Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

We all love seeing this.  And, it's fairly easy to fix, just go find the macro and insert a new copy.  But, then you have to remember the configuration and hope that it was simple. 

With the tool that's there, the XML still contains the configuration, all that's missing is the tool path.    It would be great to be able to right click and repair the path from the context of the missing macro.

For all Alteryx versions I can remember, when entering a connection string into an input tool (e.g., "C:\Users\mbarone\Desktop\ . . . "), you could just start typing and it would auto-complete.  This is no longer the case when DCM is enabled.  This is a huge efficiency hit we're taking, and is enough for us not to enable DCM (optional or otherwise), given the fact that current workflow connection manager works just fine (meaning the "akas").

Please bring back auto-complete/predictive text when DCM is enabled.

In the RecordID tool,  provide additional options for the creation of the ID, specifically allow for the ID to 'Intervals'. 

For example, Record ID every 10, meaning instead of creating an ID of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 .... you could create an interval of your choosing, the most obvious would by 10 or 100  thus your ID's would then be 10, 20, 30, 40 ....  or  100, 200, 300, 400, 500 ... etc. 

Would love to see an option to disable a specific Output tool (rather than the global "Disable All Tools that Write Output" option). I'm envisioning the inverse of the Email tool, where there is a checkbox to enable Email... rather, the Output tool could have a check box that would disable that output (and ONLY that output), similar/consistent with the "Disable All Tools" function. A "Disable This Output" check box. The benefits would be a quick way to make sure not to overwrite something in one output (but still getting all the good content in all the other outputs) rather than having to go through the multiple clicks of adding to a container and then disabling the container. Could have benefits for connecting with Action tools/interface toggles as well. It would likely need to contain the same/similar formatting in Designer to indicate it has been disabled, though maybe a slightly different color so you could tell it was disabled differently? 

(On a similar vein, would love to take this opportunity to bring up my favorite idea-that-has-not-been-implemented-yet-that-would-love-your-vote-and-attention, implementing a Warning that outputs are disabled when posting to Gallery...)

Cheers!

NJ

The Output tool currently creates a zero-row file if you filter all the rows out (an empty file)

However - there's a very common need to say "don't generate a file at all if there are zero rows" - for example if you are generating a "Daily Details" file and there are no daily details today, you want to suppress this file.   This frequently trips up newer users since the only way to suppress a zero-row output file today is to it with macros.

Could you add a flag to the output tool to "Suppress empty files" so that if there are no rows to be written, Alteryx does NOT create an empty file?   This way the user can be in control of what to do with empty record sets?

Note: This idea doesn't strictly fit into any given category as it involves enabling support for something that affects numerous aspects of Alteryx's already existing spatial features.

I live in Australia. As do a large number of your users. Like me, many of those users use Alteryx to process spatial data. There is only one problem; we live on a roving continent. Every year our continent shifts ever so slightly but over time that shift becomes significant. For this reason we have our own continental system of spatial coordinate projections. It's called the Geocentric Datum of Australia or GDA.

Since 2000, the official Australian geodetic datum has been GDA94.  However, according to the Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping (ICSM), because the coordinates of features on our maps, such as roads, buildings and property boundaries (and so on), are all based on GDA94, they do not change over time. This is why they have since adopted a new datum: GDA2020. This has now become the standard for mapping in Australia, bringing Australia’s national coordinates into line with global satellite positioning systems.

A more detailed explanation of this can be found on the ICSM's website: What is changing and why? | Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping (icsm.gov.au).

Of course Alteryx supports the more global WGS84 standard, which like GDA94 is a fixed datum. But there is up to a 1.8 metre discrepancy between GDA94 (and WGS84) and GDA2020. For spatial analysis projects that don't require metre accuracy that's not a problem. But imagine you are building a bridge, plotting the lanes of a road or programming a GPS enabled tractor. That 1.8 metre discrepancy between the real world coordinates and the projection is enough to cause problems. 

And it is. Which is why we request that Alteryx include support for GDA2020 in its existing selection of spatial projections.

This will enable spatial datasets configured in GDA2020 to not require conversion and thus risk corruption or error. This includes providing the ability to configure GDA2020 as the spatial projection in the input tool and all spatial tools.

Doing so would go a long way to supporting your ever growing Australian user base and maintaining Alteryx's position as a trusted software for processing spatial data.

Alteryx gods,

It would make me even happier than I am now if it were possible to tailor the completion messaging in the Interface Designer when an analytic app completes.

Currently, we use rendering etc, but sometimes we simply want to be able to create a bespoke completion message.

My example is as follows:

In the app you have the option to download files, or have them emailed to you. If you choose download, the final display is the render tool with the documents listed, however, if you choose email I want nothing to show but the final window with the message "Please check your email" or something. There may be more than one option, and so being able to dynamically change these messages would be very useful.

Help me Alteryx gods, you're my only hope.

*beep boop boop*

Who needs a 1073741823 sized string anyways?  No one, or close enough to no one.  But, if you are creating some fancy new properties in the formula tool and just cranking along and then you see that your **bleep** data stream is 9G for nine rows of data you find yourself wondering what the hell is going on.  And then, you walk your way way down the workflow for a while finding slots where the default 1073741823 value got set, changing them to non-insane sized strings, and the your data flow is more like 64kb and your workflow runs in 3 seconds instead of 30 seconds.  

Please set the default value for formula tools to a non-insane value that won't be changed by default by 99.99999% of use cases.  Thank you.

The Join Tool tells you which records did not match (Left and Right) but it does not tell you what fields it did not match on.  This could quickly help the analyst determine which fields they need to look into to determine why there are unmatched records.  When joining on 5+ fields it becomes difficult to determine why some records did not match without manually inspecting each record which is time consuming.  The column title could be: Unmatched Field(s) and the values should be concatenated separated by commas.

When building join operations in Alteryx, it can be time-consuming to manually scroll through long lists of fields to find the right one to join on, especially when working with large datasets or unfamiliar schemas.

It would be great to have a search-as-you-type filter in the Join tool’s field selection interface. Similar to the existing field selector search, this feature would allow users to start typing a field name and instantly see a filtered list of partial matches. This would significantly speed up the process of identifying and selecting the correct join fields and reduce the risk of selecting incorrect fields due to visual clutter.

Hello all,

I suggest a new string function Repeat()

Repeat() forms a string consisting of the input string repeated the number of times defined by the second argument.

Repeat(text[, repeat_count])

Repeat('to',3) gives tototo

It's also a standard SQL function
https://www.w3schools.com/sql/func_mysql_repeat.asp

Best regards,

Simon

It would be ever so helpful and save a couple extra steps if a count distinct option could be added to the crosstab tool.  Seems like a slam dunk since plain ole 'count' is already a choice.

The drop down\list box have numerous ways to list values. One of them that I like is connecting to an external source. You simply have an external source file with a Name column and a Value column. It will display the data in the Name column and pass the data in the Value column. Now suppose instead of connecting to an external source I wanted to use connected tools. Currently, I would have to crosstab this data and the drop down\list box would display and pass the column names.

What if the drop down\list box could have an additional option added where you could connect tools and it would act identically as an external source (display the data in the Name column and pass the data in the Value column). This would be much easier and more functional!

We currently have language support for a few major languages. I know Chinese is available, but the writing system is only Simplified at this moment. 

I was recently in conversation with a few people from Taiwan, and they are using the Traditional writing system of Chinese. 

If Alteryx can provide Traditional as an additional to their already available Simplified writing system, I think Alteryx can help capture the market in Taiwan better. 

The people I spoke with never heard of Alteryx before, and after a demo - they were impressed. If it has this language support, then I think it’ll be much easier to get more sign ups for Alteryx from the Taiwanese market. 

A common problem with the R tool is that it outputs "False Errors" like the following: "The R.exe exit code (4294967295) indicted an error"

I call this a false error because data passes out of the R script the same as if there were no error. As such, this error can generally be ignored. In my use case, however, my R tool is embedded within an iterative macro, and the error causes the iterator to stop running.

I was able to create a workaround by moving the R tool to a separate workflow and calling it from the CReW runner macro within my iterator, effectively suppressing the error message, but this solution is a bit clumsy, requires unnecessary read/writes, and uses nonstandard macros.

I propose the solution suggested by @mbarone (https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Boosted-Model-Error/td-p/5509) to only generate an error when the R return code is 1, indicating a true error, and to either ignore these false errors or pass them as warnings. This will allow R scripts and R-based tools to be embedded within iterative macros without breaking.

I would love to be able to see the actual curl statement that is executed as part of the download tool. Maybe something like a debug switch can be added which would produce 1 extra output field which is the curl statement itself? This would greatly enhance the ability to debug when things aren't working as expected from the download tool.

Desperately looking for a way to connect to SQL Server Analysis Services through Alteryx as more and more of our large datasets from our older systems are moving to here in the next few months. We can connect using PowerBi with limitations (connecting 'Live' does not allow merge and connecting with Import, you need to use MDX or DAX syntax). We run into import and export limitations, too. We are not allowed access to the underlying tables, but the tables with the measures, dimensions and fields. PowerBi is a big step up from pivot tables, but Alteryx would be so much better. Ideas for connecting this up are are welcome!

Please add support for Databricks' Unity Catalog

Currently, when selecting a Databricks-connection in the “Connect In-DB”-tool, and opening the “Query Builder”, only tables in the catalog named “hive_metastore” are listed. That is, Alteryx submits the following SQL query to Databricks:

Listing tables 'catalog : hive\_metastore, schemaPattern : %, tableTypes : null, tableName : %'

However, with Unity Catalog in Databricks the namespace is three-tier and there may be multiple catalogs (and not just the "hive_metastore" catalog), see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/azure/databricks/lakehouse/data-objects#--what-is-a-catalog

I reached out to Alteryx support, which replied that you currently have a feature request for implementing this change (ID TDCB-4056) and they furthermore suggested that I post here.

Thanks in advance.

Hello all,

Change Data Capture ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change_data_capture ) is an effective way to deal with changes in a database, allowing streaming or delta functionning. Several technos, more or less intrusive, can be applied (and combined). Ex : logs reading.

Qlik  : https://www.qlik.com/us/streaming-data/data-streaming-cdc

Talend : https://www.talend.com/resources/change-data-capture/

Best regards,

Simon