Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Default setting should be TopLeft vs TopCenter for Comment Tool.  If you have 10 comment boxes in a workflow: 9 will be comments or instructions or notes and will be TopLeft and one will be the Title and it will be Center.  I always find myself having to change to TopLeft or Center.  TopCentered instructions, notes and comments can be hard to read.

This isn't a huge issue, but when I have multiple workflows open, I continuously find myself trying to save it by right-clicking on that workflow's tab. I then realize I have to go up to file and click save. Would it be possible to add that save feature on individual tabs? That just makes more sense in my mind!

If we have similar workflows within the gallery saved and we need to make slight changes in the process to all of them, it would be helpful if we could open all workflows from the gallery by either mutliselect or using a checkbox next to those workflows that we wish to open all at once.  

As an Alteryx developer building ETL workflows for Salesforce, I want to use the successes and errors from a Salesforce Output tool in a workflow to feed other tools in the same workflow.

I think it would be great to introduce something like Ghost Input Data tool. The tool would refer to an Input Data tool that is used in the same workflow multiple times but is placed far from several other tools it needs to be connected to. This way the data would have to be loaded once and annoying and distracting connecting lines can be avoided.

I use the same 2 saved expressions across 58 workflows (and growing).

I'd like to know that I am using the universal expressions, so that I know that it is the latest version and that I am not missing an update.

Is there somewhere on the Configuration panel that can show the name of the expression in use?

Thanks,

Karen

Apologies if this is a bit edge case and only something that I struggle with but I'd really like the option to add workflow Meta Info when saving a workflow to the Gallery.  We have a strict rule that all workflows must have a Meta Info description when we save to Gallery, but I often forget so end up saving once, then I add Meta Info, then have to save again.  I would like a little box under the details box, on the Save As, dialogue box to add this Meta Info, (see screen shot below).  This data would then also appear in the Meta Info tab in the Workflow - Configuration properties.

It would be great to have the option in the Join tool to "Delete duplicate fields from Left input" and same for "Right input". the field might have the same name, but the data in them might be different.

Hi,

Love the new Select tool column view, going back to the whole column name showing up...AWESOME!! I was wondering if the same could be applied to the Summarize tool. I'm on Alteryx 11.0 and the column names within the tool are truncated (like the Select tool used to be), can you also format it to where the whole column name appears in the tool?

Thanks!!

Currently, if the same Excel file is being updated on the workflow, but different sheets within the file, it will error out if the saving process overlaps one another. And there are some cases that using the tool Block Until Done will not work because there are two data streams (for example if you have a filter and is saving the data from the two outputs on the same file).

It would be great if we could output to the same Excel file more than once on the same workflow. 

Alteryx is extremely user friendly. It is simple to use, self explanatory, and manages to ride the difficult line in balancing pre-defined "canned" tools, yet allow enough user-customization to embrace advanced users' specific requirements. One area in which Alteryx could further improve upon though is additional options/inputs for users to change default tool and canvas settings, as well as improved overall formatting shortcuts.

One of the differences between a truly autonomous, ever-green, or "corporate" solution and a "user-specific workflow" are tool annotations, tool names, and the overall presentation of a workflow. Without annotations and/or a tool naming convention, any given workflow still requires significant time for any user to sit down and truly understand any given workflow. However, with the settings as-is, this can be extremely time consuming, tedious, and monotonous at times. This can be reconciled with some sort of inclusion of default settings that intelligently can use some sort of user-input settings to better annotate tool names beyond the current default, as well as tool names. Specifically - the default annotation settings are good in thought/design, but poor in practice. They clutter workflows, are truncated past the very first few lines, and are usually always changed in final workflow drafts. One solution would be to allow users to set default annotations for specific tools (i.e., "Calculated Fields" for formula bars, and/or no annotations ever even), and utilize the current default annotation settings used now and applied to a hint display box that appears when hovering over any given tool. A different solution may be as simple as taking only new calculated field names as the annotation, rather than each field and its formula. In that instance, I have yet to see any final workflows in which the default annotations for every tool are kept. An even better solution would be to have some sort of canvas view that allows users to make mass, stream-lined changes to tool and canvas formatting - i.e., select all formula tools, and apply a single user-input formatting schema. Select multiple tool boxes and adjust their visual appearance, etc. Other default settings that would be nice to adjust are toolbox and comment settings, as well as saving custom templates for toolboxes/comment boxes. This would just eliminate all the time in which we create similar templates over and over between workflows. This would de-clutter workflows, save needless time always removing/adjusting default annotations, and allow yet another "quirk" that separates Alteryx above the rest.

Again, these are just a few suggestions in which I feel Alteryx can continue to set the bar, and the standard for the rest of the industry. Thank you!

R has a very large number of useful packages and examples.  Often, we only need a few lines of R code.  However, integrating that with the data flow in Alteryx can be complex.  It would be ideal if there was a tool where you could drop in R code, and have the tool create named inputs and outputs for each variable in the R code, and create blank text documents or YXDBs with the correct column names and variable types.  This seems like it could be automated, and would eliminate a lot of trial and error in using small pieces of R code for specialty tasks.

Hi,

It would be very useful if I could delete/remove fields while using the tool Join - manual configure fields directly instead of adding a "Select" tool next.

Hi,

It would be very useful for me If I could consolidate in the same output two different inputs: 1- the whole output flow; 2- The summarize from the output. That would save some time from doing pivot table analysis for instance. 

Thanks

Alteryx could have a way to, in select tool, choose the type of string field as numeric changing between comma or dot the separators without the needing of formula tool for that.

It would be extremely useful to be able to modify a tool parameter with a single row output from another tool within the same workflow.  My current solution is to use either the Append Fields tool or embed the other tool into a batch macro with a single row as the input.  This would greatly simplify workflows and allow for a much more robust "programmatic" approach to workflow development.

Hello all,

Would love to see an analysis too or a major upgrade to the browse tool.

9 times out of 10, if i want to understand the data that is in my browse tool, i have to export it into excel just to filter and sort. This functionality is very much so needed in alteryx in either a new Analysis tool or (more ideally) into the browse tool.

What are yall's thoughts?

Nick

Currently if I read multiple files through Directory Tool +Dynamic Input, I will not know which final records is from which file, which can be extreme useful.

I also know, the files need to be the same schema (a second limitation), but the filename itself will be handy

When building an analytic app which uses a Map Input, please enable Interface tool functionality which would allow the app user to change the base map (roads, imagery, etc.) within the app map interface.  Currently I believe the only way to accommodate different base maps in an app is to configure multiple Map Inputs – one for each base map.  The resulting map interface duplication clutters up the app and opens the door for configuration errors.

Enable app user control of base map