Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

We build some pretty robust maps with multiple connections and it would be great to copy the map tool and paste it with all of the connections when we want to tweak the map slightly but keep our original map.  It is a regular occurrence for us to have a very detailed map grouping by trade area name and then may want to have an overview map with all of the same connections but slightly different layout.  Tracking down the connections, reconnecting them and naming them accordingly takes a substantial amount of time even in the most organized of workflows.  This function would be a huge time-saver.  It would also be of value with joins and unions - anywhere you have multiple streams coming in.

Due to different file formats whether it is .xlsb or any other formats, sometimes it requires end user to install additional drivers/engine.

Some of these driver installations require installations of outdated software e.g. Microsoft Access 2013 (Microsoft Access Database Engine 2013), which poses unnecessary security risk.

Therefore we recommend that in the future version should take note and incorporate such drivers into the installation package so that there is no need to install them separately.

Now that we have a Snowflake Bulk Loader option, it would be great to utilize the built-in Snowflake internal staging.  This eliminates the need for an end-user to have the technical know-how or access to IT resources to utilize a separate S3 bucket and generally reduces friction in the process. 

There was pretty widespread support in the original Bulk Load thread: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Ideas/Snowflake-Bulk-Loader/idi-p/105291/page/2#co...

Sometimes I need to connect to the data in my Database after doing some filtering and modeling with CTEs. To ensure that the connection runs quicker than by using the regular input tool, I would like to use the in DB tool. But is doesn't working because the in DB input tool doesn't support CTEs. CTEs are helpful for everyday life and it would be terribly tedious to replicate all my SQL logic into Alteryx additionally to what I'm already doing inside the tool. 

I found a lot of people having the same issue, it would be great if we can have that feature added to the tool. 

Have you ever had the business deliver an Excel (EEK!) file to be passed into Alteryx with a different number of header rows (because it looks pretty and is convenient)? Never, you say? Lies! 

I would suggest adding an option to the Input Data Tool that would give us the ability concatenate multiple header rows. This would help enable accurate data profiling for columns when output and eliminate loss from unnecessary conversion errors. Currently, the options allow us to Start Data Input on Line X; however, if the header for the column is on multiple rows, they would have to be manually entered after input due to only being able to select the lowest possible row to assure the data is accurately passed. The solution would be to be able to specify the number of rows that contain headers, concatenate them to a single row (ignoring null and carriage return) and then output that as the header. 

The current functionality, in a situation where each row has a variable number of header rows, causes forced errors such as a scientific string conversion of a numeric value.

Here's a reason to get excited about amp!   Create a runtime setting that gets Alteryx working even faster. 

when you configure a file input you see 100 records.  Imagine the delight that after you run your workflows all input tools are automatically cached.  You run so much faster. 

now think of the absolute delight that even before you run the workflows that a configured input tool causes a background read off the input data.  Whether it is a new workflow or an opened existing flow that reading can start ahead of the time button. 

what do you think 🤔?

It would be great to have the below functionality in Alteryx.

A workflow is built in Alteryx and button click in Alteryx can be used to generate SQL code that can be ran on a specific database platform, such as SQL Server to run external editors such as SQL Server Management Studio. Thanks. 

Hi there,

We often get the following error message from the download tool 

"00:00:23.555 - Error - ToolId 106: Error in libCURL: You have found a bug.  Replicate, then let us know.  We shall fix it soon."

Unfortunately this seems to be a transient error so we've not been able to replicate this in a useful & repeatable way.  However - we see this happening at least a few times per week on one of our servers, so this is a continuing issue.

Please could you provide more detailed error messaging on the download tool so that this error can be debugged and/or replicated?

Many thanks

Sean

I believe many have voiced out this as their pain point within the Community. Essentially, there is no straightforward method to import multiple Excel files which are password protected.

I understand that there is an R solution suggested by several users, however, that is not ideal as it can be difficult to obtain permission from internal Tech team to install the package on the users' computers. 

Re-saving them without password is not only a hassle, but also raises concerns for data protection and security.

This may have been raised before, but we would like to see the equivalent of PRICE and YIELD formulas from Excel in Alteryx's Formula tool. I believe many users in the finance industry are using formulas like these frequently and it would be helpful to be able to replicate the formula in Alteryx.

Manually building the formula is possible, however it is unnecessarily complicated especially if you are working on different calendar basis e.g. 30 /360 European.

Thank you!

In short:
Add an option to cache the metadata for a particular tool so that it doesn't forget when using tool that have dynamic metadata such as batch macros or alteryx metadata engine can't resolve such as python tool.

Longer explanation:

The Problem:

One of the issues I often encounter when making dynamic workflows or ones that require calling external services is that Alteryx often forgets the metadata of what columns to expect. This causes the workflow to forget configuration of downstream tools when a workflow is first opened or when the metadata engine refreshes. There is currently the option to disable the metadata engine from automatically refreshing but this isn't a good option because you miss out on much of the value it brings.

Some of the common tools where I encounter this issue:

• Json parse
• Batch macros
• Python tool
• Regex parsing to rows

Solution:

Instead could we add an option to cache the metadata for a particular tool, this would save the metadata from the last time the workflow ran to within the workflows XML so that it persists when closed and reopened. Then when the metadata engine runs when it gets to this tool instead of resolving the metadata from the tool it instead uses the saved version in the XML. Obviously when it actually runs it would ignore this and any errors would still occur.

This could be an option in navigation pane of each tool. Mockup below:

This would make developing dynamic workflows far easier and resolve issues of configuration being lost when the metadata changes and alteryx forgets the options.

Hello,

My issue is very easy to solve. I want to use the generic ODBC in memo for a specific base (monetdb here but it isn't important).

I try to ouput a flow in a MonetDB SQL database. As you can see, I only take very simple field types

However I get this error message :

Error: Output Data (3): Error creating table "exemplecomparetable.toto": [MonetDB][ODBC Driver 11.44.0][MONETDB_SAU]Type (datetime) unknown in: "create  table "exemplecomparetable"."toto" ("ID" int,"Libellé" char(50),"Date d"
syntax error in: ""Prix""
CREATE  TABLE "exemplecomparetable"."toto" ("ID" int,"Libellé" char(50),"Date de Maj" datetime,"Prix" float,"PMP" float)

Reminder : SQL is an ISO Norm. Default type should follow it, not the MS SQL configuration. Interoperability is key

Links to : for in-db
https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Ideas/Generic-In-database-connection-please-stop-i...

Issues constated : MonetDB
https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Output-Data-date-is-now-datetime-makin...

Informix: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Alteryx-date-data-type-error-trying-to...


Best regards,

Simon

Would be nice to have a way to cache-uncache all inputs or a selected group of tools.  Caching and Uncaching workflows with many input tools or slow data-read tools gets to be a bit cumbersome.  Would be a nice QoL improvement :)

I looked around for something like this but didn't see a solution, so thought I'd recommend.  Please let me know if something like this exists already natively in designer desktop.

Hi to all,

I have seen one or two posts requesting ability to total up rows and/or columns of numbers, however this idea also requests the ability to subtotal data by a field and also produce an overall total.

This could be an extension to existing tools such as 'Summarise' and 'Cross Tab' or could be a stand alone tool.  Desired output of using a tool like this would produce something like this:

This would be incredibly useful for building reports within Alteryx as well as analysing the data, and cut down the amount of tools currently required to produce this.  I have seen a third party tool which does some of this but this adds the ability to subtotal.

thanks - Roger

The introduction fo a rank tool would be hugely beneficial. Whilst there are currently means to rank using a combination of other tools formula/running total/multirow etc... a specific "Rank Tool" would be provide a seemless and smoother way to rank your data either for further analysis or purely to output this field.

This tool should include a sort by and group by functionaility as well as options for ranking (such as dense ranking or unique ranking) and in addition multi levels of ranking (ie. Rank by "Field A" Then By "Field B" etc...).

Most databases treat null as "unknown" and as a result, null fails all comparisons in SQL.    For example, null does not match to null in a join, null will fail any > or < tests etc.    This is an ANSI and ISO standard behaviour.

Alteryx treats null differently - if you have 2 data sets going into a join, then a row with value null will match to a row with value null.

We've seen this creating confusion with our users who are becoming more fluent with SQL and who are using inDB tools - where the query layer treats null differently than the Alteryx layer.

Could we add a setting flag to Alteryx so that users can turn on ISO / ANSI standard processing of Null so that data works the same at all levels of the query stack?

Many thanks

Sean

I find the myself often needing to create unique IDs for a given category. Currently I end up using the multi row tool and leveraging the "group by" option. Enabling the record ID tool to create a unique count by grouping on distinct categories in an underlying data set would unlock an new level of grouping that would consolidate record keeping functionality in a single tool.

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.

Cross tab automatically alphabetizes the column headers this can be a little awkward when unioning on column position later on. Would be nice to have this as an optional feature through a tick box on the tool.