Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Currently in 2020.2 (but I assume all versions), when you have a workflow running and click on the Tool Name/ID (1 - in the picture below) in the results window it is then not possible to click on the canvas OR get back to the messages for the full workflow as it is then locked to that tool.

The idea is that it should be possible to get back to all of the workflow messages if you click on a tool name in the results window whilst the workflow is running.

However, a neat little tip that I found is if you click on the input, output or browse hyperlink (2 in the picture below), it will open a pop-out browse rather than show the data in the results window, meaning you can still see all of the messages)

This leads me to think that it could and should be possible to see browse anywhere data whilst the workflow is running if this is fixed. Here's a separate idea for that. 

Collections in GALLERY by default must be sorted alphabetically or by creation data . Currently its displayed randomly and every time I have to do some kind of SORTING to get to what I want 

Thanks 

Hey @apolly 

You and the team have been doing a lot of innovative changes to the results window for data.

Could I ask for an uplift to the results window for Workflow Messages?

Summary: Error messages in the workflow results window cannot be fully viewed - have to be copied into Notepad and then reformatted before you can read.

Request: Allow user to double-click to see full readable version of a workflow result message

Detail:

If you have an error message in a workflow result - it gives you a message that is often longer than the window allows and there is no cell-viewer option

As a result, there is really no way to get to the important part of the error message to understand what's going on, other than to use Notepad

Step 1: Copy into Notepad

(you can see the end of line characters being misunderstood)

Step 2: Manually clean this up by breaking on the line breaks

And now you can see the important part of the result message..

Could we rather add the ability to double-click on a result message in the result window and bring up a modal window that formats the error message for you (similar to the modal window used for XML editing of a tool).   That would eliminate this entire wasteful effort of trying to read an error message and having to use Notepad?

Bring up a modal window, similar to this one; so that I can see the error without having to go to Notepad

Please extend the Workflow Dependencies functionality to include dependencies of used macros in the worflow too. Currenctly macros are simply marked as dependencies by themselves, but the underlying dependencies (e.g. data sources) of these macros are not included.

We have a large ETL process developed with Alteryx that applies several layers of custom and complex macros and several data sources referenced using aliases. Currently the process is deployed locally (non-server) and executed ad-hoc, but will be moved to the server platform at some point. 

Recently I had to prep an employee for running the process. This requires creating aliases and associated connections and making sure that access to needed network locations is in place (storing macros, temp files, etc.). Hence I needed to identify all aliases and components/macros used. As everything is wrapped nicely by a single workflow, I hoped that the workflow dependencies functionality would cover dependencies in the macro nodes within, but unfortunately it didn't and I had to look through the dependencies of 10-15 macros.

Lately I've used the 'Add Prefix to Field Names' option in the Select tool. It works great, however when you click the button to add a prefix, the new window pops up and the focus is on the checkbox. I think when this box pops up, the focus should be in the text box so the user can start typing right after they click the button. This is the same case for the Add Suffix option, too.

Sometimes I want to test portions of a workflow, independent of other portions.  I find myself adding containers, just so I can disable some of the time consuming portions that are not part of my test.  It would be nice to be able to enable/disable any portion of a workflow, on the fly.  Or maybe just disable/enable any connection with a right-click.

Thanks!

Gary

Hello,

we have several environment in our organization : dev, recept, production.

In order to make that change safe we intend to make several connection (standard alias)  like

PRODUCTION_HIVE

DEV_HIVE

RECEPT_HIVE

In our workflows, we want to use aka:%Question.v_environment%HIVE

Sadly, this solution does not work despite the value defaut. 

As of version 2023.1 once a workflow is locked, it cannot be unlocked. If Alteryx can unlock it, can it be made into a user option?

My idea has two parts. See the images for examples.

1. Add an option on the lock screen so the user can get an unlock passkey.

Passkey is either generated by Alteryx or set by user

2. Change the behavior when trying to open a locked file by giving the user an option to enter the unlock passkey.

Same behavior if there is no passkey

Dialog box with passkey input and cancel button if a passkey exists

This would be useful as a way to revise or edit a workflow or update the expiration date on the existing workflow without having to reload or resave a new file.

Not sure if any of you have a similar issue - but we often end up bringing in some data (either from a website or a table) to profile it - and then an hour in, you realise that the data will probably take 6 weeks to completely ingest, but it's taken in enough rows already to give us a useful sense.

Right now, the only option is to stop (in which case all the profiling tools at the end of the flow will all give you nothing) and then restart with a row-limiter - or let it run to completion.   The tragedy of the first option is that you've already invested an hour or 2 in the data extract, but you cannot make use of this.

It feels like there's a third option - a option to "Stop bringing in new data - but just finish the data that you currently have", which terminates any input or download tools in their current state, and let's the remainder of the data flush through the full workflow.

Hopefully I'm not alone in this need 🙂

The eMail setup for the eMail tool and the eMail notifications are subtly different - in that the eMail notifications screen does not offer an explicit location for port.    This is important if the SMTP server does not use the default port.   You may be able to do this with : notation, but it would be better to create an explicit field for this.

No Port available on the eMail settings for EventsPort is available on eMail tool

Hello All,

I am not sure whether my idea makes sense or not. 

In today's advanced analytics world, we used RPA for various automation, process simplification, etc. There are CO-BOTs that are designed to run the Alteryx flow as well. Through RPA we are able to log in to the system and tools like Cognos, Oracle, TM1, and so on.

So, I am thinking, if Alteryx developed RPA as a tool in the Alteryx Designer like other tools such as Join, Transform, ML, Computer Vision, Interface, etc. 

I believe the implementation of RPA in Alteryx will prove an Asset, and make Alteryx.com more powerful.

Thanks,

Mayank

At present - to identify the dependencies of your workflow - you have to go to to "Advanced Settings" to find this critical capability.

(see @MattB 's great post here: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Knowledge-Base/Workflow-Dependencies/ta-p/49696 )

Could we instead move this to the workflow properties on the left hand side - this would be a more logical place to keep this info.

CC:  @rijuthav; @jithinmony; @HengHe; @RajK; @ydmuley; @revathi; @Deeksha; @MPistone; @Ari_Fuller; @Arianna_Fuller; @JoshKushner; @samN; @avinashbonu; @Sunder_Sriram; @Rahul_Thakur; @Rahul_Sing

It would be helpful to have the same options for App chaining as Events in cases where there is user intervention required to correct input parameters, etc. This would also create continuity between a scheduled workflow and a Gallery app when you are upgrading a workflow for ad-hoc cases and interactivity.

Event Run Options- Multiple scenario optionsApp Run Options- Only one scenario option

It would be really nice if we could save our own custom color palette when coloring tool containers and comments.

I use colors to define the purpose of my tool containers and it would be much easier if I could select a labeled, reusable color.

Hi there,

Would it be possible to use the ISO week date system, which everybody uses?

In numerous workflows, I used to define the week number of a date with the formula DateTimeFormat(d, "%W") and it was perfectly working till the 1st January, 2019.

But from this date, the week numbers defined by Alteryx are not the same than the ones in the calendar we all use!

Alteryx says that from the 1st to the 6th January, 2019, the week number is "00" instead of "01"!!! And so on until the week 52 which, for Alteryx, goes from the 30th to 31st or December, 2019: the week 52 has only 2 days!!

As the year 2018 begins with a Monday, there is no problem but for 2019 it is completely weird! And it will repeat in 2020...

The rule from the ISO week date system is pretty simple: "The ISO 8601 definition for week 01 is the week with the Gregorian year's first Thursday in it."

Please correct that

Simon

When selecting a HANA view in Alteryx that has a required prompt/parameter/variable Alteryx does not pre-populate the SQL with the required HANA prompt code.  Instead it give a SQL Error.   Requesting an Alteryx enhancement that would read the HANA view and determine the required HANA prompt SQL required and prepopulate the prompt or ask the user to fill in the prompt/variable box.  This may work similar to how Tableau work when connecting directly to a HANA view that requires a prompt (it would pop up the prompt and allow you to select, when you convert Tableau to custom sql it would save the SQL code required for the prompt.

Configurable hotkeys/keyboard shortcuts would be awesome.  For instance, select/deselect highlighted fields or remove prefix are two commands that I use frequenctly but which are buried in menus.

Being able to assign hotkeys to favourite tools would be another time saver.  Imagine, ctrl-alt-F and a formula appears under the cursor!

I would like to see a time interface tool similar to the Date and Numeric Up Down tools. I am working on some macros where the user can select the time they would like to use a filter for the data. 

Example: I want all data loaded after 5:00 PM because its late and needs to be removed.

Example 2: I want to create an app where the user can select what time range they would like to see records for (business hours, during their shift, etc) 

Currently this require 2-3 numeric up downs or a Text box with directions for the user on how to format field with Error tools to prevent bad entries. It could even be UTC time.

Time Interface Tool 

So far, Alteryx Products are offered in 6 different languages, which is a great thing indeed !!

However there is a lack of a toggle option to effortlessly switch the interface to a different language.

As a standard feature users should be allowed to switch language without re-installing the product (applicable to all Alteryx products)

 Ref: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Knowledge-Base/How-to-Change-Alteryx-Designer-Language/ta-p...