Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

It would be helpful if we could open 2 or more workflows at the same time from a gallery connection. Sometimes they are related or part of an overall update process, so opening all of them at the same time would save many clicks and a lot of time. 

It would be nice to have a seed input for the Random % Sample tool. The edited picture above is what it might look like. One input is the seed value, and another input is the data. 

Prezados, boa tarde. Espero que estejam todos bem.

A sugestão acredito eu pode ser aplicada tanto na ferramenta de entrada de dados, quanto na ferramenta de texto para colunas.

Existem colunas com campos de texto aberto e que são cadastrados por áreas internas aqui da empresa. Já tentamos alinhar para que esses caracteres, que muitas das vezes são usadas como delimitadores, não sejam usados nesses campos. Porém achei melhor buscar uma solução nesse sentido, para evitar qualquer erro nesse sentido.

A proposta é ser possível isolar essa coluna que existem esses caracteres especiais, para que não sejam interpretadas como delimitadores pelo alteryx, fazendo pular colunas e desalinhando o relatório todo.

Obrigado e abraços

Thiago Tanaka

Prezados boa tarde. Espero que estejam bem.

Minha ideia/sugestão vem para aprimoramento da ferramenta "Texto para Colunas"  (Parse), onde podemos delimitar colunas com caracteres de delimitação.

Atualmente, a delimitação não ocorre pro cabeçalho, tendo que ser necessário outros meios para considerar o cabeçalho como uma linha comum, para depois torná-lo como cabelho, ou tratar somente o cabeçalho de forma separada.

Seria interessante que a propria ferramenta de texto para coluna já desse a opção de delimitar a coluna de cabeçalho da mesma forma.

Obrigado e abraços

Thiago Tanaka

Prezados espero que estejam bem.

Gostaria de sugerir um aprimoramento para os erros comuns de conhecimento do Alteryx.

Quando rodamos o fluxo de trabalho e ao final algum erro é sinalizado no histórico, normalmente, não é possível entender ao certo o que precisa ser corrigido para sanar o problema.

A susgestão está em transformar o erro que é sinalizado no histórico, em link para que a pessoa clique no erro e seja direcionado para alguma documentação dentro do forum ou documentação, e que facilite a solução do problema para o usuário. Algo parecido com o que ocorre com os exemplos que existem da possibilidade de uso das ferramentas.

Obrigado e abraços

Thiago Tanaka

The Basic Data Profile tool cannot handle files larger than about 40 MB and 33 fields.  When I add the 34th field, and the file size stays at 40 MB (Browse tool rounding), it breaks.

I'm trying to get the count of non-nulls for the  "Empl Current" field.  Adding the 34th field drops the non-null count down from the correct 25,894 to 26, and if I add more fields, the count of non-nulls drops to zero.

The Basic Data Profile tool is configured with a 10 million limit on exact count and 100,000 limit on unique values.

The whole point of the BDP tool is to get one's hands around large data files that are too big to manually inspect, so this tiny limit is really a problem.

Please consider adding a new setting to the Render Tool, so the users can select or deselect if an existing File should be overwritten (Otherwise throw an error, like the Output Data Tool does, when configured to create a new Sheet and that Sheet already exists)

Most people who have been around for more than one version change of Alteryx will be familiar with the standard dreaded error pop-up box:

"There was an error opening [workflow X]. This workflow was created by a more recent version of Alteryx..."

The pop up box is generated as many times as there are assets potentially affected. You click once to acknowledge you're aware there is a problem with asset 1A, then you click again when the 1B pop up appears, then you keep clicking until you reach W76. Or that's what the software expects you to do and seem to figure is the graceful way to handle potential problems associated with missing assets (it's far from certain there are even any problems with running the specific code referred to on the older version, this is a warning-level notification where stuff might not work which has been 'promoted' to a full-fledged error that you are requested to address at the asset level). 

If you work somewhere where there is a large community of Alteryx users sharing assets widely with each other (all making use of large shared macro repositories) the software's choice of notifying you at the asset level is, not to mince words, completely insane. You could do everything right, have exactly the recommended version from the perspective of Alteryx sys-management, the one that corresponds to the corporate server version executing the scheduled workflows, and still be bombarded with 15 notifications at start-up if you're away for a few days and in the time you were away one or two new guys at the (very large) company decided to create a few new assets with the latest version of the software and share them with their colleagues (the latest version was not yet implemented server-side, so some of those tools might fail for those users - but the tools become everybody's problem the second they're stored in the shared location).

The notifications at startup make no distinction between relevant and irrelevant messages, you can start an empty new workflow and still get messages related to macros you don't care about, because they're located somewhere where Alteryx has been told to look for them even if they're not loaded/included in the workflow.

Every single asset Alteryx might in theory make use of during the session that is starting up will spark an individual message that cannot be ignored or skipped without acknowledging its existence, even if many of the assets will work just fine with an older version. This setup scales ...badly.

I can think of at least two solutions which would in many ways be preferable to the current structure. One would be to 'batch' the notifications prior to creating the pop-up box (one pop-up per start-up, not per asset). What might be included in such a pop-up could for instance be a grouped output with the Alteryx versions that did not match the active version ('workflows developed in version 'XX56' and 'XX57' were identified and these may fail to load', or whatever). Another option would be to have a setting in Designer where you tell Alteryx you don't want to see these notifications at start-up.

I often have to cache my workflow at certain points to do further development/analysis since the run time is so long. I can't express how frustrating it is when i need to edit a formula tool that's like 2 tools behind the cache but the whole entire cache is lost when i have to edit it. why can't the cache be kept up until the tool that was edited??

Business problem

Alteryx's block until done tool is a terrific way to sort which records go to which stream first.  However, during the last couple of years my team has experienced several times where there are gaps in functionality.  For example, we output data into a relational database (SQL Server) with foreign key constraints.  In this manner, one output tool must be completed (the dimension tables) before the others (fact tables) to properly load data.  Block until done doesn't always work in these cases, and our team has frequently relied on using chained apps or other clunky workarounds.  This creates unnecessary complexity for a simple problem.

A potential solution

Allow an optional setting in the output tool that waits for another tool in the same workflow to complete first.

Performance profiles work at the tool level. When I want to evaluate the performance of a group of tools, I have to click on them one at a time, log the performance, and calculate manually. I want to be able to click on a container full of tools or lasso some myself and view the granular and subtotaled performance profile.

Our company requires a password change every 3 months, which wreaks havoc bc i have to manually change each workflows input data connection configuration every time this happens to put in my latest credentials. Not the most efficient process for all the automated workflows I have on the gallery.

Instead, it would be great if alteryx could load in usernames and passwords via a field from the workflow. This way, I could just update the one excel file with two fields for username and password and every workflow referencing it with an input data connection would automatically pass on the new credentials every 3 months, not disturbing any of my autoscheduled workflows.

When building out Alteryx workflows there may be a need to read in different ranges within the same Excel spreadsheet. For example bringing in a table from Sheet1, but also isolating a table name in a particular cell (in my example cell C8).

When turning this into an analytic app, with a file browse is to add an action tool with the default value of "Update Input Data Tool".

However when specifying this option within the analytic app interface, you are only allowed to chose one option of the following:

i) Select a sheet

ii) Select a sheet and specify a range

iii) a named range or

iv) a list of sheet names.

The problem is in the example above I need a sheet and a range, but I want to avoid adding two file browse interface tools as it shouldn't be needed. If the user selects (i) then it loses the reference to cell C8, but I would imagine a lot of users as they get started with apps don't realise this is what will happen.

There is however a way to solve this currently and it requires overwriting the default behaviour and configuring the second action tool (the one that updates the file for C8), to update value with a formula, where you assume the user would select sheet name and then use this formula:

replace([#1],"$`","$C8:C8`")

However I would argue that this has a lot of technical debt, plus if the user needs to modify where the header is, for example to D8 they need to change the input file and the action tool so it works as a workflow and an analytic app.

Solution

Like how the configuration options for the input file, such as which row to input data from or whether first row contains data is maintained, modify the behaviour of the default option in the action tool to maintain references to ranges.

ARIMA, ETS, TS Forecast, TS Covariate Forecast are difficult to differentiate, more distinct icons would improve differentiation on the canvas. 

All the other file types have different coloured icons and it works well to differentiate them in a directory. Its impossible to differentiate workflows and database icons currently. 

Ther should be a low-cost read-only licence for the Alteryx desktop designer.

Read-only means: I can use the designer normally, but I cannot save workflows. So, for example, I can adjust the path in the Input Tool and follow exactly how the data goes through the workflow, I can even edit the workflow, but I can't save my changes.

Reason:
Alteryx is a very high-priced product. An own licence is only worthwhile if I use Alteryx very often.

But many users do not want to design workflows themselves at the beginning, but perhaps just run specific workflows. These users are usually not provided with a licence by the management, but only those who have many use cases with Alteryx. In practice, however, these are usually those who are already Citizen Developers anyway.

With a read-only licence, you could provide these users with workflows, but at the same time give them the opportunity to take their first steps with Alteryx. Many will want to be able to save their changes and apply for a licence upgrade.
Note: with Alteryx Gallery Server  workflows can be made available for execution. But on the one hand there is no interactivity and on the other hand it is very time-consuming to make workflows available in a user-friendly way in the Gallery Server.

Hi,

The basic table report tool could be improved by including a title option, such as a checkbox that allows you to add a title above the table.

When you want to add a title to a table, you must create a report text specifically for that purpose. The more significant improvement would be for situations in which you want to create tables grouped by a specific field. It would be nice to have the option to add a title per group as well, this would make it easier to add all of them to a report in a more dynamic way without having to do workarounds.

My testing has shown that when a datetime field is input from a Snowflake table, the Input tool will convert the data to reflect the datetime as local time to the machine the workflow is run on. 

For example, this is a data set from a direct query to Snowflake...

This is what is coming out of the Input tool with the machine set to Pacific time...

However when setting the machine to Central time, the results from the Input tool are...

This obviously can wreck havoc with inconsistencies of subsequent reporting off of this data. 

Since Snowflake carries the UTC offset as part of the data, it would be nice to have the ability to disable this "assumption" by Alteryx that the results should convert the datetime to the machine datetime. This way the data could pass through with the datetime values that are held in the database.

To add the capability to hard rename the columns in all modes