Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

I have two use cases here:

1) A single tool that I want to connect to several tools (e.g. an input connecting to a number of selects)

2) Several tools that I want to connect to a single tool (e.g. several inputs connecting to a single union tool)

The current interface requires that I establish these connections by connecting the tools individually. It would be great to have the ability to have a right-click option. Simplistically, it might work something like this...

1) Select the tools that you want connected to a single tool (e.g. all the selects); Right-click; Get connection from Tool...{drop down list}

2) Select the tools that you want to get their connection from a single tool (e.g. all the inputs); Right-click; Connect to Tool...{drop down list}

The idea behind encrypting or locking a workflow is good for users to maintain the workflow as designed. 

However, when a user reaches a level of maturity equivalent to that of the builder or more, or even when changes are required - the current practice is to keep a locked and unlocked version of the workflow so that it allows for a change in the future. 

It would be much simpler if we can have the power to lock and unlock workflows with a password. Users can then maintain and keep the passwords so that they can continue with the workflow. 

Not everybody is on Server yet so this feature is very helpful for control before Server migration. Otherwise it’s just password protecting a folder containing the workflow package, then re-locking a new save file each time a change is made or when someone new takes over on prem. 

I love that Alteryx lends itself to good workflow documentation, but I'd really like to be able to add a bit of basic formatting within my comment boxes. I tend to have one large (read: verbose) box at the top/beginning of the workflow describing the purpose of the workflow and quirks of the datasource to watch out for, and it would be easier to read these if I had some simple options like Bold, Italic, Underline, numbered list, bullet list. You know, the sorts of things you can do in basic HTML email? Those. I want them!

Can the inputs to app interface tools update other interface tools within the same app?  Right now, I believe the only way to do this is with chained-apps, but I don't wish to go that route again.

 

Just one example:

 

Can a Dropdown interface tool update a listbox interface tool with an action?  

Right now, I have two interface tools in an app:

1. Dropdown
2. Listbox.  

 

For the Listbox tool , it references an external source file for the NAME:VALUE pairs, let's call this file:  Category1.yxdb.

 

I would like for the resulting dropdown selection to update this external source file to say, Category1.yxdb or Category2.yxdb or Category3.yxdb, etc.

The different .yxdb files here have different name:value pairs within them.

 

It doesn't seem like this possible at the moment, but please let me know if this is something that's currently supported within Alteryx.

 

Thanks,

Collin

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 

 

It is my understanding that hidden in each yxdb is metadata.  The following use case is common:

 

As an Alteryx Developer/Designer I want to know the source of a yxdb.  

 

Ideally, I would know as much about the workflow (name, path, workflow version, AYX version, userid) as possible.

 

It would be awesome to be construct a workflow that would allow me to search the metadata of yxdb's on my client computers quickly.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

95% of the times I see myself using the Directory Tool, it is only to access the FullPath content, so I immediatly add a Select tool to deselect the other attributes the tool returns.

Is there any chance to add a checkbox to only retrieve FullPath?

 

I couldn't find a previous idea on this, but let me know if it already exists.

Trying to solve some use cases, I realized that I had to simulate the factorial behaviour.

Having a factorial formula can make this process easier.

Thanks!

Would be nice if Alteryx had the ability to run a Teradata stored procedure and/or macro with a the ability to accept input parameters.  Appears this ability exists for MS SQL Server.  Seems odd that I can issue a SQL statement to the database via a pre or post processing command on an input or output, but can't call a stored procedure or execute a macro.  Only way we can seem to call a stored procedure is by creating a Teradata BTEQ script and using the Run Command tool to execute that script.  Works, but a bit messy and doesn't quite fit the no-coding them of Alteryx.

Hi,

 

It would be great if users have the option to display the number of records that go in and out of the different tools in your canvas. This allows users to very quickly see how many records are in their datasets, and especially quickly analyze the results of specific actions such as joins, filters etc. without the need to open each individual tool. Especially when performing joins this can be very useful to quickly see how many of your rows have been successfully joined. I think this will give users a feeling that they have more control over their data and a better understanding of what is happening in Alteryx. Also if you quickly want to review a complex workflow (especially when it is not your own) this could be a huge timesaver. Simply run the workflow and follow the numbers to see what is happening and identify tools that might cause issues.

 

Love to hear what you think!

 

 

 

 

Currently - in workflows which make active use of dynamic queries - if the record set is empty then we end up with errors such as "a record was created with no fields".   This creates issues  when a dynamic query pumps rows out to a macro output, or where dynamic queries go into a join.

 

Could we change the result of the dynamic query so that if it returns an empty record set it still has columns but no rows and therefore doesn't cause errors in workflows?

 

Let me know if we need to provide a worked example?

 

Thank you

Sean

Need a way to highlight lines whether that means right-clicking and selecting a color or what-not, but just having the lines become black & BOLD doesn't cut it. It's not easy on the eyes. If I could click this line/connector and make it bright green that would be ideal and then I can see where it connects better when zooming out.

 

Hello all,

From https://www.sqltutorial.org/sql-triggers/

Introduction to SQL Triggers

A trigger is a piece of code executed automatically in response to a specific event occurred on a table in the database.

A trigger is always associated with a particular table. If the table is deleted, all the associated triggers are also deleted automatically.

A trigger is invoked either before or after the following event:

• INSERT – when a new row is inserted
• UPDATE – when an existing row is updated
• DELETE – when a row is deleted.

When you issue an INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE statement, the relational database management system (RDBMS) fires the corresponding trigger.

In some RDMBS, a trigger is also invoked in the result of executing a statement that calls the INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE statement. For example, MySQL has the LOAD DATA INFILE, which reads rows from a text file and inserts into a table at a very high speed, invokes the BEFORE INSERT and AFTER INSERT triggers.

On the other hand, a statement may delete rows in a table but does not invoke the associated triggers. For example, TRUNCATE TABLE statement removes all rows in the table but does not invoke the BEFORE DELETE and AFTER DELETE triggers.



So basically, I would like to create some triggers from in db tools in Alteryx.

Best regards,

Simon

 

 

Currently the BROWSE tool shows numeric data in raw format.  It would be easier to evaluate a column of data if the data was right justified and formatted with the decimal point aligned.  

 

Thiwould change this

 

234.56788

12.0

.098

 

to 

 

    234.567

      12.000

          .098

 

 

Can we please have a tickbox (ideally one that remembers your preference to be ticked or unticked) on the Save to Gallery pop up that would allow us to save a (timestamped?) copy of that workflow on a local drive (perhaps one that is preset in the user settings)?

Alteryx Server was recently updated to allow TLS-mediated connections to the MongoDB persistence layer. This allowed us to switch off of the embedded MongoDB to a highly-available MongoDB Atlas cluster. To our surprise after the switch, when we went to edit our workflows that make use of the persistence layer's data (Server Usage Report, etc.) to hit the new Atlas cluster, we found that the MongoDB Input tool does not support TLS connections. This absolutely needs to be changed. Based on organizational constraints, Atlas is our only option for a HA persistence layer. We absolutely have to have TLS support for the MongoDB Input tool. There is no other way for us to natively query our server persistence layer in Designer. Please bring the MongoDB Input tool into alignment with the MongoDB connections that are supported by Alteryx Server.

 

The download tool is currently a general purpose tool that is used for many different things; from downloading FTP files; to scraping websites.

 

However, as a general purpose tool, it cannot serve the specific need of scraping a website without doing a huge amount of work to get there.    What makes Alteryx great is the fact that it drops the barrier so that regular folks can do some really powerful analytics, but the web scraping capabilities are not yet there and still require a tremendous amount of technical skill to accomplish.

 

I'll go through this from top to bottom:

• Split capability: The download tool tries to be too many things to too many people.   Break it up into its component parts - one for FTP; one for Web Scraping; etc - with deep speciality.   You can still keep the download tool as the super-user version but by creating the specialized tools, we can make this much more user-friendly
• Connection:  For enterprise users, where there's a locked down connectivity to the internet - there is no way to scrape web content without using CURL.   So we need the ability to connect to websites in a way that does not require curl or complex connectivity setups for users to navigate through web proxy settings.
  
  • Alteryx could auto-detect settings by allowing the user to point to the site within a controlled browse form like Excel does
• Parameters: Many websites explicitly support named parameters (using ? notation) - it would be very useful to allow the user to link to these parameters explicitly without having to do complex string conjugations or %20 scrubbing to get of non-URL friendly characters
• Content: Alteryx presents the user with no native ability to process HTML, so all scrubbing to pull out a specific field has to be done through complex read-through of the underlying source of the website (delivered in "DownloadedData") followed by guessing on patterns on how the site does tables or spans etc, followed by complex regex.    
  • Instead, we could present the user with a view of the web-page and ask them to select the elements that they want
  • This would serve the dual purpose of making this user-friendly for regular folks and abstract away the technicalities; but also would allow the download tool to eliminate all the other bits of the page that are not wanted like scripts; interstitial adverts; images; headers & footers etc.
• Improved post / parse capability:   Sometimes the purpose of a URL is to generate a download (like the Google Finance API) - again, would be good to observe the user using the target site to record & interpret what they are looking for and what they get (e.g. the file from google)
• HTML & XML types: why not an explicit type in Alteryx for web content?
• Finally - HTML aware.   The browse tools are not currently HTML aware, so all the useful formatting to be able to see what's going on, expand nodes, find patterns etc - all this has to be copied out of Alteryx into Notepad ++.   Given the ubiquity of HTML parsers and pretty printers and editors, it should be reasonably easy to get a cheap component that can provide this capability

 

When entering a number of column names in the RegEx parse mode - please can you allow either Enter or down-arrow to move down to the next cell (standard windows convention)?

 

Currently Enter just exists the edit mode; and down-arrow does nothing.

 

 

cc: @Hollingsworth