Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

So there's a shortcut for running a workflow but for the life of me I can't seem to find a shortcut for running a workflow as an analytic app.  Surely there should be one? 

Ctrl + Shift + R seems like an obvious choice.

Shifty

To embed the "Not ok" filter option in the browse tool

Please add in a feature to connect to S3 via AWS IAM roles.

Similar to being able change the parameters of a tool using the interface tools, it could be very useful if Alteryx Designer had an option where the configuration of a tool can be modified by another tool's output (which can only consist of one row & column and may include line breaks/tab characters, only first row is used if there are multiple rows) while the workflow is running, therefore reducing the need to chain multiple apps.

This feature could be made possible as the "Control Containers" feature is now implemented, and it could work like below:

Suppose you need to write to a database and may need to specify a Pre-SQL statement or Query that needs to be dynamically changed by the result of a previous tool in the workflow.

In this case, as the configuration of a tool in the next container needs to be changed by the result of a previous formula, there would need to be an additional icon below the tools, indicating that the tool's result can be used for configuration change.

This icon which will appear below the tools will only be visible once at least one Control Container and an Action tool is added to the workflow, and will automatically be removed if all the control containers are removed from the workflow. User can change the configuration of the destination tool using an action tool, which must be connected to a tool in a container that will be run after the one it is contained in has finished running, as a tool (or several tools) that is contained in the next CC in the workflow needs to be dynamically modified before the container it is contained in is activated.

If a formula tool containing multiple formula fields is added to the action tool, the user will see all the formula outputs similar to connections (i.e. [#1], [#2]...) that can be used as a parameter.

The screenshot below demonstrates the idea, but please note that this is a change where adding an action tool may not mean that this workflow will need to become either a macro or an analytic app, so a new workflow type may or may not have to be defined, such as "Dynamic Configuration Workflow (YXDW)". Analytic Apps and Macros which utilize this feature could still be built without having to define a new workflow type.

Providing user the ability to paste a tool with one of the three options regarding connections:

- Paste with Incoming Connections,

- Paste with Outgoing Connections (where applicable),

- Paste with Both Connections (where applicable)

could make it easier to configure the workflows where many incoming and/or outgoing connections are necessary for a specific source or target tool (i.e. a certain mapping table joined to several data streams in the same workflow after being modified with a formula tool to match with a specific stream).

It'll be great to have different icons whether Designer is executed Elevated or not, so it's easy to identify the instance you need to work with.

When I select multiple containers using control. I can see the configuration pane still on the left. If I adjust anything there it will only adjust the last selected container. I would like it to adjust all selected containers.

Once I've built a workflow I often have to go through the process of removing and combining tools such as selects and formula tools which could be simplified to just one tool. It would be great to have an automated feature which could detect groups of tools which could be simplified and then automatically combined them into one step, improving/simplifying my workflow.  

Most people who have been around for more than one version change of Alteryx will be familiar with the standard dreaded error pop-up box:

"There was an error opening [workflow X]. This workflow was created by a more recent version of Alteryx..."

The pop up box is generated as many times as there are assets potentially affected. You click once to acknowledge you're aware there is a problem with asset 1A, then you click again when the 1B pop up appears, then you keep clicking until you reach W76. Or that's what the software expects you to do and seem to figure is the graceful way to handle potential problems associated with missing assets (it's far from certain there are even any problems with running the specific code referred to on the older version, this is a warning-level notification where stuff might not work which has been 'promoted' to a full-fledged error that you are requested to address at the asset level). 

If you work somewhere where there is a large community of Alteryx users sharing assets widely with each other (all making use of large shared macro repositories) the software's choice of notifying you at the asset level is, not to mince words, completely insane. You could do everything right, have exactly the recommended version from the perspective of Alteryx sys-management, the one that corresponds to the corporate server version executing the scheduled workflows, and still be bombarded with 15 notifications at start-up if you're away for a few days and in the time you were away one or two new guys at the (very large) company decided to create a few new assets with the latest version of the software and share them with their colleagues (the latest version was not yet implemented server-side, so some of those tools might fail for those users - but the tools become everybody's problem the second they're stored in the shared location).

The notifications at startup make no distinction between relevant and irrelevant messages, you can start an empty new workflow and still get messages related to macros you don't care about, because they're located somewhere where Alteryx has been told to look for them even if they're not loaded/included in the workflow.

Every single asset Alteryx might in theory make use of during the session that is starting up will spark an individual message that cannot be ignored or skipped without acknowledging its existence, even if many of the assets will work just fine with an older version. This setup scales ...badly.

I can think of at least two solutions which would in many ways be preferable to the current structure. One would be to 'batch' the notifications prior to creating the pop-up box (one pop-up per start-up, not per asset). What might be included in such a pop-up could for instance be a grouped output with the Alteryx versions that did not match the active version ('workflows developed in version 'XX56' and 'XX57' were identified and these may fail to load', or whatever). Another option would be to have a setting in Designer where you tell Alteryx you don't want to see these notifications at start-up.

It would be nice to have an option to distribute tools with the fixed default space of three in between each tool. Now it just distributes based on the available space, which can be inconsistent throughout the workflow.

I'm Left handed and use my mouse in my left hand.  As such I use the following right-hand keyboard operations in the programs like Excel etc; CTRL-INS (Copy), Shift-INS (Paste), and Shift-DEL (Cut).

In Alteryx Designer these don't work for me in the Workflow window (but do in say the meta Info window) - is there a setting so I can enable them for the Workflow Window, or can the feature be added.

I know that the container title/label should or can be short, and as much descriptive as possible. Also, adding extra comments inside the box helps to a more detailed explanation on regards what process is run inside the container. Visually, if I collapse the container, the "Short" title given can't be of much help.

Could it be possible to enhance the "caption" for the "Container" title? I mean to allow to type 2, 3 or more lines of text?. This will make the Container title more descriptive and visually will allow to have the containers collapsed but with a reasonable amount of text that describe (as much as possible) what happens inside the container.

At the moment, If I type certain amount of text, the container expands according to the length of the text 

Below is the typical container Title 

Below is the current situation if a person would like to give a bit of more description in the "Container" header (The container expands)

An dream would be to have the workflow with all containers collapsed and with titles that tell you what they do (see image below)

As @Jonathan-Sherman pointed out in his blog post we love that the toolbar is back in version 2020.2!

One way that this toolbar could be enhanced, however, is to allow the use of the save button while a workflow is running. The user can still click File->Save while the workflow is running, but it would be quicker to be able to use the button on the toolbar.

The data view of any anchor is searchable. I want to search the metadata view please.

Hello!
I have recently come across something within Alteryx that caught me by surprise. Currently when you are within the configuration window of a tool (in this example, the browse tool) and use ctrl + backspace (shortcut for deleting a previous full word), a blank character is instead added.

Please see example:

Currently in the Browse tool configuration

Go to change the Name of the tool - and naturally to clear it, use ctrl + backspace:

[] is added to the end. From what i can gather, this is a 'control character' , used when an application does not support ctrl+backspace.

Ctrl + Delete however, is supported.

I am proposing for this character/functionality to be supported. I believe the configuration window is the main - and potentially only, i couldn't find any other examples - place this is not supported.

Hope this makes sense!
TheOC

Hi - Please delete this if it perhaps exists already in a newer version.  (I am on 2022.1 and don't see this functionality.) 

I would love to see the ability to right click a tool that isn't in a container and be able to add it to an existing container.  Currently I drag it over and drop it into the container then move it back to where it was.  Inevitably I misalign the tools and spend time getting it linear again. It would be cool if based upon the choice made in the right click, it would bring the assigned container around the tool in its existing location.

OR

Perhaps within the config of the container you could choose tool #s to add to the container?

Anyways this isn't a huge need but it would be nice to see that additional functionality for people that spend a disproportionate amount of time aligning and distributing their tools HORIZONTALLY.  (Nobody cares about the people that do vertical workflows.)

Hi 

I think its super frustrating not beeing able to search for dates, or date ranges in the result window.

Lets say I have a dataset with 2 dates, date picked up and date delivered.

Then I need to search broad in the result window, for a given date. With search in both coloumns.

Could we please have a simple specific date search, and maybe a from-to date? Like in the filter?


Or go all the way and look at excel date filter?

Kind regards

I have a use case where I am transitioning workflows to someone - 

One workflow leverages the outputs of one workflow as inputs in to another - it would be awesome if I could include a link on a tool or comment box that would automatically open the exact output tool. Right now I am taking pictures and mentioning the names of files and tool-ids. Seems like it would be an easier way. 

When we use search option it might be helpful to see also tool category where we can find searching tool.