Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

When opening an Alteryx workflow that has been saved in a newer version, a warning message is shown, but you are still able to open the workflow, provided that it doesn't contain tools that don't exist in your current Alteryx version.

This does not work for packaged workflows that contain macros, for instance. You have to manually edit the xml of the extracted package file.

It would be great if we could have the same ability with packaged workflows that exists for normal workflows, i.e. the ability to extract and execute them with a warning.

Hello all,

I try to use Alteryx and MonetDB, a very cool column store database in Open Source.
 
When I use the Visual Query Builder, I get this :

The fields names are totally absent.



The reason is Alteryx does not use the standard ODBC SQLColums() function at all but send some query (here "select * from demo.exemplecomparetable.fruit1 a where 0=1" ) to get a sample of data. In the same time, Monetdb sends the error "SELECT: only a schema and table name expected" (not shown to user, totally silent)

I think this should be implemented like that :
1/use of SQLColums() function which is a standard for ODBC and should work most of the time
2/if SQLColums() does not work, send the current queries.

It's widely discussed here with the MonetDB team.

https://github.com/MonetDB/MonetDB/issues/7313

Best regards,

Simon

A workflow of one of our Alteryx business users ended with a timeout, and only part of the data was written in the output. This leads to wrong data for the reports. 

The goal should be: 

It is not allowed that output data is only partially written the output. Either the output is written completely or no output will be created. Would it be possible to achieve this?

This behavior ( Either the output is written completely or no output will be created) is already available in Qlikview and expects the same to be available in Alteryx as well. 

Database systems, and seemingly Quickview, have the ability to create "transactions" that will either write all data or no data.  They can do this because the database has full control over the database.  

Alteryx Designer is writing to different file types and doesn't have this ability because it's not in total charge of the files or databases.  For example, if it's updating 1 million records in a database, it's not saving the previous values of the field being updated, so it would have to way to undo those updates if the workflow experienced an error later in its processing.

Alteryx product team should consider this and implement it in the future to solve many problems. 

When scheduled or manual Alteryx workflows try to overwrite or append the Tableau hyper extract file, it fails(File is locked by another process). This is because a Tableau workbook is using the hyper extract file. We know the behavior is expected as the file is opened by another user/process so Alteryx won't be able to modify it until the file is closed. Alteryx product team should consider this and implement it in the future to solve many problems. 

The look of the canvas is important. Being able to toggle between viewing classic icons (as seen throughout this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJwgYYP_xlA), to the extent available, and current icons would provide users with more variety. As a secondary benefit (when toggled to show the classic icons), users would be able to differentiate between the tools that are not classic (i.e., the newer tools that don't have an older design) and the classic tools.

Thank you very much.

Hello all,

HDFS (Hadoop Distributed File System) connection is widely used to load data efficiently on Hadoop, for Hive, Spark or Impala. However, it's not compatible with the new DCM.


Best regards,

Simon

Hello all,

OLEDB is usually way faster than ODBC so that the way to connect we promote. However, the new DCM only works for ODBC connection, which is quite strange.

Best regards,

Simon

Hello all,

I really love the DCM feature present in the last two releases. However, I have noticed the Generic ODBC Connection is missing :

Classic Connection Manager :

Data Connection Manager :

Best regards,

Simon

CI / CD is critical to any production level process, especially when multiple authors are contributing new features to the same workflow. Currently, multi-author editing of workflows is extremely difficult, and something that would be aided greatly by using git to control different branches of ongoing work. Luckily, that's something we can already do today! However, the ability to test before merging a pull request is critical to modern CI / CD pipelines. For this, it we need to be able to run a headless workflow from a CI / CD environment. Also, having the ability to pass in parameters to the workflow would allow for robust integration testing - something that isn't straightforward today without running on production environments. 

Hello Alteryx,

It seems that the Endpoint parameter for the Amazon S3 Upload tool only support "Path Like" URL. It would be great if the Endpoint parameter could also take into account "Virual Hosted" URL.

When we enter a "Virtual Hosted" URL, the "Bucket Name" and "Object Name" parameters don't respond correctly.

The three dots option for the "Bucket Name" parameter returns the bucket name and the object name at the same time. And the three dots option for the "Object Name" parameter doesn't suggest any object name.

We can enter those manually but we lose some of the Alteryx functionnality. 

It would be a great improvement that the Endpoint parameter takes into account "Virtual Hosted" URL so we keep "Bucket Name" and "Object Name" suggestions once the Endpoint is registered.

Is it in the roadmap?

François

Hi,

The imputation tool allows exchange of numbers. It would be great if we are given the option to impute string values and NULL value too

I always get a chuckle out of seeing PowerPoint presentations which, through numerous tables and illustrations show the "health" of "x" - where "x" is a customer, a market, business division, etc. - where the author spent hours creating graphical indicators such as arrows to render trends.

Recalling being provided such a deck from a senior leader who was touting how precisely the deck drew attention to areas of needed action.  The deck, in this case, was a 6 figure investment from a consulting firm. My unwelcomed response was, "Pretty pictures, nice illustrations.  What happens when business shifts tomorrow and we need to see this updated?"  There was no response.

In a different past life, I had the opportunity to create a similar deck, but utilized PowerPoint's ability to link to Excel, and VBA that made the tables graphs - and trending arrows all dynamic based on the data.  

This feature request, however, is not about me.  The dynamic slide deck solution was a windfall.  Alteryx workflows can certainly push dynamic data into .xlsm files to lighten the burden on the .xslm by eliminating the data pull.

BUT - not many organizations care for having production .xlsm files in use, and they're difficult to governance control.

Would be GREAT if one of Alteryx's output options was:  A PowerPoint

Give the developer the same ability to render "pages" as one would to populate Worksheets in a Workbook.

Have to believe would be a game changer for the product.

Hello,

Please add UI-related Themes to choose from such as a Dark Theme, so that all aspects of the UI changes accordingly.

Without a Dark Theme, it is very difficult to work in Designer for a long time.

Add these themes under User Settings --> Themes tab

Thanks!

Hello, 

This is one thing that my OCD cannot cope with. 

Some tools, like the Union tool, allow you to 'Ignore warnings', like when fields are missing. 

Some other tools however don't give the option. Date time tool for instance. Sometimes I feel like yelling at Alteryx that "I know that field already exists! I want to change it!". Or the join tool, when you join on a double. 

I know that these warnings don't really affect anything, and they may be useful to highlight something that may be best to be changed, but pleeeeaaassee give us a tick box or something like the union tool where we can ignore warnings. It makes my workflow messy. 

(I'm on designer v 2021.1 btw, so if this has already been done, then please ignore my rant. 😁 )

Thanks

Edit: What I'm talking about 

To help in adding tools quickly it would be useful to have some form of quick keys or maybe somewhat a combination (enhancement) of search bar / right-click. 

So here's the pic and a 1,000 words

And here's the blurb

The idea being that hitting a key whilst mouse is over the canvas would display the search bar at the mouse cursor position. Once you've selected the tool you want it hitting return[+shift] adds it to the canvas either:

• In a dragged (mouse down) state to help for final position and automated connections and then a final left-click to add to canvas or,
• Just add it at that position.

This would also speed up adding tools as you could include things like 'Recent' or 'Favorites'. I grant you that you could just incorporate this into the search dialog but save you a bit of eye movement. Don't get me wrong the search bar is great but it's the lots of drag-drop that can slow things down a bit. 

The Explorer tool looks glitchy when you initially drop it on the canvas and I think its because it is trying to access the internet.  We already have temp folders in the Alteryx programs folder and it would be cool if the initial file reference is local- so its FAST.  

I am facing an issue regarding the result window. The tabbed document function is disable for the result window. I did not see the entire result window. Kindly find the below mentioned screenshot for your reference.

Request to reverse the feature.

At present, users can create a new field or update an existing one within the formula tool.

When making changes to an additional column, I often have to then add a select tool to rename this (or remove the original column if I make another with the correct name). Therefore, it'd be great if there was an option to rename the output of the formula as part of the configuration. Perhaps a tick box to 'Rename column upon output' along with a text box, where the Data Type selection is.

This is a fairly minor QoL thing but it could definitely trim down the number of tools used in some cases. In terms of referencing the field itself, maybe the formula tool could use [This field] or something descriptive to dynamically reference it, rather than the actual name which will be edited.

As an aside, I'm not sure if it's a technical limitation, but it'd also be brilliant if the field size could be changed for existing columns (within the limitations of the data type), rather than being static.

While the result window allows sorting and filtering, every time the user switches to another tool within the same run, the configuration is lost. It would be good if there was a 'Retain" button so that the user does not have to keep setting this each time the tool is switched or when the canvas is retriggered.