Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Hello,

I really apologized if this has been posted before with some other title.

I started with Alteryx month ago and I am really trying to replicate some cool stuff for which we used to write ETL code in Python and loved it.

I saw a lot of posts regarding a Join Tool for left outer join or right outer join. While using Alteryx as a new person even I was confused with the Join tool since I was missing on numbers and ratios then I used Union Tool to union left and inner anchor of the output for the desired output.

I believe there should be a checkbox in the Join Tool for the Union Tool option.

I know its just a matter of dragging one more tool on Canvas but this is regarding with more flexibility and ease of use for every Alteryx user.

Thank you.

Regards,

Owais

I frequently have to build nested macros into workflows that will live on the Gallery. Unfortunately, Gallery does not "see" these nested macros when I save to Gallery and manage assets. I have to open the macros, attach the nested macros within through every single nesting layer, save all of them, then return to the main workflow before I can save to the Gallery and have it "see" the nested macros. I usually attach them to the workflow so I don't have to check them on in the Gallery menu anyway. That's why I have to attach the nested macros.

Anyway, when I change all dependencies to relative, these nested macros are not showing that they have relative paths. I cannot get that to work, try as I might. That makes this problematic for version control. How can I attach macros using relative dependencies?

This is an edge case in which I have two back to back Union tools. I want to Delete and Connect Around on the first one. All of the inputs into that Union will flow into the next Union tool. Delete and Connect Around is not available from the context menu for any tool with multiple inputs. See the image for more clarification.

Enable Gallery Server Connections as Input for In-DB Tools. Currently, we can only create file connections, and we'd like to centralize all connections to our Gallery Connections.

The expression editor in the RegEx tool is only a single line, which makes it really hard to edit long regular expressions. See attached photo comparing the expression editor in the RegEx tool compared to the formula tool for the same expression. Please make the RegEx editor box either wrap to multiple lines, have a pop-out expression editor, or something so we can see long expressions.

Version 2.0 of the publish to Tableau tool does not work for the initial authentication if Tableau Server has CORS enabled.  

This only impacts the UI for the tool that completes the sign in to Tableau Server and provides back the list of projects, data source names, etc. 

When CORS is enabled, a 403 error is received with a response of invalid CORS request.

If the XML on the tool is manually edited and the tool is run, it works fine to publish to Tableau, with or without CORS enabled. 

version 1.0.9 also works with no issues, but is not the ideal solution when users are on newer versions of Alteryx designer

Additionally calls to the REST API from a local desktop using postman or python work with or without CORS enabled. 

Based on conversations with Alteryx support, the tool was not tested with CORS enabled, thus the bundle.js file completing the authentication for the GUI must not account for Tableau Servers with CORS enabled. 

For those who build solutions with Tableau Server that utilize the REST API (e.g. like custom portals) CORS must be enabled to function, but it limits the ability to use version 2.0 of the publish to Tableau tool. 

Hi, when using the Join tool, I sometimes wish there are separate "*Unknown" fields for each of the left and right input.

I have occasions where the left input can be dynamic(modified upstream), but the right input fixed.

It's annoying to fix all join tool's selection when there are modifications in the upstream part.

Hello Alteryx, Please fix Salesforce Input and Output tools. 

The input tool has a lot of issues with Login , , Custom SQL, Json issues, Machine Encryption, and saving to the gallery , . 

Unable to use Crew macros with Salesforce input Workflows etc.... there is a lot of post's with all the issues with Salesforce V.1 Versions. 

When I use the PCA tool, I run it with 2 PCs, then look at the results output to choose my principal components, and re-run it with the actual number of PCs that I need. I use the loadings and variance data quite a lot - it would be great to be able to output the loadings, variance, and also the scaled variables as data to work with in Alteryx, rather than just browse it in the report.

I have modified the PCA tool to do this myself, but I find I need to do this with each upgrade just in case anything has changed in the tool. I'd love it if the report summary data and scaled data was available as an output!

For reference, my amended version is available here:

https://gallery.alteryx.com/#!app/Principal-Components-Analysis-Extra/5eb2f79d0462d70bc0b6c516

Hi,

Here is an idea I think it would help with documenting any process using the container tool. Currently, with each of the tool, user can use the default annotation or add his or her own annotation to help explaining each step in a process. The annotation on each tool can be set to be hidden (never show) when there are high number of tools are present.  This is when the container tool can be used to organized tools. This idea is similar in scope with the two ideas below but I want to push it a little further beyond the current available features described in https://help.alteryx.com/2019.3/ToolContainer.htm

The idea is to have the container tool summarize all the annotations from tools within a container as its own.  This way, you will have the full documentation of the combined process within the container, and container of containers.  This feature can either be the option to view or to export from the pop up window. 

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Ideas/A-profile-function-for-Tool-Containers/idi-p...

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Ideas/Combine-the-Container-and-Comment-Tools/idi-...

When attempting to save from Designer to Gallery the last step of the save is the validation step.  The validation step, as I understand it, checks to make sure there's a valid license on Gallery.  This counts as one of the processing "threads".  If your organization is constrained by the throughput on Gallery, this can cause delays. 

Our business only has the 2-thread service level for Alteryx Gallery.  Consequently, if someone is running long, drawn out workflows on Gallery, this can create delays in saving the file from Designer to Gallery.  It can also cause delays if there's a long "line" of workflows waiting to run.  I presume that the save attempt is put in line along with the other jobs on Gallery that have to run.  If this is the case, it could take a long time to complete the validation--tens of minutes or longer.  

That window being open keeps the user from being able to use Designer at all.  Very inefficient.  There should be a requirement that the user has both valid licenses on Designer and on Gallery before they can run anything on Gallery.  However, the validation of both of those is already accomplished by virtue of the fact that Designer checks for a license whenever the program loads.  Also, if Gallery checks for the license anytime the workflow runs, then the second half of this check is already accomplished and, therefore, renders the check when saving to Gallery unnecessary.  Please correct me if i'm wrong on this. 

Change #1) Please the validation of Gallery license when saving from Designer to Gallery.

Change #2) Please adjust Designer such that you can continue to edit workflows on the same session while other files are being saved to Gallery.

Change #3) If we can't get #1 or #2, please change the queueing process to put attempts to save to Gallery in the front of the line because they should take <1 second to validate the license while other workflows could take many minutes.

MySQL released version 8 for general availability in April 2018. It would be nice when Alteryx installed LUA scripts for MySQL 8 by default. Now only LUA scripts for MySQL 5 are installed.

In 2018.4, in the Select tool we were able to select the attributes, and then with CTRL+C copy these lines to the clipboard.

You could then paste it for instance to Excel. I used a lot this feature to communicate with third parties, to who I provide data.

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.

The email tool, such a great tool!  And such a minefield.  Both of the problems below could and maybe should be remedied on the SMTP side, but that's applying a pretty broad brush for a budding Alteryx community at a big company.  Read on!

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

What I said the first time I ran the email tool without testing it first.

1. Can I get a thumbs up if you ever connected a datasource directly to an email tool thinking "this is how I attach my data to the email" and instead sent hundreds... or millions of emails?  Oops.  Alteryx, what if you put an expected limit as is done with the append tool.  "Warn or Error if sending more than "n" emails."  (super cool if it could detect more than "n" emails to the same address, but not holding my breath).

2. make spoofing harder, super useful but... well my company frowns on this kind of thing.

When using the Select Tool or the Join Tool and adding data from multiple data sources, I would love to see an option to color code a data field to match the data source it was derived from.  It would make it much easier to determine you are selecting the correct data field later in a workflow, especially when the multiple data sources have the same data field names.

Designer already has the ability to convert file paths to UNC through the workflow dependencies option.

I'd like a user setting where any input or output path in a tool is converted to UNC by default. This could also include the directory tool.

This saves the step when developing a workflow, and would be especially helpful in environments where teams share work.

Please upgrade the "curl.exe" that are packaged with Designer from 7.15 to 7.55 or greater to allow for -k flags. Also please allow the -k functionality for the Atleryx Download tool.  

-k, --insecure

(TLS) By default, every SSL connection curl makes is verified to be secure. This option allows curl to proceed and operate even for server connections otherwise considered insecure.

The server connection is verified by making sure the server's certificate contains the right name and verifies successfully using the cert store.

Regards,

John Colgan

It was possible to read and write .gml (geography markup language) files in Alteryx. From 2018.2 and up, only write is supported. I do not understand why such a feature was removed, considering that this has become one of the standard geoformats. Joining data from .gml and .shp files is one of the key activities when dealing with geodata. Now I have to spend time converting the files (e.g. in QGIS or ArcGis). FME can read/write .gml just fine, so why can't Alteryx?