Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Back in the days of Visual Basic 6, and Delphi 3 - the development environment for software coding started introducing the idea of Optimization hints - specifically looking at things like variables you'd declared but never used.

 

All of the Alteryx tips guides say "as early as possible use a Select tool to remove fields that are not used in the workflow" - it would be very useful if the Alteryx system did a reverse walk through the workflow (from outputs back to inputs) and suggested fields that were not used anywhere or components that could / should be removed because they don't go anywhere.

 

For example

• Unused Components: if I have a filter with a summarize on both legs, and only one leg goes to an output - then the summarize on the other leg is just a waste of processor and memory.   
• Unused Fields: If I've been lazy and brought in all the fields in a spreadsheet and only used two of them through a complex and heavy workflow - then suggest that I only bring in 2; or that I add a select component for those two fields early on
• Ineffective data types:
  • Numbers stored in a double that could be stored in an int16; 
  • numbers stored in strings;
  • strings stored in very large containers which only need 10 characters;
  • dates stored in strings
  • Using a field for "True" and "False" instead of the Boolean True and False (1 and 0)

By adding a reverse-walk to a workflow (sort of like an A-B-Tree prune on a game-tree) - Alteryx could spot many of these kinds of issues - and by observing the workflow in action over a few iterations, it could identify the remainder.

 

 

Hi there,
 
In working with dates in strings, we have an option to use the DateTime tool to convert from string to DateTime, or to use a formula with DateTimeParse.
The DateTime tool is limited in the number of formats possible - and even if you edit the XML directly, you often can't get exactly the format that you are looking for (e.g. 01-sep-1975 - dd/mmm/yyyy) because it's not in the predefined list of "Format of Input String".
 
The DateTimeParse is similarly painful because it requires you to go and look up a set of arcane %b or %y characters on the Alteryx Help screen.
 
Would it be possible to change the treatment of dates so that:
- DateTime tool can take any format that you need - and includes a simple format builder tool so that people don't need to remember the codes
- The DateTimeParse function also uses the same format codes as the DateTime tool, and also includes a simple formula/format builder so that people don't need to remember the codes.
- When you point a DateTime tool to a column in a data-stream - it can read the data to determine the best format to suggest
- Finally - if you could profile the data, and clean it up visually (like the new release of Tableau; or like Cognos) where you can see the values on screen and apply a transformation to them in-situ, which then translates into Alteryx Formulas - it would be even more useful and rapid.
 
Cleaning up date handling would speed up date processing tremendously. 

The ability to limit the number of records (either on a specific input tool, or via the Workflow Properties) is super useful when developing a workflow...

 

...but how many times do you forget that a record limit was set and then spend ridiculous amounts of time trying to figure out why something isn't working properly? (I can't be the only person this has happened to...).

 

Wouldn't it be fantastic if a warning/message was shown in the workflow results (e.g. "Input Tool (n) has a record limit set"
or "Record Limits are set on the Workflow Properties")?

I believe that in addition to the already suggested idea of having an option to avoid sending one email per record, the attachments capability should be overhauled. Sending multiple attachments in a single email is a common need, but the only Community idea is a partial address of the issue by requesting an ability to use semi-colon separated paths in a single field as the attachment criterion. This doesn't seem to be an optimal method given the potential usefulness of the tool and ease of use considerations. 

 

I think that a full solution should include:

• The capability to select a (file paths) field of all desired attachments which can then be uploaded into a single email
• The ability to use wildcards or directories in the file input mode (as you find in the Input Tool) in order to upload multiple attachments to a single email)

This would be a transformative solution to a common email need, and I think greatly appreciated!

Hello,

Well, the title is pretty simple : it appears that the tendancy right now is to  have web version of any software on a server.

A few notes about that :
-a lot of Alteryx competitors are already in this mode and it's hard to sell you're still with a desktop-only mode for design, even if the product is far better.
-a good idea is the one used by Qlik with Qlik Sense : they still have a desktop and a web version of Sense but the desktop works mainly as an hidden browser plus an engine. The web version is cool too because you can make your own application, or your own data connection etc..
-the main interest of a web implementation of Alteryx would be to reduce installation on client computers (and that means packaging the installer, managing the data connection, the paths, the access to macros... etc) and to have a better control of the users.

PS : this idea is soooo simple and so obvious I'm surprised I didn't find it. It may be a duplicate.

I just downloaded Alteryx Designer 2019.2 yesterday and got busy straight away but couldn't help notice that while I like the general look and feel of the tool and general design language, I'm concerned that configuring the tools I work with will require so much scrolling.

 

Could we add the ability to set the zoom level of the configuration pane like we do in the workflow window or have some form of control on how the config pane sizing of contents.

 

I have attached the config panes using the crosstab tool as an example with 2018.4 on the left and the new 2019.2 on the right. I took care to snapshot both versions the same dimension for a more apples to apples comparison.

Now that 2019.2 is officially released I'll raise this here as I know it was raised as part of the beta testing. With the new interactive browse tool when filtering results the record numbering restarts.

 

For example in this window from a weekly challenge, I originally have this:

Then when I filter on the Allocated column for records where the Allocated amount is 0, I get this:

And as you can see the Record on the left hand side is numbered 1 - 15, so when trying to locate one of these lines to check the formula is working as expected it makes it difficult to isolate, where as if I knew that filtered record 10 was actually record 394 in the data I can then scroll to that point.  

 

I know a solution to this would be to add a record ID field to the data, but this is not always needed.

Hello .. me again!

 

Please can you fix the copy and paste of renames across field.  It's a behavior that I see in many tool's grids and drives me mad.  Its not just select. 

 

Take the attached screen shot.  In the select tool, i've renamed "test 2" to "rename2".  Fine it works. No issue.

 

I then copy rename2 and paste into the test3 field, and it copys the entire row's data (and metadata) into that little box, tabs, spaces the lot.  I end up with something like the screenshot.  Really not sure it was meant to be designed this way, as I cant really see the point.

 

Please can you fix this bug

 

Jay

Alteryx should raise a Conversion Error if re-sizing of a string field in a Select tool results in data truncation. It does this for integers but if a string is truncated there is no indication of this in the workflow output.

Storing macros in a central 'library' and accessing them via the "Macro Search Path" is great for ensuring that everyone is using the same code.

 

It would be great if the Alteryx installation process prompted for this information. In that way, a new user would automatically have access to the macros.

I know that incoming and outgoing connections can be wired and wireless, and that they will highlight when one clicks on a tool. However, it would be very useful to be able to highlight a particular connector in a particular colour (selected from a palette, perhaps, from the drop down window, or from the configuration). This would be especially useful when there are many connectors originating from a single tool.

Thanks

A problem that recently came up for us was the need to be able to build an application, called App A, that would launch App B and its set of choices under one set of logical circumstances, launch App C and its set of choices under a second set of logical circumstances, etc.  After working with our Alteryx rep and trying to use the Run Command object to launch the apps from the command line (which caused a licensing issue error), we've been told that this is not something that is currently possible in Alteryx.  We were wondering if it would be possible to get functionality like this in a future edition of Alteryx.

We are working on building out training content in a story mode and would like to have short snippets playing in a loop for people to see embedded in the workflow. Currently you can add a .gif to a comment background and it will provide a still image on the worklfow itself but functions as a gif in the configuration display. The interesting part is when you are running the workflow the .gif works and then it pauses it when the workflow has completed!

Example GifGif upload in comment and playing in the configuration windowGif in workflow when uploadedGif after workflow run

This idea is concerned with suggesting values based on text box entry in an analytic app. This would be an autocomplete within the text box interface based on matches to a list of connected values. For example, if someone was posting "805 Wells Road" it would expand the text box window and supply potential matches to click on.

 

Quick and dirty photoshop image below:

 

It would be nice to have the ability to have a workflow wait/pause tool that would pause the workflow for a given amount of time before proceeding to the next step (i.e. wait 300 seconds). 

 

I have a workflow that uses the Run Command to run a batch file that kicks of a terminal emulator that cycles through steps the ultimately result in an exported text file that I use in an Alteryx workflow for further processing. The generation of the text file can take a few minutes. A delay could be placed in the batch file or terminal emulator script, but I think having a tool in the Alteryx workflow might be useful for other processes as well.

My fields names may be a little long (about 20 uppercase characters). As of today, I have to resize the column displaying the field name every time I browse the Select Tool, id est pretty much. If not blocking, it appears to be clearly frustrating that Alteryx doesn't save the size of the column...

Best regards.

We primarily work on tracking people through a store or any physical space and extract shopping trip information such as areas visited, dwell time, etc. This shopper track information consists of a series of X,Y coordinates which are also used to plot heat maps based on density of points in a given area.

 

I have been using a workaround due to the lack of cartesian coordinate support in spatial tools - involving converting cartesian values to Lat., Long. by dividing X,Y values by 10,000. This approach works fine for finding spatial matches between points and polygons. However, when using something like a heat map tool which requires Grid Size and Max Distance in Miles/Kilometers, since there is no support for smaller units of distance, you will not be able to generate a heatmap data file.

 

In addition to adding support for Cartesian coordinates, it would also be helpful to provide an option to load in a Floorplan/Image as Base Map when browsing Spatial tool results.

Sometimes I get conversion error messages or warnings that really don't matter, and it would be great if there was a function similar to spell check or grammer check where I could say "Don't show me this again", so that once I've read the message I can choose whether or that particular message pops up again.