Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

When testing an app, I always use the Debug Mode.

However, if I have any files in the app that are using a relative reference (and are not being updated by the app), they continue to have that relative reference in Debug mode.  But in Debug Mode, this Debug workflow is located in a totally different computer location that my app - C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Temp

So when I try to run the workflow in Debug mode, it can no longer find my files that used a relative reference path.

Can you make it so that when you are in Debug mode, the relative references are changed to absolute references so the files can be found?  I find it really inefficient to have to either:

1 - repoint my files that have a relative reference to their locations so they can be found when the workflow is run

2 - save the debug workflow to where the app is located so the relative reference works.

 

Thanks

I think it will be useful if I have an option to add field description when new fields are being created (eg. formula tool, transformation tools etc.)

 

The case for this is I tend to create a lot of calculated fields by combining fields and applying transformations for exploration predictive possibilities, I want to capture description of the fields while they are being created (its not always possible to set the names descriptive enough)

 

As of now I think I can add description using select tool but that's not optimal

 

 

Thanks,

Option to add a description for each newly created filed in all data preparation and transformation steps. Although a description can be added in the select tool but that's an additional tool in already cluttered (most workflows).

My use case for this is I tend to create a lot of fields (dummy, interaction and transformation) for predictive modelling to come up with a best model. I can not always name the same filed in such a way that is descriptive enough but I want to capture my thought on why I created a particular field right when I am creating it.

 

Thanks,

Ashish Singhal

It would be very helpful to be able to export your entire workflow to a poster-sized paper, either in paper or PDF format.  When explaining a workflow to others, or getting feedback, the ability to see the entire workflow or lay it out on a table is very helpful

There is a bug in DateTimeDiff(a, b, "months") whereby if a is a leap day DateTimeDiff() returns a value by less than 1 month.

Please see attached workflow where I demonstrate this bug.

 

I have been using the outputs from Spline Regression to facillitate analysis of demographic data (specifically Department of Labor Quarterly Employment data).  I have data from 1992Q1 to 2014Q1 and use Spline Regression to get fitted values for each quarter with predictors being the year/quarter, Year/quarter multiplied by a dummy variable for each of the 4 US Presidents, and a dummy variable for each president. 
So I can compare results across various groupings by geographic, and other levels as well as the BLS aggregation level. I can analyze raw data or have the values to be fitted indexed to 1992Q1.
I use the default settings for Spline and it builds the best fit including where the node periods for each spline section.  To help interpret the results, though, I use the output to compare the actual vs. fitted values (e.g. employment Level) and then look at the changes by quarter. 
With the spline regression building the best model with optimal line segments, the results make it possible to see how employment progress or regress correletat with with presidential terms of office or specific impacts of economic recessions on employment data.

I can supply an example of the process, if anyone is interested.

I'd appreciate any comments and/or suggestions to improve the process or interpret the results.  

We just updated to 11.7 from 10.5.

 

The Container adding/removing rules were changed somewhere in there and the change made it much harder to remove tools from containers. Is there any way to undo these changes or look into a better set of rules to use?

 

Nick

Hi,

 

I understand that we can find tools that uses formula by ctrl+F. 

I wish we can find text and replace the formula like excel does.

Sincerely,

knozawa

It would be super helpful if there were a way to

1. have an active list of all inputs/outputs that, if the links were changed, would update the connection for every occurance of that input/output in the workflow

2. a similar list of formulas that could could simply reference in a formula tool, so if you have to change the source formula, it's automatically updated in all the linked occurrances of that formula.

Currently we resort to using a manual create table script in redshift in order to define a distribution key and a sort key in redshift.

 

See below:

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/redshift/latest/dg/tutorial-tuning-tables-distribution.html

 

It would be great to have functionality similar to the bulk loader for redshift whereby one can define distribution keys and sort keys as these actually improve the performance greatly with larger datasets

 

One of the common methods for generalization of different types of normal and beta distributions is triangular.

Though Alteryx doesn't have a function for this, even excel doesn't have this but

• SAS (randgen(x, "Triangle", c)) and
• Mathematica (TriangularDistribution[{min,max},c]) like tools include one.

Can we add something like randtriangular(min,mode,max)?

I have my solution attached, but this will ease the flow...

 

 

Best

I'd love the ability to Input an already-formatted Print Layout area within an Excel document, or a .PDF document in an effort to standardize reports needed on a regular basis.

Our department doesn't create everything that rolls into these reports, but we'd love the ability to incorporate external documents and save our company hours.

Is it possible to format an input tool to only look at the Print Area? If not, that capability would be wonderful.

Thanks!

 

It would be a timesaver for workflow documentation if macro metadata could be passed through to the workflow where the macro is deployed.  The image below suggests that the Description encased in the macro could be copied across to the corresponding Annotation panel.  I would also suggest that the Meta Info panel have a checkbox to control this new funtionality.

 

It would be great if there was a way to convert datatypes within the Table Reporting tool.  The specific example that sparked this idea is calculating percentages so they are shown in the report with the decimal place moved over.  Today, within the formula tool I need to calculate the percentage and then multiply it by 100 in order for it to display the way I'd like in the report.  However, if I need to leverage this percentage for another formula I most likely will have to divide the percentage I calculated first by 100 before I continue my calculation.

 

It would be nice to not have to multiply by 100 to move the decimal place over 2 spots and instead use the table tool to convert the number into a percentage we're all used to seeing.  I'm thinking something similar to excel where you can click percentage, currency, etc to convert your number.

We don't have Server.  Sometimes it's easy to share a workflow the old fashioned way - just email a copy of it or drop it in a shared folder somewhere.  When doing that, if the target user doesn't have a given alias on their machine, they'll have issues getting the workflow to run.

 

So, it would be helpful if saving a workflow could save the aliases along with the actual connection information.  Likewise, it would then be nice if someone opening the workflow could add the aliases found therein to their own list of aliases.

 

Granted, there may be difficulties - this is great for connections using integrated authentication, but not so much for userid/password connections. Perhaps (if implemented) it could be limited along these lines.

 

Would it be possible to change the default setting of writing to a tde output to "overwrite file" rather than the "create new file" setting? Writing to a yxdb automatically overwrites the old file, but for some reason we have to manually make that change for writing to a tde output. Can't tell you how many times I run a module and have it error out at the end because it can't create a new file when it's already been run once before!

 

Thanks!

When viewing spatial data in the browse tool, the colors that show a selected feature from a non-selected one are too similar. If you are zoomed out and have lots of small features, it's nearly impossible to tell which spatial feature you have selected.

 

Would be a great option to give the user the ability to specify the border and/or fill color for selected features. This would really help them stand out more. The custom option would also be nice so we can choose a color that is consistent with other GIS softwares we may use.

 

As an example, I attached a pic where I have 3 records selected but takes some scanning to find where they are in the "map".

 

 

Thanks

 

As I understand SFTP support is planned to be included in the next release (10.5). Is there plans to support PKI based authentication also?

 

This would be handy as lots of companies are moving files around with 3rd parties and sometimes internally also and to automate these processes would be very helpful. Also, some company policies would prevent using only Username/Password for authentication. 

 

Anybody else have this requirement? Comments? 

 

I'd like to see some added configuration in the Chart tool to allow more space for the chart legend so that the names of elements don't have to be truncated.  The only way to eliminate truncation right now is to decrease the font size and/or increase the width of the table which also in effect reduces the font size.  This is specifically an issue in "Stacked Column" or similar charts.