Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

I would like the ability to adjust the sort order of the tools displayed in the actions tab when creating a Macro, or at least have it conform to some sort order that can be easily identified. I can't currently make sense of this sort order which makes it hard to find the tool I’m looking for.

The Email tool does not send out e-mails after an error occurred in the workflow. Since this usually is a good thing, it sometimes would be helpful being able to send out e-mails also in case of errors.

In particular, I want to send out an e-mail with a detailed and formatted custom error message.

 

Thus, please add a check box "Also send mail in case of errors" which is off by default.

 

Side note: The Event "Send mail After Run With Errors" does not work for me because it is too inflexible. Just sending out the OutputLog is not helpful because the error message might be hidden after hundreds of rows.

 

Hello,

For those unfamiliar, static type checking in Python is a process that analyses your code without executing it, highlighting any potential errors such as type mismatches. An example of this is MyPy (https://github.com/python/mypy), this tool allows developers to easily address issues before runtime - which is a personal gripe of Python (and why I love Alteryx so much).

 

I believe that integrating static type checking, such as MyPy, into Alteryx Designer could vastly improve the users experience. A user of Alteryx Designer expects intuitive feedback - generally through the error red exclamation marks or messages, and this change should align the Python tool to the expected functionality.

 

 

as an analysis software. The result window plays a crucial role.
However, the numbers are not left-aligned, making it difficult to identify the number in the first grant.

and as most coding editor, monospace is recommend. it help to identify text length as well

Suggested Settings Adjustments:

1. Change of Font Type and Size: Include options for different fonts, including monospace.
2. Alignment: Provide options for left, right, and center alignment.

3. Option show whitespace

I would love to have the option to easily disable a section of the workflow while diverting around the disabled tools.

 

I know the Detour and Detour End tools exist, but I think this functionality could be improved.  My idea would be either/both of the following functions.

 

Break links between tools.  Think of a workflow as a circuit board and the connection paths between tools as parts of a circuit.  With every tool connected/enabled the full circuit is complete.  However, if there is a section of the workflow which is temporarily unneeded, it would be great to have the option to break the connection between tools and then reconnect at a later point to complete the circuit.  My idea would be to have the option on a line/path to break the connection temporarily (greying out the tools downstream) and enabling it further downstream.  It's similar to what the Detour and Detour End do, but without needing additional tools on the canvas

 

Everything enabled	[ tool ] ---- [ tool ] ---- [ tool ] ---- [ tool ] ---- [ tool ] ---- [ tool ]
First and last enabled but links to 4 tools in the middle are broken, diverting around them with no other tools needed.	[ tool ] ->( - )<- [ tool ] --/-- [ tool ] --/-- [ tool ] --/-- [ tool ] ->( + )<- [ tool ]

 

Alternatively, if you were to select the unneeded tools in the workflow and place them into a container, then disable it, it could skip those disabled tools without breaking the circuit.
[ tool ] ---- [ tool ] ---- [ tool ] ---- [ tool ] ---- [ tool ] ---- [ tool ]

[ tool ] ->

<- [ tool ] --/-- [ tool ] --/-- [ tool ] --/-- [ tool ] ->

<- [ tool ]

 

Data Connections and Workflow Credentials are key part of migration process for workflows to Gallery.

They are provisioned for each user upon request.

When a developer leaves the organization, there is no easy way to identify all the Data Connections and Workflow Credentials assigned to that user.

Current options in the Gallery is for the Admin to browse through each Data Connection and Workflow Credential, navigate the Users tab and identify the list users. 

 

For a large organization with many Data Connections and Workflow Credentials it will hard to manage this since.

1. If the workflows change ownership, the new owner has to be given access to the Data Connections and Workflow Credentials.

2. Remove user access to the Data Connections and Workflow Credentials.

 

A Gallery page in Admin should include all Assets a user owns/has access to which includes the following. By selecting a user, the list should populate.

1. Workflows
2. Schedules
3. Collections
4. Data Connections
5. Workflow Credentials

 

We have implemented a solution to capture this information by getting the details from MongoDB. Also an automated process where the list goes to the manager when a developer leaves the organization so that he can manage the assets by identifying a new owner for the assets.

 

In the new version, we have an easy way to change ownership of a workflow in Gallery. In the same manner other Assets also should be taken care.

Most tools do not result in record changes: Select Tool, Data Cleansing, Record ID, Formula, Auto Field, Multi Field/Row, etc.  It would be nice to be able to tell Alteryx which tools to display the Connection Progress; specifically the Record Counts.  It would reduce the clutter/noise and allow the Record Counts to only display for the tools that matter to the analyst/user.  Right now it displays for all tools regardless of whether the records changed or not.  My hope would be to tell Alteryx to only display the Record Counts for tools like: Input, Output, Filter, Join, Summarize, Crosstab, Unique, etc. and ignore all other tools.

The Predictive tools, such as Linear Regression, come with the Alteryx Predictive Tools download, which is in the Alteryx Designer license download option. You have to click Download, then click the radio button for the version you want and click next, then have to download the Alteryx Designer AND the Alteryx Predictive Tools. This has caused confusion - based on the name (Predictive Tools), many, including myself, thought that they would be a part of the Alteryx Intelligence Suite license; I didn't have that, so thought I couldn't use them. But it turns out that they aren't a part of the AIS license, but the regular Alteryx Designer license. I just had to go through that confusing process of downloading Alteryx Designer and Alteryx Predictive Tools. To help customers avoid confusion and make it simpler, it would be awesome to have a single option that would get me both (just having to download Alteryx Designer instead of Alteryx Designer AND Alteryx Predictive Tools).

 

When jobs have run successfully in scheduler, retain a baseline average so when items are in the queue much longer than normal, an alert can be sent.

This will allow us to kill stuck jobs and free up resources.

Hi,

 

I appreciate this could be a repeat of this topic but I'm not able to find it easily if it is. 

 

I want to locate a column in my results window with a simple search functionality. I'd like to search for a column and then it'll present back to me potential columns that I could then select to move me to in the results window. It's painful with a lot of columns to keep scrolling to find the one you're after:

 

 

All the best,

BS

 

When a workflow group is created/saved, could it by default always open the tabs in the order they were in when the Workflow Group was created?

 

As of now, the workflow tabs open at some undeterminable order and the user must take great care to switch from tab to tab in intended order. Sometime they are in the "correct" order, other times they randomly appear in different order. 

I would like the ability to configure a default naming convention for yxdb files created through the "Cache and Run Workflow" feature.  For example, the naming convention could be <YXMD filename>-<ToolID>-<CreatedDateTime>.yxdb.

 

This would make it easier and faster to identify and re-use yxdbs.

When running a job in the gallery, a file output has to be chosen every time, even if there is no other option. I propose that under "My Profile >> Workflow Defaults" users be able to choose a preferred default file format for outputs. If it is available then the gallery will automatically choose that, otherwise the user can pick. 

I work with lots of Excel files, and because they don't always consistent schema, I'm often changing the configuration.

The default Window frame/window for the "Options" panel in the Input data tool only shows 3-4 rows, plus title (the section in RED in the image below).  As I have large screens 

 

The panel size can be resized by dragging the line above the "Preview (first 100 records)".  However, once I move from this tool, if I return to the tool, it defaults back to 3-4 rows, plus title.

 

I would like to be able to set the default size of the Options panel/frame/window.

• This would improve my efficiency when setting up flows
• This would improve debugging - I would be able to see all my parameters at a glance

 

I was exploring how to make the Outlook 365 tool run faster, and I noticed in my Action tool that there are Start and End Date parameters. However, they come across as these large numbers. I learned today from Alteryx Support that "The numbers you provided for StartDate (1725163200000) and EndDate (1726751052709) represent Unix timestamps in milliseconds. Unix timestamps indicate the number of milliseconds that have passed since January 1, 1970, at 00:00:00 UTC."

 

While I am attempting to build a custom macro myself, it feels like this enhancement could just be included in the tool itself! Relatively simply conversion using DateTimeDiff([#1],"1970-01-01 00:00:00",'milliseconds') 😊

 

Edit: it's there for the Calendar option, but ideally it could be included for the Email option too! And while you can you the search parameters, we could make it easier for the user.

Whenever I start something in Alteryx Designer which takes some time (e.g. opening a workflow), and I want to do something in another application in the meantime (e.g., Explorer), Alteryx Designer repeatedly catches the Windows focus back and brings Alteryx Designer to the front, interrupting my work in the other application. And Alteryx does this really multiple time during an action (often multi times per second), not even only when finished, causing me to  have to press Alt-Tab multiple times to get the other window in the front again).

 

First, this is annoying: If I purposely select a different tool to be in the front I want to work in that tool and not be disturbed by a different tool that catches the focus back.

Second: This cannot be good for performance. Sending the "I want the focus" signals to Windows also takes time.

 

Suggestion:

Switch off all requests for getting the focus in entire Alteryx Designer. Instead, the Alteryx entry in the task bar might blink once or twice in green when the background action is completed.

If there are people who like this catching focus thing, then please introduce a setting so that it's possible to switch it off.

From my perspective, the Text Input tool would benefit from some adjustments.

 

Allow set the column data type in the tool

 

Currently, Alteryx tries to identify the data type of a column based on the input. But is "1" a bool, integer, or a string? Of which type is an empty field? Quite often, Alteryx does not select the intended data type. 

Example:

Idea: Allow to define the data type in the Text Input tool:

 

Improve input window for long content

 

Currently inputting long text to Text Input cells is nearly impossible. Extending the window size is also limited. Please allow horizontal scrolling within a cell and/or line breaks within cells.

When using "Find and Replace", the content of the search term field ("Find") is cleared when switching between workflow windows. From my perspective, there's no reason for that. Why does Alteryx Designer decide that I don't want to search for the same term in another workflow?

 

Please change that behaviour that content in "Find", "Search Locations", and "Replace:" are preserved when switching between Designer windows.

Cache function is very useful when executing very long db request.

I'd like to see a checkbox option (in workflow runtime settings for example) to enable/disable automatic caching of first execution for all inputs tools.