Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

My request is to allow tool containers to be enabled or disabled through an action on a Batch macro, just as they are with a Standard macro. This issue was originally raised in Jan-2013. 

At that time @MargaritaW  of Alteryx responded "the tool containers can’t be enabled or disabled through an action on a batch macro, this works fine on a standard macro (this issue has bee added to our log for a fix as high priority)."

It is 8+ years later and I can't find the fix. Using the Detour tool was offered as a workaround, but that is not useful in many cases. Looking at Alteryx own tools developed with macros, Tool Container activation/de-activation is used much more frequently than the Detour tool.

For my particular use case, we receive sets of four files from multiple customers each week. Each file in the set has a different structure.

Requirement:

1. Process each file in a directory, one at a time.

2. Activate/utilize one Input tool based on the file type

3. Execute a file specific workflow 

Here is a link to the original issue that was marked as "solved". The Detour tool workaround does not constitute a solution.

Solved: Enable tool container in batch macro - Alteryx Community

Alteryx please follow through on this 8-year old high priority issue.

Thanks,
Ken

Hi All,

Issue: 

When input <List of Sheet Names>, Alteryx will assign data type and size accordingly.

Example: 

It become a problem, when input with multiple files with wildcard (Input file Book*xlsx).

It will be skipped due to "has a different schema than the 1st file in the set and will be skipped"

Solution:

Very simple, always same data type and size, like in formula tool. V_Wstring, with size 1073741823.

Dear Community,

could you please change the path processing of the alteryx app interface so that we can paste path links with quotation marks without getting an error by the alteryx app?

this would enhance workflow speed because one cannot save folder location for the interface to search for first when browsing files. it always begins at the pc level or something. 

so the workaround would be to just paste the file location path in the browser window of the interface, then pressing browse again to just scroll through the wished folder. 

this idea is not only for the purpose of the workaround but also for itself worth it. 

in windows one can easily copy file paths by holding down shift and right mouse click and the clicking on "copy path" . the copy is in the clipboard which i would like to pass to the alteryx app just like this without the necessity to remove the quotation marks as this costs time and is difficult when paths are long. 

thank you

Hello,

I do not want to go to quick access and then to the downloads folder. Mostly we search on the community and download workflows as well as companying files. to reopen the files which are placed in the downloads folder i have to go there. 

to speed this up, please put a downloads folder quick link to the left bar:

thx

Can we have a comparison tool in Alteryx as we have in Adobe Pro for PDF comparison.

It will be of a great help to multiple people across globe.

I am working with another program that can only output .MIF (MapInfo Exchange Format) spatial files with spatial type "Rectangle". I need to read these .MIF files into Alteryx, but apparently Alteryx doesn't support "rectangle" objects when reading .MIF files.

Using Email tool, you are not able to send email via SMTP server that uses STARTTLS protocol and self-signed certificate for completing the handshake between the client and the server. You face an error:

This is due to the fact that the Alteryx Designer SMTP client uses cURL and it does not read the Microsoft cert store, but instead looks at a specific .pem file listed in the installation directory: {AlteryxInstall}\bin\RuntimeData\Certificates\cacert.pem

I would really appreciate if Alteryx Designer will be able to look into the Microsoft certificates store so that it should be able to use self-signed certificates available there.

Self-signed certificates are often use in the companies in order to get more secures their own communications.

Thanks

please refer to the case #00447188 for more details

The ARIMA tool provides a ton of valuable information with just a small amount of effort.  And the "I" anchor efficiently outputs test results to evaluate the effectiveness of the model.

Annoyingly, in the Browse tool off the "I" anchor, test definitions such as MPE/MAPE/MASE cannot be read when hovering without widening the Configuration window beyond the chart above.   Definitions have a wider range than the chart itself.  The user has to manually widen and then subsequently unwiden the Configuration window to read.

Idea would be for the tooltips when hovering to be as wide as the chart above.  That would avoid repetitive resizing of the Configuration window.

Upper management do not get to be part of the workflow build. When presenting the final product to them as the current solution in pdf print, they complain about the size and the legibility of the workflow. I propose that Alteryx Team could do some enhancement about this feature where large workflows can be automatically printed  with minimal effort where the containers would not break in halves or at ends. It does look confusing for someone who has never seen the workflow before or know what it does. Currently, if we change the settings to any format and any settings, you do see some containers that break and continues on the following page. However, best practice would be to print any workflow without doing a lot of manipulation in the settings and all have few or every container(s) printed on different page(s).

I hope my explanation above made sense to what the ultimate solution should look like. Thanks!

When I bring up the quick menu (right-click) on a tool, under Zoom it lists all the tools to be able to go to quickly. What would be nice to see is a section of connected tools which would show which tools are connected to the tool you just right-clicked on.

Hello --

Not sure if this is possible right now, but here is my use case. I have a file with sensitive data that is not saved in a share drive, but in a personal home drive so only I have access to it.

At this point, I can run a workflow that requires the file -- but I have access to my home drive -- which other uses would not. I want others to be able to run the workflow -- so, you know, when I win the lottery workflows can go on.

I know I can lock a macro. However, if there is an input file in that macro, the user there is still a dependency on having access to where that file is stored.

What would be nice is if there were an option to embed the entire file within the workflow (macro) which could then be locked. The data could be prepared from within the macro only outputting the desired pieces of information and another user could run the workflow only have access to what comes into the workflow from the output.

The owner of the file has a little auditability as they still have an unencrypted version should then need to see what the source data provided looked like.

Please let me know if you would like to discuss further.

Thanks,

Seth 

Hi Team,

It will be great to have a replace all functionality in Alteryx. There are times when we have to change the paths/ field references etc in formulas for a basic WF. The replace all functionality will help replace references in a go.

See this community link for context:

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Knowledge-Base/There-is-no-option-to-clear-the-In-...

tl;dr: 

An option to clear the In-DB File History is not available in the Designer's GUI. If this feature is required, it's recommended to open an Idea on the Alteryx Community to submit an enhancement request.

Please implement this as an idea; I need to clear some In-DB connections that are no longer valid and in a managed environment, accessing the registry is laughable.

Thank you!

I have 10 .txt files that I dragged and dropped onto the canvas. I clicked on the first one and set it to read as a delimited text file. I clicked on the second file, set it up, and then the third, and on and on. You can see where this is going. Generally speaking, I can copy some or all of a tool's configuration by grabbing the XML and pasting it into a target tool. This is also an imperfect solution as it can take plenty of editing, see above case, it doesn't contain the annotation, and it is not a solution for beginners.

What if I clicked on a given tool, clicked an Import Settings button, and it launched a dialogue box? This dialogue box would ask me to select a tool from the canvas. Once selected, it would let me pick some or all of the configuration settings (include the annotation) and apply them to the current tool. If I clicked on a Select tool, the dialogue box would only show other Select tools, and so on.

Again, I know about copying and pasting XML, about editing it, I've even used Sublime to help with the above case. I know about saving Select tool field configurations. i know about saving a formula. I know about copying a tool itself and pasting it elsewhere. These methods have their uses and some apply only to specific tools or situations. This idea transcends them all.

Please craft an Import Settings button that is friendly for beginners and experts alike. While we're at it, please also allow exporting and saving settings. That way, I can use them in other workflows later on.

It would be nice to have 2 tier tool annotations.  

Tier 1 would be akin to an H1 title and serve as a condensed descriptive title the user creates.  

Tier 2 would be analogous to the current annotation option and provide a mechanism to provide specific details regarding the operation being performed by a specific tool (relative to the workflow).

The default might be to show Tier 1 and hide Tier 2.  A user would have the option to show all Tier 2 annotations or chose to show select Tier 2 annotations (much like the current annotation show/hide options).  An alternative option might be two depict Tier 2 as a hover over tool tip.  

Thoughts?

Designer only shows the current log during execution or the most recently executed log in the wf results pane. Please add a button underneath the hamburger menu that allows the user to see all of the logs of this wf executed during this session, or, even better, associated with this wf for all time. Please.

I would like to share my idea that would be definitely useful for fast automation of the process with reading and correctly recognizing the text from PDF input. I wrote about that, hoping somebody has already thought about that here.

The idea is the tools "PDF Input" and "Image to Text" from "Text Mining" category to be improved, so as the text from PDF document to be read properly, no matter the text position on each page. 

It could be also considered the performance of the combined tools of "PDF Input" and "Image to Text" to be improved as they work slower than the customized tool PDF Input does.

The idea also can be expanded to an entirely new tool that works out all the actions, needed for correctly reading of a PDF document without manual intervention.

While there are many keyboard shortcuts, we primarily interact with the workflow using the mouse. In order to improve efficiencies and easily create saving habits, we should have the ability to Save our progress by right clicking on the workflow tab. Ideally, it should have Save and Save As. 

Current:

New:

On the canvas, underneath the Run button, there are zoom out and zoom in buttons. It would be lovely if between them existed a number box indicating the current zoom level of the canvas. This would operate much like my web browser, which typically shows 100% unless I have zoomed in or out. Bonus points if the button is clickable to reset to the default zoom level.