Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Hi,

Noticed an issue in the Browse tools, specifically if you’ve run a module once, where browse tools are displaying information, and then you add new browse tools into the process (without clicking run yet). What I’m seeing is if I’m looking at the “existing” Browse that is showing data, and then click directly onto a Browse tool that was added after the run (not remembering I just added it), the “new” Browse tool is showing the previous Browse tools info, I literally have to click on the canvas, and then back to the new Browse tool for Alteryx to recognized there isn’t any data to display in it yet. My point being it can be misleading to the user if they don’t recognize the wrong info is being displayed (because as you click back & forth between the two, the data stays the same, making the user think the issue is in the process rather than just the display, can waste a lot of time backtracking for no reason). I’ve seen this behavior over at least the past 3 engine updates, just FYI.

Please add a tool to edit different cells in table randomly and update the source after editing. Similar to the "Edit Top 200 rows in SQL". That would be very much helpful

Please add the "Don't Output Input Objects" option. 

It would be nice to eliminate the input objects when the processed output object is all that is desired.  When processing spatial data, keeping the input objects can lead to massive amounts of unnecessary data in the output data stream.

The silent install for the census data I not completing successfully.  It appears that it can't create folders.  When attempting to run the command: DataInstallcmd.exe /s /install all /log "C:\temp\logs\alteryx.txt"

I received an error in the log:  Install failed: Directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\Alteryx\DataProducts\ does not exist

I received this error regardless of how I attempted to run this command, as a user with admin permissions, as a user with admin permissions running the command as an administrator, from an elevated command prompt, etc. It was not until I manually created the directory via the following command that the silent install ran successfully. 

mkdir "C:\Program Files (x86)\Alteryx\DataProducts"

On the output data component, when outputting to a database, there are Pre & Post Create SQL statement switches.  This allows for the execution of a SQL statement in the DB but only after a create table action.  To use this functionality you must have populated a table using the 'create new table' or 'overwrite' option, which is no good if you're using the Update or Append options.  Change these switches to Pre & Post SQL Statements as per the Input Data component.  This will allow you to execute SQL statements in the DB either before or after the population action.  Can be really handy if you need to execute database stored procedures for example.  

Please note:  You can already work around this by branching from your data stream and creating or overwriting a dummy table, then use the pre or post create switch for your SQL statement.  This is a bit messy and can leave dummy tables in the DB, which is a bit scruffy.

When outputting to files in avro format, it would be nice to have Alteryx either throw an error/warning or automatically add a prefix when field names do not conform to the Apache Avro specifications. For example, if I were to try to output an .avro file with a field named "2018 actions", Alteryx could throw a warning/error to remind me to rename the field, or Alteryx could change the field name for me to something like "X2018_Actions".

Add extra capabilities int he Output Tool so that the following can be accomplished without the need for using Post SQL processing:

- Create a new SQL View

- Assign a Unique Index key to a table

Having these capabilities directly available in the tools would greatly increase the usability and reduce the workload required to build routines and databases.

Is it possible to get a monthly subscription service to spread out the cost - perhaps to make it more beneficial your end we could have a 6 month minimum contract? 

With some consulting projects you'd only really be able to bill the pro rata cost so that would help.

We are limited to vertical and horizontal flow charts.

Being able to move the green entrance and exit nodes to vertical or horizontal positioning in the same chart would aid creating more efficient flow layouts.

The developers should check out Factorio too. Quite a few idea in there on flow charting.

EG:

At the moment the salesforce connector does not support view objects like AccountUserTerritory2View. It should be extended to support those objects to facilitate more efficient and above all complete data extraction. 

Sort by file size based on first digit in file size (should be based on all digits). 

Extend the machine-learning framework for pressure analysis on a single well to multiwell systems.  

The framework should capture the well interference accurately and be able to test a greater area of the reservoir. Develop a machine-learning model to reconstruct the flow-rate history by use of pressure data. Ensure that both models maintain the advantages of the machine-learning- based single-well pressure interpretation in terms of the accuracy of prediction, computational efficiency, and tolerance to noise.

This is an interface issue but I wish Alteryx can allow user to scroll across the ribbon toolbar (e.g. In/Out, Prep, Join, Spatial tools...) when the toolbar is active.

That is, for example, when I click on "Transform" and notice my tool is not there, I can quickly scroll my mouse to move to other toolsets. Microsoft Office is a best practice for this and I think this will make it much efficient to locate tools.

When using the Transpose tool I'm pivoting out networks names to column headings then I want to populate those fields with an "X".  To do this I have to first create a column first with an "X" in it and populated the various Networks columns with that.

How about another drop-down that says something like "I'll key the value I want to populate the fields with" and I can key "X" or "Y", etc.

It's possible I just don't know enough about the tool but I can't see how to do this other than my way.

For most of our "Production" mode, we launch our apps with an xml file containing the parameter send to the app.

We would like to have the path of this file in the Engine Constant.

When working on the Weekly Challenge #108, I was trying to design a non-macro solution.

I ended up settling on the Generate Rows tool and was trying to find a way to generate rows until I had reached or exceeded the maximum density, however, I ran into an issue where I'd always have one too few rows, since the final row I was looking for was the one that broke the condition I specified.

In order to get around this, I came up with the following solution:

Spoiler

 

Essentially, I just set my condition to twice that of the true threshold I was looking for. This worked because I was always doubling the current value in my Loop Expression, and so anything which broke the 'actual' condition I was looking for ([MaxDensity]), would necessarily also break the second condition if doubled again.

However, for many other loop expressions, this sort of solution would not work.

My idea is to include a checkbox which, when selected, would also generate the final row which broke the specified condition.

By adding such a checkbox, it would allow users to continue using the Generate Rows tool as they already do, but reduce the amount of condition engineering that users are required to do in order to get that one extra row they're looking for, and reduce the number of  potentially unseen errors in their workflows.

The idea is the ability to skip tools in a workflow. Check the attached example:

Input (TRX_TABLE): Contains transactional raw data (unstructured & uncleaned data)
Filter (TRX_DATE <= 90 days from TODAY): It only filters the data 90 days old from today. Works as an incremental data loader
If the filter tool is NOT SKIPPED the workflow loads the filtered data (incremental behavior)
If the filter tool is SKIPPED the workflow loads all the data (full behavior)
This way I can quickly switch between both modes for testing & production environments

Hi,

I am sure that I can't be the only person that would be interested in an output tool that allows categorical fields on both axes.  THis would allow you to visualise the following example and I would suggest that this was either similar to the heatmap with boxes or the colour / size of the entry was determined by a third numerical value - such as 'Confidence' from the table below.  THere might be ways to extend the idea as well as having a fourth parameter that puts text in the box or another number but it would be useful and not too hard I am sure.

Many thanks in advance for considering this,

Peter