Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Yeah, so when you have 15 workflows for some folks and you've actually decided to publish to a test database first, and now you have to publish to a production database it is a *total hassle*, especially if you are using custom field mappings.  Basically you have to go remap N times where N == your number of new outputs.  

Maybe there is a safety / sanity check reason for this, but man, it would be so nice to be able to copy an output, change the alias to a new destination, and just have things sing along.  BRB - gotta go change 15 workflow destination mappings. 

When saving my workflows to the gallery I'd like to see the description field be populated with the text I used during the last save. I like to add text here and it is frustrating to have to re-type it every time.

There should be an option to not update values with Null-values in the database, when using the tool Output Data, with the options:

• File Format = ODBC Database (odbc:)
• Output Options = Update;Insert if new

This apply to MS SQL Server Databases for my part, but might affect other destinations as well?

To compare a Grid shape before a change and after the change, both shapes should have a reference point where those grids can be created.

The reference point should be changed according to the coordinates system that the designer want to use

I think It would be very beneficial to be able to find the first instance that a field appeared or when its name changed.

So consider the following:

1) Somewhere in my workflow, I use a formula tool and create a new field called Total Assets which is the sum of Asset1 and Asset2.

After my workflow is built (and I failed to do any sort of documentation) it would be nice in the results window if each field name was a highlighted link that took me to the first instance that a field appeared.

In my scenario above if I am downstream and wonder when Total assets appeared (as I might have multiple formula tools, but if could click the field name and it bounced me right to the first instance the field existed -- in this case a formula tool, this would be a huge time saving when troubleshooting.

Thanks,

Seth

1. An ability to right click on a connection and disable it to prevent any processing beyond that connector.

2. An ability to right click and make a tool 'transparent' (on certain tools like filter, with perhaps icon color change to show it is transparent) to see what happens with/without that tool much further down the road in large workflows.

3. An ability to left click on empty space between tools and connectors (the background) and drag the workflow around for faster navigation in large workflows. I know that there is an overview feature for faster navigation, but this should add further ease in navigation process.

4. An ability to make container any shape (lasso-like) and not just rectangular. It would make for much clearer distinction between containers.

5. How about a 'done' button in the new interactive chart so I don't have to 'close'out of it? After making all the adjustments, having to 'close' the display is not very reassuring.

6. How about third dimension (for size) in the scatter tool?

I am not sure if some of the features I requested are already there, if so please point me in the right direction. I did try to search in ideas and community section, but wasn't able to pinpoint to any specific topics I bring up above.

I am using the 2018.3.5.52487 version.

When outputting files, it is usually beneficial for characters that would cause trouble with formatting/syntax to be properly escaped. However, there are situations where suppressing this behavior is desirable.

Of particular importance for such a feature is in the outputting of JSON files. Currently, if a file is output as JSON it will always have quotations escaped if they occur within a field, regardless of whether this conforms to the JSON standard. There are a variety of current workaround for this, including pre-formatting all fields to look like JSON and then outputting as a \0 delimiter CSV, but in many cases there is no need to escape any characters when outputting a JSON.

A simple toggle--as was created for suppressing BOM in CSVs--to disable character escaping would make the creation of JSON objects simpler and reduce the amount of workarounds required to output proper JSON.

Can you please enable option to select multiple performance measures in AB Trend tool. 

Currently we can only choose one metrics

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.