Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Despite being an Alteryx user for 2 and a 1/2 years this is something I have only recently came across but it does not appear that you are able to use debug mode appropriately with macros.

What I mean is, I have a macro input which drives a series of drop down boxes. In debug mode my drop down boxes will not populate. Now I understand why, Alteryx doesn't know what the input is so it doesn't generate the meta data for the debug mode drop downs.

What I suggest Alteryx do is automatically convert your macro inputs for file browses for the purpose of debug mode (I had to do this myself manually and it was a tedious task, not only to set up but then maintain two separate versions, one essentially an application and one a macro).

Or, by default debug mode uses the macro input data to run through debug mode as.

Ben

One of the most common causes for Admin trauma for our central Alteryx Gallery team - is dealing with drivers that may not be on the server; or a particular worker; or on a designer.

 

What we're looking for, is for the Alteryx team to maintain a packaged set of drivers as a single installer - which we can download at the same location as the Alteryx designer / server versions.

 

This would allow us to have 1 version of all drivers across ALL designer clients; as well as on our workers and servers.

 

CC: @rijuthav @jithinmony @HengHe @RajK @ydmuley @revathi @Deeksha @MPistone @Ari_Fuller @Arianna_Fuller @JoshKushner @samnelson @avinashbonu @Sunder_Sriram @Rahul_Thakur @Rahul_Singh

When building an Alteryx Macro - one of the tough parts is that the input data you put into the Macro Input is used for testing, but you cannot set the type.

 

So for example - I want to test with the value 1, and Alteryx automatically assumes this is a Byte.

However 1 is just a useful test value, but I need this to be an int 64.

 

Can we provide the option to strongly type the macro inputs - this way, we can give advanced users the ability to control the type on Macro Inputs, and not run into this sort of issue with test data implicitly defining the type?

 

Note: this is similar to the idea here:

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Product-Ideas/Set-data-type-in-Text-Input-tool/idc-p/115209...

 

Hello all,

As of now, you have two very distinct kinds of connection :

-in memory alias

-in database alias

It happens than every single time I use a in-database alias I have to create the same for in memory since some operations cannot be realized in in-database (such as pre-sql or interface tools)

What does that mean for us :

-more complex settings operations/training/tests

-unefficient worflows that have to deal with two kinds of alias.

What I propose :
-a single "connection alias", that can be used either for in-db either for in-memory,

-one place to configure

-the in-db or in-memory being dependant on the tools you use

 

Best regards,

Simon

Functions such as Year([Date Field]), Month([Date Field]), and Day([Date Field]) would really help with date-based formulas and filter tests.

Hello,

 

Enhancement of 'IN' functionality (ie. in Filter tool), so using range instead of citing particular values for example:
instead [ID] IN (1,2,3,52,53,54,100,101,102) something like that [ID] IN (1-3,52-54,100-102).

After I type something into the filter box, I should be able hit enter and then it just applies my change (ie enter hits the apply button). It used to be this way, but it's not working as of 2021.2. This feels like a very tiny move in the wrong direction. Currently enter does nothing. It looks like if I hit tab twice and then enter, it finds the apply button. I shouldn't have to hit tab twice. 

 

cc: @Hollingsworth @A11yKyle 

 

It will be really great if we add Single sign-on (SSO) in download tool. Many users are facing this issue when they're trying to download data from weburl. In some case the url will verfiy the sign-on and then redirect to link from where we can download data. Currently download tool fails to verfiy SSO or siteminder authentication.

While Alteryx allows for a proxy username and password in the settings, these are not passed properly to an NTLM proxy. Support for NTLM authentication would be incredibly useful for a number of corporations who utilize this firewall setup.

 

We currently have to either download via Python or cURL through batch commands called by Alteryx. Since Alteryx uses a cURL back-end, this should be a fairly simple addition to the existing download tool by allowing a selection of proxy server, port, and authentication method in addition to the proxy username and password. This could be done either in the tool itself or in User Settings.

When building custom tools for Alteryx using the Python SDK, there is no current way to test these outside of the Alteryx Designer.

This means that your development process is:

- write some code (no code-sense; intellisense; auto-complete because Jupyter; VSCode; Visual Studio; etc cannot access AlteryxEngine or any of the other imports)

- hope

- copy that .py module into your C:\Users\<username>\AppData\roaming\Alteryx\Tools\<toolname>

- fire up Alteryx

- drop this new custom tool on a canvas

- run it to see if you get any errors

- then copy these errors out of Alteryx result window into Notepad to be able to read them

- then go back into your development environment to make changes

- repeat.

 

This is very painful, and this will directly scare most people away from learning how to create custom tools since it's not only inefficient - but also scary and frustrating for beginners.

 

Proposal:

Could we instead create mock python libraries; and a development harness (like Google does with Android development in Eclipse) in this SDK where:

- you have full code intelligence (intellisense, autocomplete)

- you can simulate engine events in a test harness (for example in the Android SDK; you can simulate the user rotating their phone, turning off GPS, hitting a volume button, etc).

- you can also write test cases which can run automatically

- then once you know that your tool will work - only then you drop it into the Alteryx Designer environment.

NOTE: This IDE way of thinking also allows you to bring the configuration pieces (like number of inputs; etc) out of raw code and into configuration options.

 

Although you may be able to do remote debugging by using platforms like PyCharm - that really does not give you the full ability to check in the code of your tool; along with all the test cases; in a harness that allows you to automatically check different events; or to make sure that your tool works in the test harness before deploying.

 

Thank you

 

 

 

 

 

cc: @BlytheE @SteveA @Ozzie @tlarsen7572 @cam_w @jdunkerley79 

There are a number of tools that lose their selections when copied and pasted. Here are the ones I quickly found so far: 

-Multi Row Formula (Group By)

-Running Total (Group By)

-Transpose (Key Fields and Data Fields)

-Unique (Unique Fields)

-Concatenate (Group Data by these values and method for aggregating values)

 

It would be really great if they could keep their selections when pasted. This would be similar to the Join, Multi Field Formulas, or Sort tools which keep their settings but let you know if a field is missing. Thanks!

When training people on the use of action tools, something that I always have to hit on is that when you are telling the tool which piece of the XML that you are adjusting, it's sort of difficult to tell what you have selected, and super easy to accidentally select something else.

 

Example:

When you initially select the action to take it's this nice Blue Color. However, it still doesn't feel exactly like you have actually selected anything or told the Action Tool what to do, since it's so easy to just select any other one of these actions.

 

A slightly different problem is that if you are selecting an action that has been previously configured, it is just this light grey color. So it can be easy to accidentally change your settings because you may not realize it's actually set up.

 

 

Here is a recent community post that sort of outlines a few of these problems.

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Analytic-App-to-Create-Custom-SQL-Quer...

 

Could Alteryx create a solution or work around for their tools to retry the queries with Azure DB connectivity outages.

If there are intermittent, transient (short-lived) connection outages with cloud Azure DB, then what action can we take with Alteryx to retry the queries.

Examples of retry Azure SQL logic:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-troubleshoot-common-connection-issu...

“2. Applications that connect to a cloud service such as Azure SQL Database should expect periodic reconfiguration events and implement retry logic to handle these errors instead of surfacing these as application errors to users”.

SQL retry logic is a feature that is not currently supported by Alteryx.

 

For further information please see [ ref:_00DE0JJZ4._5004412Star:ref ]:

 

Hi Alteryx Support,

 

We are experiencing intermittent errors with our Alteryx workflows connecting to our Azure production database with Alteryx Designer v2018.4.3.54046.

 

Is there anything we can do to avoid or work around these intermittent / transient (short-lived) connection errors, such as, changing the execution timing or the SQL driver settings.

 

Or can we incorporate examples of retry Azure SQL logic:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-troubleshoot-common-connection-issu...

“2. Applications that connect to a cloud service such as Azure SQL Database should expect periodic reconfiguration events and implement retry logic to handle these errors instead of surfacing these as application errors to users”.

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-develop-error-messages

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-connectivity-issues

 

 

Salesforce Import process, which contains 25 Workflow modules, completed with errors on:

Mon 25/02/2019 23:27

 

Error 1

2019-02-25 23:11:23:

2.1.18_SF_MailJobDocument_Import.yxmd:

Tool #245: Error opening connect string: Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server: Login timeout expired\HYT00 = 0; Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server: Invalid connection string attribute\01S00 = 0.

 

Error 2:

2019-02-25 23:26:31:

2.1.25_SF_ClientActivityParticipant_Import.yxmd:

Tool #258: Error opening connect string: Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server: Login timeout expired\HYT00 = 0; Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server: Invalid connection string attribute\01S00 = 0.

 

 

Salesforce Import Workflow completed with errors on:

Wed 27/02/2019 23:24

 

Error 3

2019-02-27 23:06:47:

2.1.17_SF_MailJobs_Import.yxmd:

DataWrap2ODBC::SendBatch: [Microsoft][SQL Server Native Client 11.0]TCP Provider: The specified network name is no longer available.

 

 

Regards,

Nigel

In response to my question here: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Singin-Error-to-Tableau-server-using-P...

 

The Publish to Tableau Server does not support SAML/SSO. I would like this feature to be added to this tool as it will make our business process more efficient.

 

Thank you.

Similar to the Select tool's Unknown Field Checkbox, I figured it would be useful for the Data Cleansing tool to have this functionality as well in order to avoid a scenario where after a cross-tab you have a new numeric field, one of which has a Null value, so you can't total up multiple fields because the Null value will prevent the addition from happening. If the Unknown Field box were checked off in the Data Cleansing tool then this problem would be avoided.

Similar to how the Tool Container Defaults can be set on the Document tab of User Settings, it would be nice to be able to set the Comment box defaults here as well. I find that I change the Colour & Size every time I add a comment, and would appreciate if this could just be set as a default.

This functionality won't be mission-critical to anyone, I'm sure, but a lot of IDEs and upgraded text editors (lookin' at you Notepad++) have the ability to customize the colors of text, the background, and other various tabs/objects that may appear on the screen. I understand that this is more important for code-based systems where the coloring improves readability so much, but I thought it might be a neat feature. I think leaving the tool colors standardized is a good idea though, just the canvas and outerlying windows. It could include the colors for the formula syntax highlighting too?

 

The icing on the cake would be the ability to save and share your settings or create a repository for them in the public gallery or something.

In the Browse window:

1. Can we add a Find function like in excel? (e.g. find record_ID==4 or name =='foobar')
2. Can we click the column name so it sorts on that field?
3. In 9.0 when I click 'Cell Viewer' in Browse window,  'Show Whitespace' seems to be turn on by default. Can we turn it off like in 8.6?
4. When I click the 'Fields' button to toggle fields on/off, it would be great to add a Sort function here too, so fields can be sorted a-z by fieldname (like in the Select tool).

Thanks!

Idea:

I know cache-related ideas have already been posted (cache macros; cache tools), but I would like it if cache were simply built into every tool, similar to the way it is on the Input Tool.

 

Reasoning:

During workflow development, I'll run the workflow repeatedly, and especially if there is sizeable data or an R tool involved, it can get really time consuming.

 

Implementation ideas:

I can see where managing cache could be tricky: in a large workflow processing a lot of data, nobody would want to maintain dozens of copies of that data.  But there may be ways of just monitoring changes to the workflow in order to know if something needs to be rebuilt or not: e.g. suppose I cache a Predictive Tool, and then make no changes to any tool preceeding it in the workflow... the next time I run, the engine should be able to look at "cache flags" and/or "modified tool flags" to determine where it should start: basically start at the "furthest along cache" that has no "modified tools" preceeding it.

 

 

Anyway, just a thought.