Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Other applications I work in reguarly utilize right-click menus.  Sometimes those menus seem annoying, but in working with Alteryx, I realize it’s actually quite smart because it eliminates unnecessary wrist movement.  In the screenshot below, I have highlighted a bunch of fields.  The boxes were previously unchecked and I wanted to check them to bring them into my workflow.  I highlight them, and if I were in a different application, I would just right click and get access to everything that is in the options menu, but in Alteryx, I have to actually move the mouse to the options menu.  This might seem super nitpicky, but as someone who is currently suffering from overuse injuries in my wrists and hands, I really appreciate minimal wrist movement.

I think it would be great to have a tool that allows you to update a dataset with another dataset. For example, this could be used in updating an archive table on a daily basis as data changes. Having a tool available that streamlines this data operation would be helpful to simplify workflows.

 

In the tool, you would be given the option to select your primary key fields, which are the fields used to identify records. Additionally, you have the option to perform an insert, modify, or delete operation, according to the primary key fields that you choose in the configuration.

 

Obviously this is something that anybody could create a macro for if they wanted to. But it would be nice to have a tool in place so that we dont have to worry about it. I think this would be a nice use case to bolster Alteryx usage as a data engineering tool for relational database management in particular.

The ability to create Interface tools would be helpful. I would to edit multiple actions at the same time on a single tool, but it needs to be done dynamically. All of these tools exist within the standard tool set, but the standard action tool only allows for one action to be done per tool.  

 

Other Examples:

-Radio Button Groupings (only 1 scenario can be selected within a group instead of one radio button per designer interface)

 

-Replace textual selection with a graphic selection:

                       Please select a Park to run the report for:

 

                      Islands of Adventure     Universal Studios      Both        vs                IOA          Universal Studios         UPR

 

 

-Toggle List Box Options where: 

Include Field in Record (Horizontal)	Transpose Field in Record (Vertical)	Field Name
X		Record Date
	X	Product 1
	X	Product 2

 

Survey Import

 

 

I haven't been able to find a similar idea, but I have a scenario were I'm fully joining a dataset but I get a mismatch of column names.

 

When using the column renaming functionality in the Join tool, data sent through the Left or Right connector is not renamed. When I'm performing a Full Join the Union tool is adding these columns to the resulting table.

 

The renaming column functionality of the Join Tool should apply to all join types for consistency. My workaround has been to avoid renaming columns in the Join tool if aiming to perform a multi-join.

 

Sometimes, when you change the system settings on Alteryx Designer, you get this annoying message :

Error: "Settings Validation Error" Alteryx Service failed to initialize, likely due to inconsistent RuntimeSettings.xml file: Unable to start Queue service, insufficient license

 

well, well, well...

I found the solution to this page https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Knowledge-Base/Settings-Validation-Error-when-usin...

"Under Environment Setup Type, you must select "Designer Only" if only Designer is licensed"


Maybe instead of the current message, Alteryx can check the licence and help with a "you must choose Designer only option ath the beginning because only Designer is licensed".

Best regards,

Simon

Shouldn't have to stick a sort after every Multi-Row formula to reorder the records back to the same way they entered the tool.  Simple

Currently I am running two version of Alteryx and some of the macros were created/updated in the newer version of Alteryx. I would like to see only one error message displayed for all of the macros created in a newer version rather than having a dialog box pop up a dozen plus times (one for each macro) every time I open an instance.

 

Macro Error Message

When you add a tool in the canvas, the annotation is automatically set (for example the formula, or connection configuration etc). You can then customize the annotation text in the "Annotation" tool's tab. But sometimes it can be useful to revert to the "automatic" annotation, and it doesn't seem possible once you set it to something different.

 

Apparently there is currently no way to reset a tool's annotation text to the automatic value.

 

I've found a way to do it by editing the xml content of the file : as far as I know you just have to delete the <AnnotationText>[...]</AnnotationText> tag and reload the file, and the annotation gets back to the default "automatic" value, which is still present in the <DefaultAnnotationText> tag.

 

I think a simple button in the tool's annotation tab to reset it would be nice.

 

Thank you!

Current issue with Alteryx Software is that each time an Alteryx file is opened it tries to establish a connection with Database or File. This results in:

 

1. Lockout situations when Enterprise password is changed
2. No ability to share Alteryx Workflows with Colleagues (when they open it will have author of files credentials resulting in locking out author)
3. Countless phone calls with Enterprise IT to reset password.

 

Should be a feature/enhancement that we can either toggle on/off whether we want our flows to establish connection with data source/file when we first open the Alteryx file.  This toggle would save countless time and effort from developers when working with secured connections that require credentials.  

At the moment one of the Union Tool errors reads: "The field "abc" is not present in all inputs".

 

It would be useful if the tool said "The field "abc" is not present in Input(s) #x,y..."

 

If there are a lot of inputs on the tool it can take a while to find which input is missing the field.

Rather than giving the users a big list of different date formats to choose from, allow the user to construct their own format with syntax of the incoming date that they are dealing with.

Currently I need to do a string function moving dates around to match a predefined syntax...

On the “Multi-Field Formula” tool, the default is to “copy output fields and Add….”  I think the default should NOT copy. I’m using this tool to trim all of the blank spaces, and change the case in text fields. I often forget to uncheck it and end up with all these additional fields at the end. With regard to the tool container, I think the default margin should be small. I build huge workflows, and putting each section in a tool container. I have to go in and change each one to small margins to condense the workspace. Perhaps in the user settings, under document, there could be a default margin option, just as there is a container color option.

In the formula tool, you can use a question constant when working with App. This is really cool.

However, the answer provided in the workspace to test, is not visible in the formula preview.

I think this would be a not too big change but a quite nice improvement. 

 

Alteryx should allow its users to easily connect to datasources that they need for their work. On post COVID-19 world, the use of virtual services/tools is increasing and more data is being generated on those platforms. Alteryx users are then getting requests to analyze the data to advise business on their performance on these platforms.

 

To name a few, here are platforms that are on focus of some business now:

 

Zoom

Youtube

Facebook (and Facebook Live)

Twitter

Instagram

 

All these platforms offer some sort of API solution to connect to business data. However the process to get all pieces together in Alteryx to put our hands in the data is daunting. For users that do not have a strong background in programing it is even worse.

 

Alteryx needs to catch up and provide standard connectors to these services. Connecting to ODBC databases is not enough anymore.

 

Thanks

It would be great to have the ability to use a word file as a template and create a pdf as the output which can be emailed to a list of emails through alteryx.

As Alteryx becomes more focussed on the Enterprise - it is important that we build capabilities that support the needs of large-scale BI.

 

One of these critical needs is dealing with heterogeneous data from different systems that use different IDs for every critical entity / concept (e.g. client; product)

 

Here's the example:

Problem:

- In any large enterprise - there are several thousand different line-of business systems

- Each of these was probably built at a different time, and uses a different key for specific concepts - like Client & Product

- Most large enterprises that I've worked at do not have a pre-built way of transforming these codes so...

- This means that any downstream analytics finds it almost impossible to give single-view-of-customer or single-view-of-product.

 

Solution option A:

Reengineer all upstream systems.   Not feasible

Solution option B: 

Expect some reference-data team to fix this by building translations.   More feasible but not fast

Remaining Solution Option:

Just as Kimball talked about - the only real way is to define a set of enterprise dimensions, which are the defined master-list of critical concepts that you need to slice-and-dice by (client; product; currency; shipping method; etc) in a way which is source-system agnostic

Then you need a method in the middle to transform incoming data to use these codes.   This process is called "Conforming"

 

What would this look like in Alteryx?

Setup

• We would use the connect product to define a new dimension - say "Product".
• Give this a unique ID which is source-system independant; and then add on the attributes that are important for analytics (product type; category; manufacturer; etc)
• Then decide how to handle change (slowly changing dimension or SCD type 0,1,2, etc).   Alteryx should take full responsibility for managing this SCD history; as do many of the competitors
• We then create a list of possible synonym types (within Connect).   For example - a product may have a synonym ID from your supplier; from your ERP system; from your point of sale system.  that's 3 different IDs for any product.
• We then load up the master data - this is painful but necessary

In Use:

• I read in data into alteryx via any input tool
• I bring in a "Conforming" tool off the toolbox (new tool which is needed)
• It asks me which column or columns I wish to conform
• For each - it asks me which synonym type to use
• It then adds a translated column for me to use which ties back to the enterprise dimension - and spits out the errors where the synonym is necessary.

 

Impact:

In BI in smaller contexts, or quick rapid-fire BI - you don't have to worry about this.   But as soon as you go past a few hundred line-of-business systems and are trying to do enterprise reporting, you really have to take this serious.   This is a HUGE part of every BI persons's role in a large enterprise - and it is painful; slow and not very rewarding.   If we could create this idea of a simple-to-use and high-velocity conforming process - this would absolutely tear the doors off enterprise BI - and no-one else is doing this yet!

 

+ @AshleyK @BenG @NickJ @ARich @patrick_digan @JoshKushner @samN @Ari_Fuller @Arianna_Fuller 

I would like to see a pre-built visual flag or message/warning that shows if the join I made was cartesian or not.

 

To avoid cartesian joins I sometimes add a unique or summarize tool before the L or R inputs or add a message tool after the join.

 

If I don't do that then I sometimes calculate if the number of records in the L + C and L + R joins don't match up to the L and R input records.

 

It would be nice for Alteryx to be able to show some indication of if a cartesian join happened or not without having to add the extra tools or manual calculations

 

Something akin to Canvas>Connection Progress>Show Only When Running to be updated with the added functionality of Show with Cartesian Join Flags

Hi,

 

It would be great if the Intellisense features of the Formula tool could also be put into the Advanced Filter and Multi-Row tools. 

 

Thanks

Currently on the input tool I can only specify if the first row contains data.  It would be great if I could simply specify which row the data starts on, ie. row 4 or row 500, and then specify which row, if at all, contains the headers.