Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

At the moment containers either expand and overlap other tools, or you have to leave space for them (defeating the original purpose of using them). Is there a way we can have the containers expansion shift the workflow so the others tools shift down / right to account for this expanision?

A common problem with the R tool is that it outputs "False Errors" like the following: "The R.exe exit code (4294967295) indicted an error"

I call this a false error because data passes out of the R script the same as if there were no error. As such, this error can generally be ignored. In my use case, however, my R tool is embedded within an iterative macro, and the error causes the iterator to stop running.

I was able to create a workaround by moving the R tool to a separate workflow and calling it from the CReW runner macro within my iterator, effectively suppressing the error message, but this solution is a bit clumsy, requires unnecessary read/writes, and uses nonstandard macros.

I propose the solution suggested by @mbarone (https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Boosted-Model-Error/td-p/5509) to only generate an error when the R return code is 1, indicating a true error, and to either ignore these false errors or pass them as warnings. This will allow R scripts and R-based tools to be embedded within iterative macros without breaking.

Hello,

A few years ago, Alteryx was 4 released per year and now it's only 2 per year (in 2023, as of today, only one !!)

The reasons why I would the cadence to be back to quarter release :

-a quarter cadence means waiting less time to profit of the Alteryx new features so more value

-quarter cadence is now an industry standard on data software.

-for partners, the new situation means less customer upgrade opportunities, so less cash but also less contacts with customers.

Best regards,

Simon

This is a hybrid idea related to both posts regarding dynamic tool configuration during runtime / without having to run an analytic app.

What I would like to propose is a new optional connection type for the interface tools that can be updated with incoming connections (having a Q letter with white background), namely Drop Down, List Box, Tree and Map tools. This could be a simple R letter in a square for example, which would be located to the left of the incoming question anchor.

Use Case

Imagine an app where there are two control containers and three interface tools (Action tools excluded from the count) outside those containers, one of them is a Text Box connected to a filter tool (via an Action tool) in the first control container with the purpose of limiting the dataset by specifying a city for example, another one is a Numeric Up Down for limiting the dataset by the average transaction amounts that are greater than the specified amount. These two interface tools are contained in a Group Box in the Interface Designer.

The third interface tool is a Drop Down tool which obtains the values (which will be Store Name for this example) from the results of the Select tool (in the second control container that is connected to the output anchor of the first control container) that is connected to an incoming filter tool which is modified by the previously mentioned interface tools. Output anchor of this Select tool is connected to the hypothetical R anchor on the top of the Drop Down tool, which is then connected to an outgoing filter tool that is connected to a series of tools which ends with a Browse tool that displays basic KPI information for the store specified from the Drop Down tool.

The main difference of the R (Refresh) anchor from the Q anchor is that it will enable the user to dynamically update the incoming values (i.e., choices for a drop down tool) without having to run the workflow. Alteryx Designer will automatically execute only the tools necessary to be able to update the values (up to a certain point of the workflow only, which may also be indicated by the boundaries of the control containers containing the target tool) for the R anchor connected applicable Interface tools specified above. This will be possible by clicking the hypothetical confirm button (same appearance with the Apply Data Manipulations button) which only appears next to the Interface tools (or the Group Boxes containing them instead) that are automatically determined by Alteryx Designer to be providing downstream data to the the tools (T anchor of the Filter tool for example) sending values to the applicable Interface tools having an incoming R anchor connection.

I saw that a similar feature recently became available with Alteryx Analytics Cloud Platform with the App Builder product, and I think that Alteryx Designer Desktop could definitely benefit both from this feature and additional App Builder features (that can be adapted to Desktop counterpart) in the upcoming releases.

At present, Alteryx allows for users to run 2 versions of Alteryx at once - one installed using the "Admin Installer" and one via the "non-admin installer"

However, in corporate environments, only the Admin Installer can be used (all installers are repackaged for corporate environment / endpoint management)

This leads to a situation were we cannot run two or more different versions of Alteryx on one machine (like you can with Visual Studio or other platforms).   This also prevents us from participating in the BETA program because the BETA version would overwrite the users's current version.    Finally - this also makes version upgrades more risky since we cannot run the new version in parallel for a period to evaluate and identify any issues.

Request: Please can you change the installer for Alteryx to default to parallel install per version - so that a user can run 2019.1; 2019.2; and 2019.2 BETA on one machine in a way that is fully isolated (i.e. no shared components - have to be able to uninstall one instance cleanly and leave the others in a fully functional state).

Many thanks

Sean

Hello!

I'm submiting this idea to put other products into alteryx students program, I think that we (students) should have access to study these products (not only the Intelligence Suite, but Server as well).

After I type something into the filter box, I should be able hit enter and then it just applies my change (ie enter hits the apply button). It used to be this way, but it's not working as of 2021.2. This feels like a very tiny move in the wrong direction. Currently enter does nothing. It looks like if I hit tab twice and then enter, it finds the apply button. I shouldn't have to hit tab twice. 

cc: @Hollingsworth @A11yKyle 

when you render out to an excel file, the excel file is created as a new file.  You cannot render to an existing excel file.

I'd like to see this functionality.  I have a client who has a workbook with multiple formatted sheets and they'd like to render an addiitional sheet of formatted data out from Alteryx into the existing workbook.

Hello all, just another little QoL suggestion!

There have been a few occasions recently where I've been adding some Report Text to a Rendered output and have needed to reference the current date. However, when building a quick formula to do this, I've first needed to add a dummy field within a Text Input tool so that the Formula tool doesn't error due to no incoming connection.

I know I can create a branch off from the main dataset and just use that, but for something simple like this, I find it cleaner to isolate and generate it in this way and so it'd be great if - for situations like this - the Formula tool's input anchor was optional (obviously only when using it to create new fields).

There are likely many other examples where you may want to build a simple workflow (or branch of one), starting with a quick field generated within the Formula tool itself. However, just thought I'd raise this with a scenario I've encountered a couple of times recently.

Cheers!

Hello all,

I really love the DCM feature present in the last two releases. However, I have noticed the Generic ODBC Connection is missing :

Classic Connection Manager :

Data Connection Manager :

Best regards,

Simon

Is it possible to add a search feature to the Summarize Tool that is similar to the search feature in the Select Tool?  Selecting specific fields to summarize in small datasets is fine, but if I am dealing with a table that has 200 fields searching for a specific field can be cumbersome.  Type in a few key letters to filter the available fields would be helpful.

Trying to solve some use cases, I realized that I had to simulate the factorial behaviour.

Having a factorial formula can make this process easier.

Thanks!

Hello,

More and more databases have complex data types such as array, struct or map. This would be nice if we could use it on Alteryx as input, as internal and as output, with calculations available on it.

https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/hive/languagemanual+types#LanguageManualTypes-ComplexTyp...

Best regards,

Simon

It looks like as of 2022.3, workflow tabs get shortened to a specific width. This is fine however now the asterisk that lets me know if my workflow has changed doesn't display in the tab anymore. I would have to look at the top of the screen to see this. I know this isn't a huge deal, but it would be nice to still be able to see the asterisk in the tab so that I can still know which workflows have been saved even if I am currently looking at a different open workflow. One solution may be to move the asterisk to the front of the workflow name.

Also, would users want a setting to allow them to keep full workflow names versus shortening them?

Thanks!

Hi,

I'm not finding it anywhere as a current option, but my company uses branded PowerPoint slides using our logo, these slides are in 16.:9 (widescreen) for slide size, but Alteryx won't output to that size even if I choose custom for page size & have Widescreen selected as an option. Could there be an Advanced Options button added that would allow users more output choices, like choosing the 16:9 ratio size output? Without it, I'm having to output the largest map I can create (13 x 9.75 in Report Map tool) and then stretch/shrink to get it to fit the 16:9 slide...for every single map/slide (currently making 40 maps at once).

Is there a work around to accomplish my goal currently? And if not, could the option be added to the Render tool? Thank you!

It would be helpful to be able to filter within the results window of a Browse tool for all "Not OK" records (records with leading/trailing spaces, embedded newlines, etc.) I can already filter for null and empty values, but this would be helpful for cleaning up data. I want to see the "dirty" data before taking out leading/trailing spaces or embedded new lines to see if there is something I'm missing in the data that needs to be further parsed or modified.

Hi Alteryx community,

It would be really nice to have v_string/v_wstring and max character size as a standard for text columns.

it is countless how many times I found that the error was related to a string truncation due to string size limit from the text input.

Thumbs-up those who lost their minds after discovering that the error was that! 😄

The drop down\list box have numerous ways to list values. One of them that I like is connecting to an external source. You simply have an external source file with a Name column and a Value column. It will display the data in the Name column and pass the data in the Value column. Now suppose instead of connecting to an external source I wanted to use connected tools. Currently, I would have to crosstab this data and the drop down\list box would display and pass the column names.

What if the drop down\list box could have an additional option added where you could connect tools and it would act identically as an external source (display the data in the Name column and pass the data in the Value column). This would be much easier and more functional!

This request is super simple!  I love how Alteryx displays the row count and size of the data passing through each tool at run time.  Can you set the default formatting for the row count indicators to be #,###?  Without the commas, it's hard to easily check the row count once you get more than 6-9 digits.

In the example below, it would be so much more readable if it displayed as 75,640,320.