Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Hi,

I was wondering if would be great to have something like TEST RUN. Where it would check all settings of the tools. 

Example -  I have workflows that pull a lot of data, do some calculation and at the end they post to Tableau. It happens from time to time that my Table Token has expired so after running for like 3 hours I am getting error for the Tableau Tool. Or similar situation with output to excel to discovered that I have choose to Create not overwrite the sheet and have to re-run the workflow. 

It would save me a lot of time when I could just do a Test Run for all the tools to make sure that everything is set correct and I am good to run the workflow and start pulling down all the data. 

Not sure if this is possible but I am pretty sure that I am not the only one with this issue :)

Currently the select tool can reorder data by sorting or selecting the field and then clicking the up or down button.  This is tedious when you have a data set with 400 fields.  I suggest you add a drag and drop functionality to the field list to facilitate reordering data.

Hello,

As of now, you can't choose the DCM connections to synchronize. It's either all or none.

However, I have one designer and two servers (Sandbox/Production). Most connections must be common, but not all.

Best regards,

Simon

I have to switch to using alternate software anytime I need to input a file where the spatial projection is not recognized by the input tool for a spatial object field.

I would really like to see an option added to the input tool that allows custom designation of a spatial projection. Allowing manually choosing the projection and being able to open a ".prj" (or something similar) for Alteryx to use when ingesting the data.

Description:

Currently, when running a workflow in Alteryx that writes output to a file (e.g., Excel), if the target file is already open (such as being open in Excel), the workflow will proceed through all steps and only fail at the very end when it attempts to write to that file.

Problem:

This behavior is inefficient and frustrating, especially with large workflows. You only find out there's a problem after all the upstream processes have already run. It wastes time and compute resources, and it can also be confusing for less experienced users.

Suggested Improvement:

Alteryx Designer should prevalidate output file accessibility at the beginning of workflow execution. Specifically:

Check if the output files are locked or otherwise unavailable before starting the run.

If any output file cannot be written to, immediately halt the workflow with a clear, early warning. 

Optionally, display a prompt listing which outputs are unavailable and why.

Benefit:

This enhancement would save users significant time, reduce confusion, and improve user experience, especially in development or iterative testing workflows. It aligns with good design principles by failing fast and providing immediate feedback.

I was setting up a rather large set of repetitive filters and formulas and when I got done, I wanted to select the output of each tool all at once to drag them in to a Union tool. I think it would be great if you could hold the control key to select multiple outputs to drag to the next tool at a given time. 

In the regex tool, there is a checkbox called "copy unmatched text to output".

Unfortunately, if you are using regex from within the formula tool, this is not an option. It would be helpful if this could be added as an optional parameter in the regex formula i.e: 

REGEX_Replace(String, pattern, replace, icase=1, unmatched=1)

Without this, regex outputs can sometimes be confusing, as string characters not specified by the pattern (unmatched) appear in the output. This confusion would be alleviated with the optional parameter.

Hello,

What about a new tool to deal with file actions, such as deleting, renaming, moving, etc ? Today, we do that with cmd, not the easiest way to do. I have developed a tool on Amphi that gives a good idea of what we could have on Alteryx

Here the result :

That can help with temporary, useless files and probably other use cases.

Best regards,

Simon

As many Alteryx Designer users are already aware, there is an option to connect a tool to multiple tools at once by right clicking on it and selecting View Possible Connections.

I would like to suggest an enhancement for this feature, which I think will make it even easier to connect multiple tools.

Scenario 1

Suppose you drag & dropped many Append tools to existing connections as you realized you needed to add an extra information to your data. For example, a year input from a Text Input tool that is modified by the interface tool. If there were 30 Append tools, you would have to select all those available "ID - Append Fields S" checkboxes one by one.

Scenario 2

You added multiple Input Data tools to canvas but don't want to select them individually to connect them to a single Union tool.

Idea

If there were a group checkbox for each tool category on each side (Output Connections and Input Connections), creating multiple connections would be as easy as clicking on the group checkbox on the Append Fields category on the Input Connections side (for Scenario 1) or clicking on the group checkbox for Input Data category on the Output Connections side (for Scenario 2).

Hello,

A very simple idea : 
as of today, there are dedicated connectors to Sharepoint, OneDrive and Azure Data Lake.
For all these connectors, the files we can read are limited, very limited : xlsx, csv, yxdb

The location of the storage is not relevant, we should be able to read any already supported file on these locations (like parquet or shp or whatever).

Best regards,

Simon

For the Output Tool it would be very beneficial to be able to pass a password in order to populate a password protected Excel spreadsheet. It appears there is a decent amount of interest based on the Community feedback pertaining to the subject.

Currently, the Alteryx Designer canvas can only be extended to the right and downward. This restriction makes organizing complex workflows more difficult, especially when trying to insert new logic upstream or manage spatial layout more naturally. It forces users to design in a constrained directional flow, limiting flexibility and sometimes resulting in awkwardly stretched workflows.

Proposed Solution:
Introduce an Infinite Canvas option that allows users to pan and place tools in any direction: left, right, up, or down. This would:

• Enable more natural workflow layout and organization
• Allow insertion of tools before existing logic without major rearrangement
• Improve visibility and navigation for large, complex workflows
• Mirror the functionality of modern visual tools like Figma, Miro, or Lucidchart

Bonus Suggestion:
Include a toggle or setting in Preferences to enable Infinite Canvas mode, so users can choose their preferred design behavior.    

Impact:
Improved usability, better layout control, reduced time spent reformatting workflows, and a more modern, flexible design experience for Alteryx users at all levels.

Hi, 

One idea is to have the Select/Table Sheet be dynamically name according to the the interface browse tool prompt. When users are uploading many files it can get confusing. 

Thanks,

Chris

In 24.1 the email tool was adjusted such that any error in the workflow prevents the email tool from sending any emails. Previously, if AMP was enabled, the email tool could still send emails even if the workflow contained an error, but this is no longer the case. There are many cases where this is not ideal, one example being:

In larger workflows, I have multiple data streams which, after a point, operate independently. Even if one stream errors, I would like emails to be sent from the other streams. I have tried nesting the email tool within multiple layers of macros, but if any of the parent or child workflows/macros contain an error, the email tool will not send any emails. 

I would like a checkbox option in the email tool or workflow configuration that will still allow emails to be sent if the workflow errors. Then, with the use of control containers, I will have full control over email distribution with errors. 

Allow the user to select which type of Join is happening in the join tool. Allow the J anchor to output the join type within a radio option in the tool configuration. Right now the J anchor outputs matches in both inputs. New suggestion would allow the user to select a Right Outer or Left Outer join without having to use a Union tool after the Join.

It would be nice to track changes. The function would need to have an on and off switch. Some workflows are large and you want to go back to the changes you've made. My team has 2 identical workflows one for production and one for validation. Tracked changes would help manage changes between both workflows. The tracked changes could be something like highlighting the tools red once changed, and after the function is turned on. I have attached a sample image for your reference. Thank you.

Hi,

I would like to see an option within the 'Find Nearest Tool' (and maybe other Tools like it) to exclude from results when a particular Target field equals a particular Universe field.  This could be added right under the 'Ignore 0 Distance Matches' in config window.  You could have drop-downs (like a filter tool) to pick the fields etc.  Example of what I'm doing:  One Address may have multiple accounts and it's in Target and Universe.  Ignoring 0 Distance would drop all the other Accounts at the same address.  I only want it to ignore the Universe Address if it has the same Account Number and the Target Account Number.  That is a little deeper drill than just ignore 0 Distance but not too hard to add.

As it stands, I don't ignore 0 Distance.  I have a formula after the 'Find Nearest' to drop  Target Acct Nbr = Universe Acct Nbr.   Then a 'Multi-Row Formula' tool to fix the find nearest order.  This works, but I thought it might be nice to have it in the tool.

dynamic select have field information like [field number] and etc.
i appreciate it available in dynamic rename. 

since both also manipulate with header.

Currently SharePoint Input Tool allows downloading a file from SharePoint to local machine, then we can process it locally, this is great since the tool can only handle 3 types of files and won't support the rest like Zip or anything else.
SharePoint Output tool, only support the same 3 files type, but will not allow uploading to SharePoint a local file, similar to the input tool but in reverse. Why is this important:

1- We can create local files that is in a format like KML, KMZ, ZIP etc., which we can't upload it to SharePoint after.

2- updating multiple sheets on the same file, updating locally then uploading the file to SharePoint will be a lot faster and more efficient. 

it is easier to overcome above challenges if we use Alteryx Designer and Sync the SharePoint, or map it to local drive or folder. but it is impossible to do it when using and scheduling it on Alteryx Server.

Please update the SharePoint Output tool to allow uploading any type of file(s). Thank you.