an unecrypted version of the workflow on your machine.

Ben

Currently the Find Window is the only one not located in the View menu. It would be great to have it located either just under view or under both Edit and View. Most users are aware of the other windows once they discover the View menu, however I feel they are missing a lot of the new features with the new Find Replace functionality available in the Find Window. One looking at it under the Edit window it just looks like a simple Find, not like a whole new window that can be used as part of your Designer experience.

All other window options are located here.

Current Position for Find

For more than 5 years It has annoyed me that numeric results in Designer are always awkwardly displayed as left justified. 

Nearly all conventional financial reports present numbers RIGHT justified with a vertical alignment of the decimal points and interval markers.   In Alteryx this convention is snubbed, at least in the Results Window, making it more work to interpret the results.

Given that Alteryx would like to sell more Designer licences 🤑 to those millions of accountants 🤕 still struggling in Excel hell , it would seem to be a smart move to concede on this small point. 

An easy way to deliver this enhancement would be either (1) via a user setting or (2) an enhancement of the   "Hide Numeric Separator" toggle in the upper right corner of the Results window:

Every time I open the Visual Query Builder I have to drag the internal table window to the left to make it bigger, in order to see the table names.

I really want to lock and hold the last position of this entire window - also the total window when I expand it.

This is driving my crazy! Please lock the window.

I could not find any helpful document to connect to Azure Databricks to read data directly as an input. I was able to configure it and sharing it for others with the screenshots 

Issue

Users are not able to change keyboard shortcuts. Because some Windows keys take precedent, the Alteryx keyboard shortcut will not work. 

For example, I would like speed up performance by selecting Disable Auto Configure in User Settings, and rely on using manual canvas refreshes (F5). However, Windows is reserving F5 for the Snippet tool. As such, F5 does not work for me. And in this case, there is no button or drop down for manual refreshes. Corporate IT security prevents me from remapping my keys. 

Proposal

In user settings, allow a user to modify the full list of keyboard shortcuts.

In many cases, I have several formulas in one formula tool. I'd like to be able to have all of these expanded whenever I select the formula tool that's in the workflow. Currently when I select a formula tool, I see "Screenshot Current". I'd like to have a setting available so that anytime I select this formula tool, I see something like "Screenshot Idea".

Create social and holiday themes for icons and set the canvas to an appropriate color.  Here's a world mental health day example:

If you need help, ask me how I did it.

Cheers,

Mark

P.S.  I realize that 2023 is next year.  Please don't wait that long :)

When I am working with 2 different versions of Alteryx (e.g., a current version and a beta version), I set different background colors for each version through user settings. This a great because I don't want to accidentally modify a current workflow when beta testing; the canvas color is a clear, but subtle indicator of which version I'm working in. 

Similarly, I'd like the option to set a custom canvas color for each workflow. Use case - I have two versions of a workflow, e.g., one production and one in development, both in the same version of Alteryx. I don't want to accidentally modify the production workflow instead of the dev workflow. My current workarounds are to open the workflow in two different windows on separate monitors or to add an obtrusive comment box making the dev version as in development. Neither is a great option. If I could set the canvas for the workflows to different colors, that would reduce the possibility of making this mistake.

My idea is to expand this the custom canvas-coloring functionality to allow users to set a custom canvas color for each workflow. 

In the Result window, user can expand the Column Width but not the Row Height, and cannot Wrap the text.

It's a kind of necessary user friendly feature to view the entire text easily.

Sometimes, if text is too large in each field, then expanding the column width for all the fields and scrolling left/right is really annoying.

It could be useful to keep track of changes to workflows by adding changelog notes to the Meta Info in workflow configuration

In python, there is this monthrange function which is very useful to find out the days in particular month and also particular year (leap year)

In python we will only have to do this to get monthrange

 x[i] = calendar.monthrange(Year_S, Month_S)[1]

whereas in Alteryx, we will have to do this

datetimeday(DateTimeTrim(DateTimeParse([START_DATE],'%Y-%m-%d'),'lastofmonth'))

The different are enormous and I can see that Alteryx team was able to add in this in a jiffy.

I was hoping we can simplify the code so that users wont have to go and dig around to find a way to get thru.

This will be helpful in doing calculations like insurance/interest premium, where we need to find the remaining days of in the month.

I think it would be a great idea where the system admin can control the logs and the location of the logs for all the alteryx designer users within an organization. This ensures that no data is being transferred outside the organization.