Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

We frequently have issues where users report slowness from an Alteryx installation on a particular machine; or where a specific tool or package fails to install correctly.

For our admin teams - this becomes a debugging exercise to go through different permutations to understand the cause - and if this is escallated to Alteryx Support, this becomes even tougher.

Could we think about including a basic "Self Diagnostic" in to Alteryx which runs through the basic functionalities of Alteryx with some basic timings; checks that Python is working correctly; checks the memory allocation and temporary disk space - and then either persists this to disk and/or sends to a central environment for analysis?

Given a large deployed environment like ours (over 10 000 seats deployed) - self-checkout-telemetry like this would provide the central team with massive increase in their ability to manage the deployed base; and at the same time signficantly reduce the time to resolve support issues.

When I import an Excel file in to Alteryx I get an error: “shared strings root=x:sst” and Alteryx cannot read the file.

I can work around this by manually opening and saving the excel before importing it into Alteryx but this is not ideal, especially considering the automation implications.

I believe this may be happening because the XLSX generated by the source of the report has a prefix “x:” in all the tags in the Shared String XML embedded in Excel. See: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/open-xml/working-with-the-shared-string-table 

Essentially, it would appear Alteryx is not able to read generated Excel sheets which has the prefix "x:" (e.g. from a bot). The second file which has been opened and saved in Excel manually can be read by Alteryx correctly.

Example of file as exported from ”BOT”:

How the same file looks once it is manually opened and saved:

Ideally Alteryx would read the file as is, i.e. with the "X:SST" tag seen above as having to manually open and save the excel before it can be read is rather clunky.

Thanks!

We have 'CountDistinct' and 'Concatenate' options within Summarize tool. 

But 'Concatenate' displays all the instances of value for a Grouped field, this might include lot of duplicates.

It would be great to have an option like 'ConcatDistinct'.

For example - 

Group by 'Branch' and 'ConcatDistinct' Customer should result as Figure 1 instead of Figure 2 - 

Figure 1-

Figure 2-

While this is achievable in different ways currently with a set of tools, but it gets tedious when number of fields is large from which distinct values are to be captured. 

Thank you,

Rohan.

Hello All,

I believe there needs to be a new tool added to Alteryx. I am frequently encountering cases where I will have 0 data point feeding a workflow stream that causes my workflows to fail. Because of this, I am having to put in fail safes to keep this from happening.

There should be a tool that if there is no records that are passing into it, anything after that tool will not fail.

For an example, within a workflow I am using a dynamic input that will pull a dynamic file. The file is not always there and the workflow should be able to run if that file is there or not. If the dynamic tool and other tools would process 0 records without failing this would also solve the issue. 

I would be nice to have a tool that will  block off the work stream if there are 0 records passing through the tool. 

When building out Alteryx workflows there may be a need to read in different ranges within the same Excel spreadsheet. For example bringing in a table from Sheet1, but also isolating a table name in a particular cell (in my example cell C8).

When turning this into an analytic app, with a file browse is to add an action tool with the default value of "Update Input Data Tool".

However when specifying this option within the analytic app interface, you are only allowed to chose one option of the following:

i) Select a sheet

ii) Select a sheet and specify a range

iii) a named range or

iv) a list of sheet names.

The problem is in the example above I need a sheet and a range, but I want to avoid adding two file browse interface tools as it shouldn't be needed. If the user selects (i) then it loses the reference to cell C8, but I would imagine a lot of users as they get started with apps don't realise this is what will happen.

There is however a way to solve this currently and it requires overwriting the default behaviour and configuring the second action tool (the one that updates the file for C8), to update value with a formula, where you assume the user would select sheet name and then use this formula:

replace([#1],"$`","$C8:C8`")

However I would argue that this has a lot of technical debt, plus if the user needs to modify where the header is, for example to D8 they need to change the input file and the action tool so it works as a workflow and an analytic app.

Solution

Like how the configuration options for the input file, such as which row to input data from or whether first row contains data is maintained, modify the behaviour of the default option in the action tool to maintain references to ranges.

A few suggestions that I think can improve the Sharepoint Files Output Tool:

1. Maybe I'm missing it, but I cannot see how you can delete a file from the output list once you've added it:
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2. Have the write headers output checkbox ticked by default as I expect this is the more common expectation:
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3. Take the file extension by default based on the users selection in the Options tab as I shouldn't have to write .xlsx for the extension:
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   2. 

       

@VojtechT 

Hi,

A lot of companies now are deploying on both AWS and Microsoft Azure.

Alteryx supports AWS S3 object storage out of the box, it would be important to support Microsoft Azure blob as part of the native Alteryx product as well. 

Cheers,

Adrian

While I was trying to integrate Alteryx workflows into modern data catalogues got me thinking about the transformation lineage. To integrate the transformations into those applications, an understanding of what transformations are happening and in what order is needed. Why not take this one step further for documentation use?

So my suggestion is:

Create a natural language description of the transformations and sequencing of a workflow. This could be used as the default descriptions and exported as a readme file for reviewing (e.g. during workflow handover activities), adding workflows to version control or project plans. 

I will start off with a story. I have built a process to manage batch API requests. It's an iterative process that checks to see where the export is at by calling an API and then returning some status. It will run and wait and run and wait until the export is ready to be downloaded. However sometimes, the jobs don't finish and a status returns something like "failed" or "cancelled". When this is the case, I have my process (which is a little bit batch macro) kicks off an error message, using the nifty error message tool. After some time I noticed that it was a PAIN to go back and figure out which of my requests failed and I decided that I need to add some messaging around where this was failing, so I could do some easy auditing. So I go back into my tool and much to my chagrin, I cannot pass variables into the message section. I would expect it to have worked something like this:

"Record "+[#2]+" is not 'A'"

Can we please get a change to this. It would save a lot of time and energy if we could create a dynamic error message option.

TL;DR Please allow us to use formulas in the "If expression is true, display error message:" settings area.

When we create new workflows, we like to have them in our company template, to stnadardise documentation. This makes it easier for a supervisor to review, and for a colleague to pick up the workflow and understand what is going on. For instance, we have all data input on the left, and all error checks and workflow validation on the right, and a section at the top with the workflow name, project name, purpose etc. We have a workflow that we use as a template with containers, boxes and images all in the appropriate places

It would be great if there was an option to select a workflow as a template. When a new workflow is opened, it would load this template rather than having a blank canvas.

The SQL Editor window could have a better presentation of the SQL code; two issues observed

• First, that it's simply plain text without even a fixed-width font, much less syntax highlighting
• Second, if you type in some manually formatted SQL code (e.g. with line feeds and indentation), then click on the "Visual Query Builder" button, then click back to the "SQL Editor" button, all the formatting is lost as it is converted to one run-on line of code, which is very difficult to read.

I understand that going between the Visual Query Builder and the SQL Editor is bound to have some issues; nonetheless the "idea" is to allow a user friendly display in the SQL Editor window:

• Use a fixed width font, (should be trivial to implement)
• SQL formatter, implementation ideas can be found here: https://github.com/TaoK/PoorMansTSqlFormatter
• SQL syntax highlighting, implementation ideas can be found here: https://github.com/jdorn/sql-formatter

My "implementation ideas" are based on a couple minutes with google, so hopefully this is a very feasible request; my user base is very likely to spend more time in the SQL editor than not, so this would be a valuable UX addition.  Thanks!

As of today, for a full refresh, I can :

-create a new table

-overwrite a table. (will drop and then create the new table)

But sometimes, the workflow fails and the old table is dropped while the new one is not created. I have to modify the tool (setting "create a new table")to launch it again, which may be a complex process in companies. After that, I have to modify it again back to "overwrite".

What I want :

-create a new table-error if table already exists

-overwrite a table-error if table doesn't exist

-overwrite a table-no error if table doesn't exist (easy in sql : drop if exists...)

Thanks!

This has probably been mentioned before, but in case it hasn't....

The dynamic input tool is useful for bringing in multiple files / tabs, but quickly stops being fit for purpose if schemas / fields differ even slightly. The common solution is to then use a dynamic input tool inside a batch macro and set this macro to 'Auto Configure by Name', so that it waits for all files to be run and then can output knowing what it has received. 

It's a pain to create these batch macros for relatively straightforward and regular processes - would it be possible to have this 'Auto Configure by Name' as an option directly in the dynamic input tool, relieving the need for a batch macro? 

Thanks,

Andy 

I would like Alteryx to offer a native Fuzzy Join tool that allows two datasets with completely different schemas to be joined using Fuzzy matching logic (Dice coefficient algorithm, Levenshtein distance algorithm, etc.). Any matches would be output to a new table with either exactly matched or fuzzy matched primary and secondary records. I want this tool be supported by Server as well.

Statistics are tools used by a lot of DB to improve speed of queries (Hive, Vertica, etc...). It may be interesting to have an option on the write in db or data stream in to calculate the statistics. (something like a check box for )

Example on Hive : analyse {table} comute statistics; analyse {table} compute statistics for columns;

DearAlteryx team and community,

all the best for 2021!

Thank you very much for enhancing the output option from Alteryx Designer to Excel keeping the format.

For a lot of my use cases this is very helpful!

Still, there are some use cases left. In case I want to overwrite a calculated/linked number (e.g. calculated prediction) with the Actual number, it would be very helpful to feed into those cells as well. At the moment Alteryx is doing the job but I receive a lot of Excel Errors (xml errors) and a corupt Excel file when overwriting calculated fields/linked fields.

Is there a chance to extend the current setup for all of those cases?

Thanks and best regards

Chhristoph

Hello,

In Datascience, Levenshtein and Jaro Winkler distances are used to quanitify a similarity between two strings.

Here the wikipedia pages
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levenshtein_distance

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaro%E2%80%93Winkler_distance

Note 1 : the Levenshtein and Jaro Distances are already used in Fuzzy Matching tool, so that shouldn't be a huge work to include it in formula
Note 2 : there is a useful macro on the galley https://gallery.alteryx.com/#!app/LevenshteinDistance/5c54701f826fd30988f02779
Note 3 : some product already have it implemented such as Apache Hive or Qlik Sense

Best regards,

Simon

Hello!
Currently i develop on a 2560 x 1440 monitor, and it is great for development of Alteryx workflows. 

However, from an accessibility perspective (and for demonstration purposes), the whole of the Alteryx Interface text and icons are far too small for anyone to read. For instance, this is what Designer looks like at the most common monitor size, 1920 x 1080:

And at my native resolution (2560 x 1440)

And 4k resolution, for comparison:

As you will notice - virtually everything is smaller, and unreadable at higher resolutions. It doesn't appear that this is a setting within Alteryx, and so I have to resort to windows settings to change the size:

Or as @CharlieS mentions here change the size of text across all applications.

It would be useful within Alteryx to have a 'scaling' slider/dropdown, so I do not have to change the resolution or size of applications within windows, to be able to easy read or demonstrate data from Alteryx Designer. 

Thanks,
TheOC

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.