Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

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Ok the time has come to expand functionality in the record ID tool. I would like the ability to restart the counter based on a field (e.g zip code). You can do it quickly in Tableau (see image) so why not have this functionality readily available in Alteryx? Sure, you can already do it in Alteryx - the long way - with the generate rows tool, look at previous/active row with certain condition and do +1 or something like that.

Having a simple restart counter in Record ID tool just makes sense. It's intuitve to have it there, and it's easier to use than generate rows tool. IMHO also easy to develop by Alteryx and +1 for Alteryx in gartner magic quadrant! 

 

 

RecordID2.JPG

Need to allow Aliases to work with the Google Sheets Input / Output tools, so that I can input API keys in one place to service multiple tools.  I know I can do this via Macros, but I also know it's best practice to avoid nesting macros.

 

 

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Hi all,

 

I often feel like workflows can easily become overly cluttered with Browses, especially around Join and other multi-output tools. I need to see the output of most of the data streams, so I can't necessarily just delete the Browses and be done with them (as I'll like need to see them over and over again).

 

To solve this problem, Alteryx could potentially add a "nested browse" view or tool. I've attached a picture to show what I mean. This would unclutter the area right after multi-output tools significantly.

 

What are your thoughts? Have I missed any neat trick or functionality that can already do something like this?

 

 

Nested Browse View IdeaNested Browse View Idea

Frequently with more complicated tool configurations I end up having to setup certain elements over and over again.  Would be great to have a one click "use this as the default" configuration that would follow my profile and apply to all future drags of that tool onto the workflow.  Configuration elements that depend on the input fields would not be impacted.

 

Also an apply all feature to apply the similar configuration elements to all tools of the same tool type.

 

Example Configuration Elements

Comment Tool - Shape, Font, text Color, Background Color, Alignment...

Tool Container - Text Color, fill color , border color, transparency, margin

Table Tool - Default Table Settings

Union Tool - "Auto config by name", Actions when fields differ

Data Clensing - all configuration elements

Sample - all configuration elements

 

Would be extremely useful if the Summarize Tool had an option in the numeric menu to Standardize the data.  More often than not, data sets will not have the same count of variables which makes the comparison analysis meaningless.  Currently, there is no easy way to Standardize the data without using the K-Centroids Cluster Analysis tool or standardize_unit interval supporting macro. 

All the tools in the interface should be populated and assigned/selected with dynamic values.

 

Now we have the option of populating a set of values for Tree/List/Dropdown.

But we do not have the selecting some of them by default / while its loading.

 

And Other controls like TextBox/NumericUpDown/CheckBox/RadioButton also should be controlled by values from database.

 

For example If I have a set of three radio buttons, I should be selecting a radio button based on my database values while the workflow loading.

 

 

I'm wondering about migrating from SAS DATA STEP to Alteryx tools and R...

 

Idea is to parse DATA STEP, replace data loading, preperation, filetring, formula and iterative flows with native Altryx tools and

for the rest, PROC's etc will be replaced by R packages... Wouldn't that be like magic?

 

 

Picture1.png

 

 

If I have a .zip file with multiple files of the same format and layout included, would like to be able to have those read in with 1 input tool.  I also have several large national files split by state that are zipped separately in a folder, so it would be nice to have the ability to use the wildcard functionality in 1 input tool to read all separate files.

We are enjoying the new functionality of pointing to a .zip file in the input data tool and reading in .csv files without having to manually unzip the file.  We process a lot of SQlite files so having that as an option would be great.  We also have several clients that supply .zip flat fixed lenght files with 100+ fields that we have mapped and having the functionality to use the Flat File Layout tool and Import the mapping file that has already been completed would be very helpful also.  The current workaround is to read in as a csv with \0 as the delimiter but we then have to substring to parse each field and rename.

We often build very large Alteryx projects that breakdown large data processing jobs into multiple self contained workflows.

 

We use CReW Runner tools to automate running the workflows in sequence but it would be nice if Alteryx supported this natively with a new panel for "Projects"

 

Nice features for Projects could be:

  • Set the sequence
  • Conditional sequence
  • Error handling
  • Shared constants
  • Shared aliases
  • Shared dependencies
  • Chained Apps
  • Option to pass data between workflows - Input from yxmd Output - no need to persist intermediary data
  • Input/output folder/project folder setups for local data sources in dependencies window
  • Ability to package like "Export Workflow" for sharing
  • Results log the entire project

Development can get super slow for larger workflows with the automatic syntax checking.  Would be nice to flip to "Pro Mode" that pauses the syntax checking until either un-paused or a run is kicked off to save on the wait time between tools during development and more particularly going back to make numerous changes.

Modify the taskbar icon while according to workflow status to provide a visual queue when workflows are running/completed, like the SAS running man or the Teradata sunglasses... The Alteryx A could be going places.

runninga.png

 

I'll admit it, I'm a coder, a keyboard guy, a sublime text typing junkie; but I love Alteryx.  Currently if I open a new workflow and start typing what happens? nothing... Wa wa.  Now lets imagine I'm already pretty familiar with Alteryx and I'm 5 moves ahead of my click and drag. 

 

Wouldn't it be wonderful if I could click a whitespace and start typing?  Typing would bring up a context menu search with tools found by the search (similar to the "search all tools" in the upper left corner, but next to the cursor, and vertical).  I could continue typing until one tool was left or select a tool using my cursor keys. Hitting 'Enter' would insert the tool where I had originally clicked and open another tool search window, selecting the next tool would automagically connect the two and on down the line (if multiple leg outputs exist for the tool the context menu would appear allowing me to select the leg I want it to connect to, hitting Enter would again bring up the tool search...

 

Now get this, go back to just after my first search... if instead of Enter I hit the "Tab" key, boom, it would take me to the configuration panel and allow me to fill in/tab through the configuration.  Hit enter again and I'm off to the races with another tool search.

 

All you click and draggers don't lose any functionality, and we keyboarders can swiftly race through development with ease.  How about that?  (the standard syntax check/path validation would need to be paused to keep development quick until I clicked again on the workflow which would execute the Rapid development mode.)

Having the ability to minimize the toolbar would allow more screen space.  Once minimized, the tools should display when you hover over the tool category tab.

Currently, the results window returns varying column widths, not related to the width of the data.  We are able to select an individual column and double click the edge to auto fit the column to the data.  It would be helpful to have all columns automatically fit, and allow us to select multiple columns to adjust at the same time.

I'm looking to optimize how we allocate licenses at our organization.

Seeing who has a registered license via the public Gallery has been helpful; but is there a way we can quantify usage?

Possibly a tool usage or an overall workflow run count?

I have a dual monitor setup. My canvas lives on the left monitor, and I combine tool config and results on the right monitor. I've noticed that it's incredibly difficult to resize the config vs results window size. This is because you have to hover over EXACTLY the right part of the divider until the resize icon appears, as below:

 

resizeAlteryx.PNG

 

The difficulty arises because the target zone, over which the cursor changes from an arrow to the resize tool, is only 1 pixel wide. If you have a high resolution screen, or a slightly fiddly mouse, it's almost impossible to successfully hover over the correct place. Please consider increasing the width of the hover zone to facilitate window resizing. I hope I've explained this adequately, please let me know if I need to amend. Thanks!

I noticed that Tableau has a new connector to Anaplan in the upcoming release. 

 

Does Alteryx have any plans to create an Anaplan connector? 

I find that when I'm using Alteryx, I'm constantly renaming the tool connectors. Here's my logic, most of the time:

I have something like a Join and 3 browses.

  1. I name the L join something like "L: on product/location join"
  2. I then copy that descriptor, and past it in the Annotation field
  3. I then copy that descriptor, select the wired connector, and paste that in the connection configuration

MY VISION:

Have a setting where I could select the following options:

  • Automatically annotate based on tool rename
  • Automatically rename incoming connector based on tool rename

alteryx auto rename example.PNGTHE GUTS/REQUEST:

If I rename a tool, and "Automatically annotate based on tool rename" is enacted, it will insert that renaming at the top of the annotation field. If there is already data in that field, it will be shifted down. If I rename a tool and "Automatically rename incoming connector..." is on, then the connection coming into it gets [name string]+' connection' put into its name field. I included a picture of the end game of my request.

 

Thanks for your ear!

 

I'm still relatively new, so I trust someone will correct and instruct me if this already exists. I have looked and have not been able to find it.

 

It would be nice if there was an option to return the standard 2 letter abbreviations for states from the Allocate Input tool's "Pick Variables" "geographic Identifiers." Currently, the only identifiers available are "Key" an"Name":

 geographic identifiers.gif

Where, Key is numeric ("02", "44", etc.), and Name is the full state Name. In order to join to most of our databases, I usually need this to be the standard 2 letter abbreviation. This forces me to join to another database table to translate it.

 

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