Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Improve error messages to include possible tools or solutions to help solve the error, in some cases that may be too many possibilities and it won't work but in other cases there really is only a few tools to solve some of these error messages. I'm a new user so I'm probably seeing a lot more error messages than everyone else but what would help is a list of tools or suggestions on how a user could solve some of these error messages.

From what I can tell using ProcMon, presently when using the Directory tool to list files (including subdirectories) the Alteryx Engine runs a single threaded process.

When you're trying to find files by checking recursively in large network paths, this can take hours to run.

It would be great if the tools would split up lists of directories (maybe by getting two or three levels down first) and then run each of those recursive paths in parallel. 

While it is possible to do this using a custom Python or cmd->PS command, it would be great if this could just be a native part of the application.

My organization use the SharePoint Files Input and SharePoint Files Output (v2.1.0) and connect with the Client ID, Client Secret, and Tenant ID. After a workflow is saved and scheduled on the server users receive the error "Failed to connect to SharePoint AADSTS700082: The refresh token has expired due to inactivity" every 90 days. My organization is not able to extend the 90 day limit or create non-expiring tokens.

If would be great if the SharePoint connectors could automatically refresh the token when it expires so users don't have to open the workflow and do it manually.

There should be an option where an existing SQL query or a complex logic is converted by Alteryx intelligently into an Alteryx high level workflow with tools suggestion which can be modified by the developers. 

For e.g. Salesforce Einstein Analytics has an option where an existing dataflow (traditional way of performing data prep.) can be converted to a recipe (premium version of a dataflow with advanced features) using a single click. It gives an option for the user to make additional modifications/enhancements on top of it.  

Introduce CTE Functions and temp tables reading from SQL databases into Alteryx.I have faced use cases where I need to bring in table from multiple source tables based on certain delta condition. However, since the SQL queries turn to be complex in nature; I want to leverage an option to wrap it in a CTE function and then use the CTE function as an input for In-DB processing for Alteryx workflows.  

1.  I would like the tab color/contrast of the active tab to be more prominent / discernible.  It does not really stand out. 

2.  I would like the ability to set default colors for different open workflow types -- standard workflow, macro, analytical app, so I can use color to quickly distinguish between tab dependencies or simply what is what.

3.  I would like the ability to change the color of any tab at any time (similar to Tableau Desktop, but with greater color choice).

In the Input tool, I rely heavily on the recent connection history list. As soon as a file falls off of this list, it takes me a while to recall where it's saved and navigate to the file I'm wanting to use. It would be great to have a feature that would allow users to set their favorite connections/files so that they remain at the top of the connection history list for easy access.

Allow for setting universal DATA SIZE configuration.  ESPECIALLY on V_WString!!   If you want all your V_WString to be 5096, you can set it. If you want all your fixed decimal values to be 12.4 you can set that.  You can set your own values for a workflow or under advanced setting perhaps you set up your own default values that will be used across all work flows. 

At MINIMUM, change the 1,073,741,823 on V_WString to something semi reasonable. That size won't even fit in a Snowflake table. 

With the growing demand for data privacy and security, synthetic data generation is becoming an increasingly popular technique for generating datasets that can be shared without compromising sensitive information especially in the healthcare industry.

While Alteryx provides a range of tools, I believe that a custom tool could help meet the specific needs of a lot of healthcare organizations and customers.

Some potential features of a custom synthetic data generation tool for Alteryx could include:

Integration with other Alteryx tools: The tool could be seamlessly integrated with other Alteryx tools to provide a comprehensive data preparation and analysis platform.

Customizable data generation: Users could set parameters and define rules for generating synthetic data that accurately represents the statistical properties of the original dataset.

Data visualization and exploration: The tool could include features for visualizing and exploring the generated data to help users understand and validate the results.

I believe that a custom synthetic data generation tool could help our organization and customers generate high-quality synthetic datasets for testing, model training, and other purposes.

Hello all,

I'm currently learning Pythin language and there is this cool feature : you can multiply a string

Pretty cool, no? I would like the same syntax to work for Tableau.

Best regards,

Simon

When you first pull the the download tool onto the workspace the password on the connection Tab is already populated plus you don't see a cursor when you click in the box!  you only see a cursor if click in the box and then type.  Can you please change this so it behaves the same as the the username box and leave it blank?

Hello,

Just like Monetdb or Vertica, Clickhouse is a column-store database, claiming to be the fastest in the world. It's available on Cloud (like Snowflake), linux and macos (and here for free, it's open-source). it's also very well ranked in analytics database https://db-engines.com/en/system/ClickHouse and it would be a good differenciator with competitors.

https://clickhouse.com/

it has became more popular than Greenplum that is supported : (black snowflake, red greenplum, orange clickhouse)

Best regards,

Simon

Hello all,

MonetDB is a very light, fast, open-source database available here :
https://www.monetdb.org/

Really enjoy it, works pretty well with Tableau and it's a good introduction to column-store concepts and analytics with SQL.

It has also gained a lot of popularity these last years :
https://db-engines.com/en/ranking_trend/system/MonetDB

Sadly, Alteryx does not support it yet.

Best regards

Hello,

I would like to suggest the ability to manage our virtual environment for Python modules within Alteryx. Some current workflows I am building would be far easier and more secure if I had access to the virtual environment that the Python code would run in.

Uses for modifying the virtual environment:

     1) Setting environment variables in order to hide API Keys/DB credentials/etc.

     2) Installing private GitHub repository packages into the environment.

     3) Creating repeatable and easily maintainable ways to manage dependencies. 

It would be important that these virtual environments have a way to persist onto Alteryx Gallery, so that workflows behave identically on local machines as they would on the server. This could potentially be done though a requirements.txt file or some other environment initializer, but I'll leave the implementation to the experts. My preference would be for each workflow to contain their own virtual environment (as is best practice when developing Python scripts). 

Thank you,

Syntax Highlighting Idea:

Similar to the Formula Tool, allow the Multi-Field Formula tool (and other similar tools) to have Syntax Highlighting to allow user to easily determine if the formula being input doesn't have any errors.

Variable Autofill Idea:

Similar to the Formula Tool and how it provide a list of columns as you begin to type them, allow the Multi-Field Formula tool (and other similar tools) to have the ability to autofill variables such as [_CurrentField_] or [_CurentFiledName_] as you begin to type them.

Idea:

Similar to the Formula Tool how it shows an example based on the first record. Could the Filter Tool have a example based on the first record showing how the formula in the filter would handle that record? It would either show in an example field for the true sample or false sample based on the criteria. I feel this would be very useful for more complex formulas such as AND/OR.

Ex.

Filter Formula: [Count] <= 1

True Sample: [Blank]

False Sample: 4 (Value of first record which was filtered from [Count])

When using the unknown field in a select, you can either select or deselect the fields which will appear afterwards.

I would love to have an option or different to specify elements for fields to appear for instance having :

• *unknown text where you could set the metadata type (for instance vwstring) and maximal length
• *unknown numeric where you could set the type, double or fixed decimal

and for dates too

it would set a default behaviour for incoming text fields or numeric fields allowing for more precise deselction too.

I was working on the file and there are multiple sheets need to be pulled from one excel file. I was not sure how we can give one source of information and pull multiple sheet from one source as per the requirement. So wanted to submit this idea to create a toll which can pull any sheet(s) from one input tool as per requirement.

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.