Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

when you render out to an excel file, the excel file is created as a new file.  You cannot render to an existing excel file.

I'd like to see this functionality.  I have a client who has a workbook with multiple formatted sheets and they'd like to render an addiitional sheet of formatted data out from Alteryx into the existing workbook.

This has probably been mentioned before, but in case it hasn't....

 

The dynamic input tool is useful for bringing in multiple files / tabs, but quickly stops being fit for purpose if schemas / fields differ even slightly. The common solution is to then use a dynamic input tool inside a batch macro and set this macro to 'Auto Configure by Name', so that it waits for all files to be run and then can output knowing what it has received. 

 

It's a pain to create these batch macros for relatively straightforward and regular processes - would it be possible to have this 'Auto Configure by Name' as an option directly in the dynamic input tool, relieving the need for a batch macro? 

 

Thanks,

 

Andy 

 

 

Hi there,

 

When you use DB connection aliases that are saved in Alteryx, it's currently not easy to edit them when you move a database to a different location.

 

Can we do something simliar to the "Edit Password" function, but which allows the user to also edit the database or server, so that this applies to all workflows using this alias?

As seen in This Discussion Post,  the idea here is to be able to add a link to example workflows in macro descriptions - like the ones seen in native tools.

 

Filter Tool

Many thanks to @jdunkerley79 for demonstrating how this can be done by manually editing the macro's XML - specifically by adding a child element to the <MetaInfo> section, like so:

 

      <Example>
        <Description>Open Example</Description>
        <File>\\aSERVER\aRootDir\path\to\Alteryx\Macros\Date Wizard\Date Wizard Examples.yxmd</File>
      </Example>

One small caveat is that it doesn't support truly relative paths.  @PaulN explained in the discussion post that a relative reference here would search in the sample folders.

 

"Alteryx default behavior is to look for examples under .\Alteryx\Samples\02 One-Tool Examples or Alteryx\Samples\02 One-Tool Examples (or .\Alteryx\Samples\en\02 One-Tool Examples)."

 

Having said that, trying to reference a macro example in the same folder (using a relative reference) will throw an error given the following situation:

 

Package Structure:

Date Wizard.yxmc XML edits:

 

      <Example>
        <Description>Open Example</Description>
        <!-- THIS WORKS -->
        <File>\\aSERVER\aRootDir\path\to\Alteryx\Macros\Date Wizard\Date Wizard Examples.yxmd</File>
        <!-- THIS DOESNT
        <File>Date Wizard Examples.yxmd</File>
        <File>.\Date Wizard Examples.yxmd</File>
        <File>./Date Wizard Examples.yxmd</File>
        -->
      </Example>

This shows a link in the Macro description but yields an error (shown below) when it is clicked.

 

Example Link ShowsError

 Once again, this works fine with an absolute file path reference.  

 

Here is ultimately what I am suggesting:  Can we add an option to the Interface Designer (that updates the XML) and have it allow relative paths?  Allowing relative paths would obviously be essentially to maintaining the macro's ability to be "lift-and-shift" when packaged/moved/uploaded to servers/galleries etc.

 

I'm assuming the option could look something like this, similar to the "Help" file -only it would show link in the macro description...

Interface Designer Suggestion

In conclusion, this would be very useful in providing links to example workflows for custom macros that may be complex and/or not self-explanatory.

 

Cheers,

 

Taylor Cox

We build some pretty robust maps with multiple connections and it would be great to copy the map tool and paste it with all of the connections when we want to tweak the map slightly but keep our original map.  It is a regular occurrence for us to have a very detailed map grouping by trade area name and then may want to have an overview map with all of the same connections but slightly different layout.  Tracking down the connections, reconnecting them and naming them accordingly takes a substantial amount of time even in the most organized of workflows.  This function would be a huge time-saver.  It would also be of value with joins and unions - anywhere you have multiple streams coming in.

Single point of maintenance for Salesforce Input tool connection to Salesforce

 

This prevents user maintenance every time their password (and token) changes which requires them to update every Tool with new credentials

 

Also logged as issue under Alteryx, Inc Case # 00252975: Connection to Salesforce Issue

When you use the Visual Query Builder, you can drag and drop tables to arrange them clearly (to show the star or snowflake schema, for instance). 

 

When you close the Visual Query Builder and reopen it, the tables are all left-aligned in a long column, with the joins overlapping each other. Since many of our tables are very wide (i.e., with many columns), this makes it cumbersome to locate the correct table and field.

 

I would like the manual positioning of the tables to be saved in the Visual Query Builder, to

1. Make the logical arrangement clearer to the developer and later users
2. Make it easier to locate tables/fields without scrolling downward

This is a feature that our users were very accoustomed to in Hyperion Intelligence, our legacy BI tool, which works similarly to the Visual Query Builder (shown below).

 

Hi Alteryx User and Alteryx Dev team,

 

I saw there are number of posts from the community asking for solution to calculate the NetWorkDays (e.g. similar to the networkdays in excel which to calculate the number of days different between the two days excluding weekend and holidays.)

 

Although we could build a macro for it, the performance is not ideal, especially when the data set is huge and/or the date range required is far apart from each other because there is currently NO a build-in function in Alteryx.  Alteryx will have to expand the date range by date and check whether each is a weekend or holiday.   It will an excellent idea if a build-in function for Networkdays could be built to minimize this hassle from everyone around the world. 

 

We are looking forward this idea could be take forward.

 

Thanks

Eric

In other data programs like access or Toad you can put conditions on a join. You can choose if something is greater than, less than, left join, right join, etc.
But with Alteryx you are only allowed to join a perfect match. It would be really great if you could add that functionality into 9.0

I'd like to hold CTRL, click on a tool and drag it to somewhere else on the canvas to copy it. 

 

This is functionality common in other software (e.g. Tableau, MS Office). 

 

Currently I have to either:

right click > Copy, right click > Paste, or

Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V. 

 

 

As each version of Alteryx is rolled out, it would be much easier for our users and admin team to validate the new version, if Alteryx allowed parallel installs of many different versions of the software.

 

So - our team is currently on 11.3 - if we could roll out 11.5 in parallel then we could very easily allow users to revert to 11.3 if there are issues, or else remove 11.3 after 2-3 weeks if no issues.

The same goes for versions which are in BETA.

 

This would be a huge help!

 

cc: @avinashbonu ; @Deeksha ; @revathi

Hi 

 

The wording of the tool tip displayed in results window cells with long strings is misleading.  The current wording is "This cell has truncated characters".   

 

 

New users tend to infer that this means that the data value has been truncated somewhere upstream.  See here, here and here.   Changing this message to something like "Only a portion of long strings is displayed" will help reduce the confusion immensely.

 

Dan  

It would be helpful to be able to filter within the results window of a Browse tool for all "Not OK" records (records with leading/trailing spaces, embedded newlines, etc.) I can already filter for null and empty values, but this would be helpful for cleaning up data. I want to see the "dirty" data before taking out leading/trailing spaces or embedded new lines to see if there is something I'm missing in the data that needs to be further parsed or modified.

This has probably been mentioned before, but in case it hasn't....

 

Right now, if the dynamic input tool skips a file (which it often does!) it just appears as a warning and continues processing. Whilst this is still useful to continue processing, could it be built as an option in the tool to select a 'error if files are skipped'? 

 

Right now it is either easy to miss this is happening, or in production / on server you may want this process to be stopped.

 

Thanks,

 

Andy 

 

 

When writing an expression in a Formula tool, I love that you can just type an open bracket and suggestions pop up that allow you to auto-fill the rest of the variable name. What I find frustrating, however, is that once you type the open bracket, the highlighted field automatically moves to the one where your mouse is pointing, regardless of if you have moved your mouse or not. I think it makes more sense to always highlight the first field in the list and only take mouse position into account once it has actually moved.

 

It is hard to describe in just a picture as opposed to a video but essentially I had my mouse below where I was typing in the screenshot below then when I typed the open bracket, the 3rd field listed automatically got selected even though I never moved my mouse.

 

 

Cc: @Hollingsworth 

The only thing I have ever found that Excel can do that Alteryx can't is creating a pivot table that allows the user to drill up and down levels of aggregation by collapsing or expanding levels in the data hierarchy. (like this). 

 

Can you add an interactive table to the new interactive charting tool that can provide this level of functionality? It's embarrassing to have to tell Excel users they can't do this in Alteyrx, and likely leads many of them to stick to Excel--and miss out on all the other great things Alteryx can do.

 

Thank you! 

Currently when creating a table in Oracle in Alteryx there is a lot of "magic" that happens under the hood in converting Alteryx data types to Oracle data types.

For example fixed decimal creates NUMBER, String created CHAR and V_String created VARCHAR.

It would be great to have an option to review the Oracle data types in the Output Data Tool when writing to Oracle. This would improve efficiency when using Alteryx to create Oracle tables. 

See picture for example of what would display in output configuration. 

. 

I think it would be nice to be able to more easily reorder fields that you're joining by in the Join tool.

 

 

For example, I have already joined by CASS_Address and CASS_City. After I did this, I realized I wanted to go back and join on Name, too, and I want that to be first. How the tool is configured now, if I want Name to be first, I must redo all of the drop downs. I would like to be able to add Name to the next set of open drop downs then use some arrow buttons to be able to move them up in the order (similar to the Summarize tool).

With an increasing number of different projects, involving different machine learning models, it's becoming difficult to manage different package versions across workflows. Currently, the Python tool has a single virtual environment, so we need to develop models in different projects always using the same Python and package versions as the Python tool venv. While this doesn't bother the code itself too much, it becomes a problem as soon as we store and load pickled models, which are sensitive to even minor changes in packages.

 

This is even more so a problem when we are working on the Alteryx server, where different teams might use different packages. Currently, there is only the server admin who can install packages on the server and there can only be one version per package.

 

So, a more robust venv management in the Python tool would be much appreciated!