Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

As my Alteryx workflows are becoming more complex and involve integrating and conforming more and more data sources it is becoming increasingly important to be able to communicate what the output fields mean and how they were created (ie transformation rules) as output for end user consumption; particular the file target state output. 

It would be great if Alteryx could do the following: 

1. Produce a simple data dictionary from the Select tool and the Output tool. The Select tool more or less contains everything that is important to the business user; It would be awesome to know of way to export this along with the actual data produced by the output tool (hopefully this is something I've overlooked and is already offered).

Examples:

• using Excel would be to produce the output data set in one sheet and the data dictionary for all of its attributes in the second sheet.
• For an odbc output you could load the data set to the database and have the option to either create a data dictionary as a database table or csv file (you'd also want to offer the ability to append that data to the existing dictionary file or table. 

2. This one is more complex; but would be awesome. If the workflow used could be exported into a spreadsheet Source to Target (S2T) format along with supporting metadata / data dictionary for every step of the ETL process. This is necessary when I need to communicate my ETL processes to someone that cannot afford to purchase an alteryx licence but are required to review and approved the ETL process that I have built. I'd be happy to provide examples of how someone would likely want to see that formatted. 

Slightly off the track, but definitely needed...

I'd like like to propose a novel browsing.

With this new feature you may no longer require the traditional Browse Tool, to the extent that it may be decommissioned later. Here's how new Browse would work.

So far Browse Tool is helpful for mid-stream data sanity check...

But a complex workflow will need so many Browse Tools, thereby wasting a lot of canvas space and unnecessarily complicating / slowing the workflow further.

Expected Browse:

Clicking on any tool should automatically populate its results in the Results window without the need of Browse Tool.

1) Tools with a single output: Clicking on the tool or its output plug should reveal its data (ex: Summarize Tool)

2) Tools with more than one output: Clicking on each of the output plug should reveal its data (ex: Join)

BONUS: Clicking on the input plug of a tool should reveal its input data

Imagine We have following o/p fields like Name,RegNo,Mark1,Mark2 ,total

Here total can be computed and can be brought as derived field using formula tool.

However  Name and RegNo will be the same in O/p too.

• Instead of Mapping Manually mapping Output_Name to Input_Name, A smart Mapping feature can be introduced so that it can automatically map based on name of the columns.
• Once smart mapping is done,Developer can review and make changes if needed.
• This will reduce the manual intervention of selecting from existing fields.
• Will be helpful when we process 100s of Input data into Output report.

Thanks,

Krishna

All your tools should have a mirror rotate feature.

As a good housekeeping practice, I want to create a workflow where connection lines are crystal clear and do not overlap or mess up with other lines.

Expected:

I want to create my workflows in both directions to make it tidy, as shown here:

Give me the ability to show/hide, enable/disable user interface tools via a control parameter.

Give me the ability to select a date range that limits the available selections for a date tool.  

The limitations should include:

Future dates only

Past dates only

Dates between [startdate] and [enddate]

Future/Previous # years

Future/Previous # months

Future/Previous # weeks

Future/Previous # days

It would be awesome if I could re-display the users selections to them before I continue with the remainder of the workflow in an analytic app. That way, I could collect all of the UI inputs, do my validation on the values provided and then re-display the selections/options/text to the user so they can confirm that they are correct and they wish to continue, or they can stop the processing and make changes via the already-open UI without having to re-enter everything from scratch.

Then, when someone selects something that's potentially harmful or very time consuming, I can confirm their selections and alert them to potential issues.

Would like to see a connector (similar to existing AWS S3 connectors) for Google Cloud storage.  I need to download data from the Developer Play console, and they provide a mechanism for accessing the csv data files directly:

https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/6135870

If we had a Input data connector to browse and select CSV files from Google Cloud (either specifically or dynamically), that would make it much easier than running it via a Python script

Give us the ability to connect a control parameter to an interface tool so that I can change interface elements based on previously entered data when chaining analytic apps together.

This would enable us to:

- have dynamic text for a radio button/checkbox.

- have dynamic text for a dropdown box prompt or a listbox prompt.

- pre-populate a text box based on inputs from a previous selection

- change the min/max and default values on numeric up down input

- default base map, zoom level, reference layer, draw properties

- select the default selected date on a date box as well as changing the prompt for a date box

- change the default file types for a file browse tool

The v10 formula configuration window had two very small advantages.  First, it always had an extra 'line' for another output field (no pressing '+' required).  Second, it defaulted to letting you immediately begin typing the name of the next column (no need to press 'Select Column' then 'Add New Column').   I know these are minor, but every little thing counts when you're doing heavy development.

It has been brought up that the following comments were given during the beta.  While I appreciate the reasoning of requiring 'obvious intention,' my personal opinion is that it is overkill in this scenario.  Even for new users, the old design was quite intuitive.

"Thanks for taking the time to provide feedback! This touches a conversation topic that has been ongoing here at Alteryx. While we want workflow development to be as fast as possible, we also are  trying to address the overall usability of the tool and make sure it is very clear what we intend the user to do. We decided to have the UI ask for an explicit action (pick an existing field to edit or click to add a new field) to help make those options clear, as we have found that users don't always understand from the existing tool that this is the first decision they should make when using the tool. That being said, your feedback is definitely valuable. I will be sure to bring this up as we are making improvements to the new tool and see if there's a compromise that we can make on speed vs. obvious intention. Thanks for taking the time!"

Once you select a data type, making any change to the name of the new field auto-reverts the data type back to V_WString!   I'm very picky about names of fields, so I oftentimes make a change as I think through what that field should be called, and then discover later in the workflow that I cannot do calculations on it (since it's been changed to V_WString).

The default data type for new columns used to be Double, and now it is V_WString.  Is this user-configurable?  I find that, at least in my work, needing a formula to output a Double is way more common than a V_WString.  I'm curious of other community members' thoughts here.  If there isn't a consensus, it would be great to have this be a user-configurable default.

Please consider displaying the count of records identified by the tool in the image of the tool on the workflow screen.  

This will save time when analyzing data: I will no longer need to copy and paste the values into a comment.  The value will be "captured" because I tend to print these particular work flows as pdf's.

Thanks,

Nick

Alteryx has proven very useful in connecting to and processing data in local Cloudera HDFS cluster.  However, like most companies we are moving much of our processing/storage to a cloud environment like AWS and Azure.  A typical security setting is to have this data encrypted within HDFS.  Unfortunately Alteryx does not support this environment.  This could quickly force us to look for different platforms to use unless Alteryx can evolve to support this.

Thank you to @LeahK for suggesting that this should be a separate idea (cc @JulieH; @TaraM, @LeahK, @JoeM😞

The lack of home use / learning editions of Alteryx is a serious mid-term competitive threat factor for Alteryx - and it's well worth both this Alteryx community; and the Alteryx Community Management team making this a key priority for the Alteryx platform.

Rationale:

The BI/Data science space is very competitive (as evidenced by the recent Gartner 2016 Magic Quadrants), and although Alteryx was given very favourable review in some factors - there were serious concerns about licensing costs; and time to productivity.

Clearly - Alterxy succeeds in direct proportion to the size of the active user base - so the question is "How do we increase the licensed / deployed user base" and I believe that there are 3 factors which all relate to the issue of learning-edition alteryx licenses.

a) Time to productivity:   Right now - I cannot ask one of my staff to learn Alteryx at home and prove their capability before paying several thousand dollars to give them a license.   Once I give them a license; it then takes them 2-3 months to become productive, and we run the lottery of finding out whether this person was a good fit for this kind of role in the first place.   Solution:  Make Alteryx available in a learning edition at home with a robust certification program; and a learning progression built in - that way I can tell my staff "I will give you a license once you demonstrate your competence by learning to this level".   How does this help Alteryx: lower time to productivity = more attractive product

b) Size of committed user base:  As tech professionals - we take our tech bias with us to our new role (the "Affinity effect"), and often will have some leverage in tool selection.   The more people know Alteryx and are invested in their Alterxy skill set - the greater this "Affinity effect" will start to show in sales figures.   This also makes the tool more sticky, reducing the defector population if users can see and use latest features at home.

Solution: Give the learning edition away for free - Pentaho spoon is currently free for learning; as is Tableau Public; and MS Power BI is incredibly cheap to learn.   If Alteryx doesn't do this - others definitely will anyway, and this "Affinity Effect" will be washed out.

c) Increase the skill pool in the market:  The more wide-spread the skills are - the more likely I am to purchase a toolset.  So - if Alteryx skills are very broadly available in the market - it's easier to make the purchase decision for Alteryx rather than competitors.   However - right now the skillset growth is severely constrained, so Alteryx is making the "Buy Alteryx" decision needlessly harder.   

Solution: Make Alteryx available for training; learning; & Certification for free.   

Note: Although this is directly contrary to my personal interests in the short term (the smaller the number of people with skillX, the higher the market value), it is also long-term selfish because I will be able to increase the impact within my firm by having access to a greater pool of skilled and instantly productive workers in the market.

Although price may be an issue - this is a separate matter.   I believe that Alteryx can do a lot to create future sales pipeline, and a committed and very sticky user base by providing this home-learning & certification program.   In my mind - this is probably one of the biggest competitive opportunities & threats facing Alteryx right now, given the velocity of this particular industry & segment.

I'd be very happy to talk this through in detail with the Alteryx team if that's helpful (just PM me)

Many thanks

Sean

I am bringing this over from this post.

It would be really cool to have a workflow that you could configure to your server that we could schedule to pull down the new Cass updates and install them. Since they have to be reinstalled every two months, it would help to manage that.

I think that the data updates are set up with an FTP site, Cass could be done essentially the same way. Download it there and then use the command module to run the install? I may be over simplifying the process but it seems like this is something that Alteryx could tackle.

I want to use Alteryx to pull data from a SharePoint List.  This shouldn't be a problem, but I use SharePoint Content Types.  Alteryx won't allow me to import any list that has Content Types enabled; thus rendering the SP list input type not usable. 

My interim workaround is to create a data connection thru excel to the list and then pull the data in that way, but optimally, I would like to pull directly from the list.

Content types are a best practice in SharePoint, so any list or library in my site collection contains them.

Please update the SharePoint list input to support content types.

thank you,

Someone else inquired about this but I didn't see an idea entered /

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Data-Sources/SharePoint-List-Input-Problems-importing-content-types...

Hi, I'm becoming a heavy user of the Documentation Tools known as containers and comments. However, I am currently finding it tedious that I have to alter their settings individually or alternatively have to copy and paste a container or comment that has the formatting I want to replicate the formatting of.

I would like to be able to document the containers and comments quickly and then assess how each of them will be assigned colour and fonts to make the readability of the End to End workflow easier. I find in the Microsoft Office products the copy formatting paint brush is really good for this, it would be great if Alteryx could offer a similar function. 

It's not a world changer in terms of functionality but it would improve the user experience and the speed at which I could produce a tidy ETL workflow using Alteryx. 

Would like to use arrows and other shapes for documentation. Moreover, having "anchors" (i.e., like in a wiki) would really facilitate moving about large workflows. I imagine the former is not hard to implement, though uncertain about the latter.

Check out the mock-up workflow for an admittedly bad example.