Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Problem: In certain workflows, it becomes necessary to arrange columns in a specific order for the output. While achieving the desired order for a fixed number of columns is feasible using the select tool, difficulties arise when dealing with dynamic outputs that introduce new columns during each workflow run.

 

Example: Consider the following scenario: the INPUT data for the select tool includes a set of Question/Answer columns. However, with every run of the workflow, new columns of this type are introduced. The challenge is to ensure that Question N and Answer N columns are grouped together in the OUTPUT dynamically. Unfortunately, this task is not easily accomplished using the current capabilities of Alteryx.

 

INPUT:

Company	Question 1	Question 2	Question 3	Answer 1	Answer 2	Answer 3
Contoso	Blah	Bleh	Bly	N	Y	N

 

DESIRED OUTPUT:

Company	Question 1	Answer 1	Question 2	Answer 2	Question 3	Answer 3
Contoso	Blah	N	Bleh	Y	Bly	N

 

 

With Python/Pandas, this problem can be easily resolved by assigning index values to each column and then sorting the columns based on the assigned index:

 

 

So, based on the Python solution, if Alteryx could do the same, it would be great. I personally think that if the Dynamic Rename tool could held the Index Info, and the select tool could also held the Sort option, this would work.

 

Dynamic Rename: Already can hold Description info, could hold Index Info.

 

Select tool: Could sort by index and hold this info when the workflow is saved.

 

Hope this all make sense.

 

Thanks.

Currently, when a new version of Alteryx Designer is released, you get a banner at the top of your Designer to upgrade. You can manually select to disable this for up to 30 days. 

 

However, this is really causing issues with Server compatibility. Users get notified to upgrade, thinking it's from the Server owners and upgrade then is no longer compatible with Server. Alternatively, it causes differences between users, etc. 

 

It would be ideal that it would be disabled in general but also controlled when software is pushed to machines through IT policies.

I noticed through the ODBC driver log that Alteryx doesn't care about the kind of base I precise. It tests every single kind of base to find the good one and THEN applies the queries to get the metadata info.

 

Here an example. I have chosen an Hive in db connection. If  I read the simba logs, i can find those lines :

Mar 01 11:37:21.318 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select USER(), APPLICATION_ID() from system.iota

Mar 01 11:37:22.863 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select USER as USER_NAME from SYSIBM.SYSDUMMY1

Mar 01 11:37:23.454 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select * from rdb$relations

Mar 01 11:37:23.546 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select first 1 dbinfo('version', 'full') from systables

Mar 01 11:37:23.707 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select #01/01/01# as AccessDate

Mar 01 11:37:23.868 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: exec sp_server_info 1

Mar 01 11:37:24.093 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select top (0) * from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.INDEXES

Mar 01 11:37:24.219 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: SELECT  SERVERPROPERTY('edition')

Mar 01 11:37:24.423 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select DATABASE() as `database`, VERSION() as `version`

Mar 01 11:37:24.635 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select * from sys.V_$VERSION at where RowNum<2

Mar 01 11:37:25.230 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select cast(version() as char(10)), (select 1 from pg_catalog.pg_class) as t

Mar 01 11:37:25.415 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select NAME from sqlite_master

Mar 01 11:37:25.756 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select xp_msver('CompanyName')

Mar 01 11:37:26.156 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select @@version

Mar 01 11:37:26.376 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select * from dbc.dbcinfo

Mar 01 11:37:26.522 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: SELECT @@VERSION;

 

 

 

 

I can understand that when Alteryx doesn't know the kind of base he tries everything.. (eg : in memory visual query builder) but here, I have selected the Hive database and I have to loose more than 5 seconds for nothing.

There is an extensive need from customers to be able to create emails but not send them (right away at least).

I'm in the banking sector and I have been seeing many banks using Alteryx and Alteryx server in their routines. Also, when it comes to sending automatic e-mails in this sector, its very risky. We need a "four eyes check" when dealing with clients information. Currently there is no workaround that could be applied to e-mail tool when used in Alteryx server as well.

My idea is to simply create a button "Save in draft" in e-mail tool to create an .eml format as output. This .eml can be read by outlook and thus, it creates a draft.

This also should be taken into account when dealing with drafts in alteryx server, so that any user can run the workflow and get the desired draft.

Thanks

Hi Community Microsoft wil deprecate basic Authentication, so users will need OAuth2 to be included in the email tool. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/clients-and-mobile-in-exchange-online/deprecation-of-basic... Microsoft is removing the ability to use Basic authentication in Exchange Online for Exchange ActiveSync (EAS), POP, IMAP, Remote PowerShell, Exchange Web Services (EWS), Offline Address Book (OAB), Outlook for Windows, and Mac. This change will be efective on October 1, 2022. Best regards, JP

When creating a connection using DCM (example being ODBC for SQL) - the process requires an ODBC Data Source Name (see screenshot 1 below).

However, when you use the alias manager (another way to make database connections) - this does allow for DSN-free connections which are essential for large enterprises (see screenshot 2 below).    

 

NOTE: the connection manager screens do have another option - Quick Connect - which seems to allow for DSN-free connections, but this is non-intuitive; and you're asked to type in the name of the driver yourself which seems to be an obvious failure point (especially since the list of all installed drivers can be read straight from the registry)

 

Please could we change DCM to use the same interfaces / concepts as the alias screens so that all DCM connections can easily be created without requiring an ODBC DSN; and so that DSN-free connections are the default mode of operation?

 

 

 

Screenshot 1: DCM connection:

 

screenshot 2

 

cc: @wesley-siu  @_PavelP @ToddTarney 

 

 

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! 😄

Hi UX interested parties,

 

 

Here are some ideas for you to consider:

 

1.  These lines are BORING and UNINFORMATIVE.  I'd like to understand (pic = 1,000 words) more when looking at a workflow.  

• A line could communicate:
  • Qty of Records
  • Size of Data
  • Is the data SORTED
    • What sort order
  • Quality of Data 

If you look at lines A, B, C in the picture above.  Nothing is communicated.  Weight of line, color of line, type of line, beginning line marker/ending line marker, these are all potential ways that we could see a picture of the data without having to get into browse everywhere to see the information.  If we hover over the data connection, even more information could appear (e.g. # of records, size of file) without having to toggle the configuration parameters.

 

2.  Wouldn't it be nice to not have to RUN a workflow to know last SAVED metadata (run) of  a workflow?  I'd like to open a "saved" workflow and know what to expect when I run the workflow.  Heck, how long does it take the beast to run is something that we've never seen unless we run it.

 

3.  I'd like to set the metadata to display SORT keys, order.  Sort1 Asc, Sort 2 Desc ....   This sort information is very helpful for the engine and I'll likely post about that thought.  As a preview, when a JOIN tool has sorted data and one of the anchors is at EOF, then why do we need to keep reading from the other anchor?  There won't be another matched record (J) anchor.  In my example above, we don't ask for the L/R outputs, so why worry about the rest of the join?

 

4.  Have you ever seen a map (online) that didn't display watermark information?  I think that the canvas experience should allow for a default logo (like mine above, but transparent) in the lower right corner of the canvas that is visible at all times.  Having the workflow name at the top in a tab is nice, but having it display as a watermark is handy.

 

5.  Once the workflow has RUN, all anchors are the same color.  How about providing GREY/White or something else on EMPTY anchors instead of the same color?  This might help newbies find issues in JOIN configuration too.

 

6.  If the tool has ERRORs you put a RED exclamation mark.  I despise warnings, but how about a puke colored question mark?  With conversion errors, the lines could be marked to let you know the relative quantity of conversion errors (system messages have a limit)

 

Just a few top of mind things to consider ....

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

I love Workflow Meta info, especially the ability to put the Author, the search tags,the version, the description, etc...

But why can't we use it as Engine Constant? It doesn't seem very hard to implement and it would change life for development.

 

At our organization we are required to change our passwords every few months forcing a change to my Tableau Server password.  How does this relate to Alteryx?  Well, every 90 days I have to change my password in the "Publish to Tableau Server Tool" for all of my workflows.  This is quite a cumbersome process that could be eliminated with AD.

 

If you dislike manually changing your for each workflow that uses this tool then "star" this post!

 

 

 

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

 

In Japan, the prople usually use the date format "yyyy/mm/dd". But there is no preset in Date tool. So I usually use custom setting, but it is the waste of time.

 

So please add yyyy/mm/dd format to the preset in Date tool configuration for Japanese people.

 

 

In order to make the connections between Alteryx and Snowflake even more secure we would like to have the possibility to connect to snowflake with OAuth in an easier way. 

 

The connections to snowflake via OAuth are very similar to the connections Alteryx already does with O365 applications. It requires: 

• Tenant URL 
• Client ID 
• Client Secret 

 

1. Get Authorization token provided by the snowflake authorization endpoint.  
2. Give access consent (a browser popup will appear) 
3. With the Authorization Code, the client ID and the Client Secret make a call to retrieve the Refresh Token and TTL information for the tokens 
4. Get the Access Token every time it expires 

 

With this an automated workflow using OAuth between Alteryx and Snowflake will be possible.

 

You can find a more detailed explanation in the attached document.

Hello,

As I mentioned in this previous idea : https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Ideas/Generic-In-database-connection-please-stop-i...

 

field mapping in generic in-db connection is based on Microsoft Sql Server. Given the specificity of MSQL Server field types, I would like to change that in order to at least be able to use another database. Without that, this feature has no sense at all.

Best regards,

Simon

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.

When you use Create Points tool - you then almost always need to use a Select tool to rename that point.

Can we please add a single text field to the Create Points tool - which would then allow us to create and name a point in one step?

 

Two very useful functions

According to https://www.w3schools.com/sql/func_mysql_least.asp

The LEAST() function returns the smallest value of the list of arguments.

example : SELECT LEAST("w3Schools.com", "microsoft.com", "apple.com");

returns "apple.com"

 

GREATEST works exactly the same but returns the greatest value of the list of argument

 

As of today, Alteryx proposes max and min to deal with that, but it only works with number and , I think, it's an ambiguous syntax : Max and Min works both as an aggregation function and as a row function. I love to separate these two notions.

 

Having a more standard means also more interoperability.

 

On a related topic, the coalesce function is proposed here : https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Ideas/Coalesce-function/idi-p/841014

 

 

Best regards,

 

Simon

95% of the times I see myself using the Directory Tool, it is only to access the FullPath content, so I immediatly add a Select tool to deselect the other attributes the tool returns.

Is there any chance to add a checkbox to only retrieve FullPath?

 

I couldn't find a previous idea on this, but let me know if it already exists.

It would be great to have an option in the Output Data tool to write the workflow name to the Info properties of Excel outputs.

 

Maybe something like this:

 

So that whenever you open an Excel file you always have a way of finding the name of the workflow that created the file.

 

This would make it so much easier as I often have to share Excel files with colleagues and customers and then need a way of tracking them back to workflows weeks or months later.