Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

I know y'all are working on data lineage for some future offering and it is very much needed. For highest quality results, please make logs a primary source of lineage information. Being able to use dynamic naming with some tools and macros makes the names in the workflows simple foobar placeholders and do not reflect what actually happened. Today Connect doesn't use logs and leaves many lineage gaps because of this

Please move this to a more appropriate category if needed. This future feature work is not part of Connect.

Hello all,

My idea is very simple, and this is most likely I'm used to do. After highlighting the fields in the select tool, the next action is to click Options and to apply what to do. My idea is just after highlighting, right click on mouse button to go exactly on Options menu. Just a simple right click. I think this behavior is most likely comes from Microsoft, I'm used to select multiple lines or cells and with right click to do the next action. It's a simple, but powerful. What do you think?

Albert

The DateTime Tool currently displays incoming date-time data types in a dropdown menu and "If no date-time columns are present, the field appears dimmed and shows 'No Suitable Input Fields Available'". However, considering the complexity of date formats, it's beneficial to directly view the data type of incoming date-time data instead of relying solely on visual inspection. While Designer filters options based on string or date/time types automatically, having visibility into the data type ensures a more sound interpretation of the input for analysis purposes.

When making changes to a UI, it would be beneficial if I could move objects horizontally instead of only vertically. Additionally, being able to resize items in the interface designer could improve end user experience. Currently I have List Boxes that are cutting off some words in a workflow and if I could extend the box or wrap the text then I wouldn't lose any context. 

The second idea is the freedom to sort the workflows in collections that I control in anyway that I choose.

I pull data from APIs frequently in my workflow, which has some potential for error if the API is unavailable.  I would love to be able to develop the workflow without having to add in some text box place holders or record count feature to allow the remainder of the workflow to run without error and potentially be able to try the API again so if "Invalid authentication" route to a section that will regenerate an authentication and retry the data call.  I have currently worked out some hacks to be able to work through the issue but it makes the workflow very messy.  A tool like the Detour tour that goes if value contains 400 go this way.  If value contains 200 then close off this container and continue on the other one.   Maybe the request is to allow the detour tool to be set to a specific value and maybe have multiple route options  if A then do connection one,  if B then do connection two or If C then do connection three.

I think it would be very helpful (and very easy) to add metadata to a yxdb with the name and location of the workflow that created or most recently updated that file. Right now I have to add a column to the data frame with a formula tool with the location, which puts the filepath on every single line, and is not how I want to present a finished product dataset to a superior. Thank you!

Currently, you can only type forward in the Description Window in the Meta Info tab.  So once your description is in there for your workflow, you have to retype the information or type it in notepad and save it back in there. It would be nice if you could type on any previous line in that window.

It would be nice to also have some additional fields that appear to be common among the community, such as Data Sources and Purpose.  That way you could use the Description window for version notes and any other notes for the user.

The Directory tool should also retrieve the author/creator name of a file along with an audit trail of anyone that made changes to the file. The audit trail option may need to be a different preparation tool but the information would be useful.

Providing detailed information about inputs, outputs, data sources and assumptions provides useful information to us that may not always be obvious within a workflow, especially one with many tools used. While the comment tool is useful, and I enjoy the customization options, I think some updates to the annotation tool would be useful.

One improvement I would like to see is the ability to summarize and download all annotations to a PDF document; color coding the annotations according to the tool used would also be helpful. Having this information readily available for presentation purposes or for enterprise-wide users of workflows would be beneficial. 

If this is already possible, please let me know!

The Find Nearest tool allows setting a distance in units of miles and kilometers. It would be incredibly convenient to specify units of feet or meters also. I find that in most instances, 1 mile is vastly large for the analysis I am working on and I have to include additional logic to confirm incorrect matching is not occurring.

When opening the File Open dialog in Designer for loading a file from the Gallery, the default location inside the Gallery is set to "All Locations". 

In most of the cases, a developer does not want to work on a workflow produced by a random other person having stored a workflow in the Gallery but on his own workflows. Thus, the default should be "My Private Studio".

Please apply the change to open the file open dialog with "My Private Studio" selected.

Hey team,

I like the profiling function in the browser. Unfortunately, there is not built-in export function. Would it be possible to implement a function to export the profiling results into excel and PDF?

Thanks,

Christoph

I have been creating tools that access API data that needs a valid token that does expire.  I use iterative macros because I sometimes need to do offsets and loop around but I also need to confirm that the token is still valid and there is a limit of how many time you can generate a token on a run so I don't want to regenerate the token on each loop.  I sometimes can use the filter tool to accomplish this goal but I have to do some weird place holder stuff so it does not error if no data is coming through.  A nice to have would be if you could have it configure like you do the radio button input to say if value is YES then keep this part of the workflow on if value is "NO" then turn off this sections.

Hi, I have been using different tools for some time now and now I started using Alteryx. It would be better if you can provide a feature to select particular components of workflow and on clicking Run, only selected components gets executed. It would save lots of config  time and resources. In case none is selected, the workflow shall execute all tools/functions as it is currently running.  I am open to test these features, if approved by Alteryx Team.

Hello,
Frequently when using the 'Show Field Map' option in a Macro Input I utilize an Action Tool with the 'Update Select with Reverse Field Map' action later in the workflow. When trying to use workflow debug to test the functionality of the macro, Designer throws an error stating the 'Action ReverseFieldMap: can't update from a macro input in an Analytic App.' This makes sense since there are no user supplied fields names in the input data stream to use for the reverse field mapping. However, this prevents me from using of the workflow debugger. The workaround is to manually delete the Action Tool prior to using the debugger. I can then test the macro to ensure the proper functionality. I don't expect the fields names to be anything other than those I supplied as Template Inputs to the Macro Input. This workaround is cumbersome especially if the workflow requires multiple reverse mapping actions. Not to mention I have to remember to undo the delete when updating the workflow after testing.

I suggest an automated process is needed to remove any Action Tools using the reverse field map action from a workflow when the debug workflow is being built for testing. If needed, maybe supply a prompt indicating they were removed. This would allow a smoother transition between macro development and debugging. 

Have Alteryx have different colored lines for the different paths that come in and go out from a tool like how Excel colors references in a formula.

Please allow disable or ignore conversion errors in SharePoint List Input. 

In SharePoint List Input I see the same conversion error about 10 times. Then....

"Conversion Error Limit Reached".

Can you simply show the error once or allow users to choose to ignore the error? (Union Tool allows users to ignore errors).

I am not using that SP column in my workflow. Meanwhile I have to show my workflow to a 3rd party within the company. SO annoying to see errors that do not apply to my workflow being shown.

Currently there are forecasting tools under time series (prediciting for the future). But can a back casting function/tool be added to predict historic data points.

It would be neat to add a feature to the Output tool to allow grouping by rows, with all the data related to the group column viewable under a drop-down of the selected field. 

I've heard that this is possible with a power pivot but would be a nice feature in Alteryx.

Ex. A listing of all customers in a specific city -> Group by the "Neighborhood" column, the output should be a list of all neighborhoods in the city, with an option to drop down on each neighborhood to see its residents and their relevant data. 

Thanks!