Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

How about turning this;

SELECT * 
FROM Employee 
ORDER BY First_name ASC

into this automatically

and a more complex one

SELECT Orders.OrderID, Customers.CustomerName, Orders.OrderDate
FROM Orders
INNER JOIN Customers
ON Orders.CustomerID=Customers.CustomerID; 

into this

basically it's a parser;

1) First check if it's a MS SQL, PL/SQL or T/SQL

2) Then figure out join relationships

3) Convert each subset SQL into function nodes

4) Convert function nodes to Alteryx yxmd (xml)

Creates the following for the first workflow

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<AlteryxDocument yxmdVer="10.5">
  <Nodes>
    <Node ToolID="1">
      <GuiSettings Plugin="AlteryxBasePluginsGui.AlteryxSelect.AlteryxSelect">
        <Position x="174" y="90" />
      </GuiSettings>
      <Properties>
        <Configuration>
          <OrderChanged value="False" />
          <SelectFields>
            <SelectField field="*Unknown" selected="True" />
          </SelectFields>
        </Configuration>
        <Annotation DisplayMode="0">
          <Name />
          <DefaultAnnotationText />
          <Left value="False" />
        </Annotation>
      </Properties>
      <EngineSettings EngineDll="AlteryxBasePluginsEngine.dll" EngineDllEntryPoint="AlteryxSelect" />
    </Node>
    <Node ToolID="2">
      <GuiSettings Plugin="AlteryxBasePluginsGui.Sort.Sort">
        <Position x="246" y="90" />
      </GuiSettings>
      <Properties>
        <Configuration>
          <SortInfo locale="0">
            <Field field="FIRST_NAME" order="Ascending" />
          </SortInfo>
        </Configuration>
        <Annotation DisplayMode="0">
          <Name />
          <DefaultAnnotationText>FIRST_NAME - Ascending</DefaultAnnotationText>
          <Left value="False" />
        </Annotation>
      </Properties>
      <EngineSettings EngineDll="AlteryxBasePluginsEngine.dll" EngineDllEntryPoint="AlteryxSort" />
    </Node>
    <Node ToolID="4">
      <GuiSettings Plugin="AlteryxBasePluginsGui.TextInput.TextInput">
        <Position x="90" y="90" />
      </GuiSettings>
      <Properties>
        <Configuration>
          <NumRows value="0" />
          <Fields>
            <Field name="FIRST_NAME" />
          </Fields>
          <Data />
        </Configuration>
        <Annotation DisplayMode="0">
          <Name />
          <DefaultAnnotationText />
          <Left value="False" />
        </Annotation>
      </Properties>
      <EngineSettings EngineDll="AlteryxBasePluginsEngine.dll" EngineDllEntryPoint="AlteryxTextInput" />
    </Node>
    <Node ToolID="13">
      <GuiSettings Plugin="AlteryxBasePluginsGui.BrowseV2.BrowseV2">
        <Position x="330" y="90" />
      </GuiSettings>
      <Properties>
        <Configuration>
          <Layout>
            <View1>
              <Hints>
                <Table />
              </Hints>
            </View1>
          </Layout>
        </Configuration>
        <Annotation DisplayMode="0">
          <Name />
          <DefaultAnnotationText />
          <Left value="False" />
        </Annotation>
      </Properties>
      <EngineSettings EngineDll="AlteryxBasePluginsEngine.dll" EngineDllEntryPoint="AlteryxBrowseV2" />
    </Node>
  </Nodes>
  <Connections>
    <Connection>
      <Origin ToolID="1" Connection="Output" />
      <Destination ToolID="2" Connection="Input" />
    </Connection>
    <Connection>
      <Origin ToolID="2" Connection="Output" />
      <Destination ToolID="13" Connection="Input" />
    </Connection>
    <Connection>
      <Origin ToolID="4" Connection="Output" />
      <Destination ToolID="1" Connection="Input" />
    </Connection>
  </Connections>
  <Properties>
    <Memory default="True" />
    <GlobalRecordLimit value="0" />
    <TempFiles default="True" />
    <Annotation on="True" includeToolName="False" />
    <ConvErrorLimit value="10" />
    <ConvErrorLimit_Stop value="False" />
    <CancelOnError value="False" />
    <DisableBrowse value="False" />
    <EnablePerformanceProfiling value="False" />
    <DisableAllOutput value="False" />
    <ShowAllMacroMessages value="False" />
    <ShowConnectionStatusIsOn value="True" />
    <ShowConnectionStatusOnlyWhenRunning value="True" />
    <ZoomLevel value="0" />
    <LayoutType>Horizontal</LayoutType>
    <MetaInfo>
      <NameIsFileName value="True" />
      <Name>New Workflow1</Name>
      <Description />
      <RootToolName />
      <ToolVersion />
      <ToolInDb value="False" />
      <CategoryName />
      <SearchTags />
      <Author />
      <Company />
      <Copyright />
      <DescriptionLink actual="" displayed="" />
    </MetaInfo>
    <Events>
      <Enabled value="True" />
    </Events>
  </Properties>
</AlteryxDocument>

and for the second example with joins...

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<AlteryxDocument yxmdVer="10.5">
  <Nodes>
    <Node ToolID="1">
      <GuiSettings Plugin="AlteryxBasePluginsGui.AlteryxSelect.AlteryxSelect">
        <Position x="126" y="54" />
      </GuiSettings>
      <Properties>
        <Configuration>
          <OrderChanged value="False" />
          <SelectFields>
            <SelectField field="*Unknown" selected="True" />
          </SelectFields>
        </Configuration>
        <Annotation DisplayMode="0">
          <Name />
          <DefaultAnnotationText />
          <Left value="False" />
        </Annotation>
      </Properties>
      <EngineSettings EngineDll="AlteryxBasePluginsEngine.dll" EngineDllEntryPoint="AlteryxSelect" />
    </Node>
    <Node ToolID="2">
      <GuiSettings Plugin="AlteryxBasePluginsGui.TextInput.TextInput">
        <Position x="54" y="54" />
      </GuiSettings>
      <Properties>
        <Configuration>
          <NumRows value="0" />
          <Fields>
            <Field name="CustomerID" />
            <Field name="OrderID" />
            <Field name="CustomerName" />
            <Field name="OrderDate" />
          </Fields>
          <Data />
        </Configuration>
        <Annotation DisplayMode="0">
          <Name />
          <DefaultAnnotationText />
          <Left value="False" />
        </Annotation>
      </Properties>
      <EngineSettings EngineDll="AlteryxBasePluginsEngine.dll" EngineDllEntryPoint="AlteryxTextInput" />
    </Node>
    <Node ToolID="3">
      <GuiSettings Plugin="AlteryxBasePluginsGui.AlteryxSelect.AlteryxSelect">
        <Position x="126" y="198" />
      </GuiSettings>
      <Properties>
        <Configuration>
          <OrderChanged value="False" />
          <SelectFields>
            <SelectField field="*Unknown" selected="True" />
          </SelectFields>
        </Configuration>
        <Annotation DisplayMode="0">
          <Name />
          <DefaultAnnotationText />
          <Left value="False" />
        </Annotation>
      </Properties>
      <EngineSettings EngineDll="AlteryxBasePluginsEngine.dll" EngineDllEntryPoint="AlteryxSelect" />
    </Node>
    <Node ToolID="4">
      <GuiSettings Plugin="AlteryxBasePluginsGui.TextInput.TextInput">
        <Position x="54" y="198" />
      </GuiSettings>
      <Properties>
        <Configuration>
          <NumRows value="0" />
          <Fields>
            <Field name="CustomerID" />
          </Fields>
          <Data />
        </Configuration>
        <Annotation DisplayMode="0">
          <Name />
          <DefaultAnnotationText />
          <Left value="False" />
        </Annotation>
      </Properties>
      <EngineSettings EngineDll="AlteryxBasePluginsEngine.dll" EngineDllEntryPoint="AlteryxTextInput" />
    </Node>
    <Node ToolID="5">
      <GuiSettings Plugin="AlteryxBasePluginsGui.Join.Join">
        <Position x="222" y="126" />
      </GuiSettings>
      <Properties>
        <Configuration joinByRecordPos="False">
          <JoinInfo connection="Left">
            <Field field="CustomerID" />
          </JoinInfo>
          <JoinInfo connection="Right">
            <Field field="CustomerID" />
          </JoinInfo>
          <SelectConfiguration>
            <Configuration outputConnection="Join">
              <OrderChanged value="False" />
              <SelectFields>
                <SelectField field="Right_CustomerID" selected="True" rename="Right_CustomerID" />
                <SelectField field="*Unknown" selected="True" />
              </SelectFields>
            </Configuration>
          </SelectConfiguration>
        </Configuration>
        <Annotation DisplayMode="0">
          <Name />
          <DefaultAnnotationText />
          <Left value="False" />
        </Annotation>
      </Properties>
      <EngineSettings EngineDll="AlteryxBasePluginsEngine.dll" EngineDllEntryPoint="AlteryxJoin" />
    </Node>
    <Node ToolID="6">
      <GuiSettings Plugin="AlteryxBasePluginsGui.BrowseV2.BrowseV2">
        <Position x="294" y="126" />
      </GuiSettings>
      <Properties>
        <Configuration>
          <Layout>
            <View1>
              <Hints>
                <Table />
              </Hints>
            </View1>
          </Layout>
        </Configuration>
        <Annotation DisplayMode="0">
          <Name />
          <DefaultAnnotationText />
          <Left value="False" />
        </Annotation>
      </Properties>
      <EngineSettings EngineDll="AlteryxBasePluginsEngine.dll" EngineDllEntryPoint="AlteryxBrowseV2" />
    </Node>
  </Nodes>
  <Connections>
    <Connection>
      <Origin ToolID="1" Connection="Output" />
      <Destination ToolID="5" Connection="Left" />
    </Connection>
    <Connection>
      <Origin ToolID="3" Connection="Output" />
      <Destination ToolID="5" Connection="Right" />
    </Connection>
    <Connection>
      <Origin ToolID="2" Connection="Output" />
      <Destination ToolID="1" Connection="Input" />
    </Connection>
    <Connection>
      <Origin ToolID="4" Connection="Output" />
      <Destination ToolID="3" Connection="Input" />
    </Connection>
    <Connection>
      <Origin ToolID="5" Connection="Join" />
      <Destination ToolID="6" Connection="Input" />
    </Connection>
  </Connections>
  <Properties>
    <Memory default="True" />
    <GlobalRecordLimit value="0" />
    <TempFiles default="True" />
    <Annotation on="True" includeToolName="False" />
    <ConvErrorLimit value="10" />
    <ConvErrorLimit_Stop value="False" />
    <CancelOnError value="False" />
    <DisableBrowse value="False" />
    <EnablePerformanceProfiling value="False" />
    <DisableAllOutput value="False" />
    <ShowAllMacroMessages value="False" />
    <ShowConnectionStatusIsOn value="True" />
    <ShowConnectionStatusOnlyWhenRunning value="True" />
    <ZoomLevel value="0" />
    <LayoutType>Horizontal</LayoutType>
    <MetaInfo>
      <NameIsFileName value="True" />
      <Name>New Workflow1</Name>
      <Description />
      <RootToolName />
      <ToolVersion />
      <ToolInDb value="False" />
      <CategoryName />
      <SearchTags />
      <Author />
      <Company />
      <Copyright />
      <DescriptionLink actual="" displayed="" />
    </MetaInfo>
    <Events>
      <Enabled value="True" />
    </Events>
  </Properties>
</AlteryxDocument>

Microsoft Access 2000-2003 does not access big integer

Integer — For integers that range from -32,768 to +32,767. Storage requirement is two bytes.

You can find MS documentation here : https://support.office.com/en-us/article/set-the-field-size-ba65e5a7-2e6f-4737-8e72-36b93f966a33

So when you use Alteryx with big integer (e.g Int64 ), it won't work the way you expected and the field will be converted into Double.

So what I propose :

-a change in documentation about this behaviour
-a warning message on the output box when you use Access and you have Int64

-ability to select Access 2016 in order to use Long integer format

Best regards,

Simon

Ideas:

1. In the workspace (i.e. the white space) the perimeter is not fixed so when working with tool containers near a border and you place a tool inside the container the container expands outside the workspace, which makes the container useless since you can't select it
2. The ability to disable multiple tool containers at once

 R

When working with R code and errors occur, the application needs to show which line the error happened on.

Hi,

we use a lot the in-db tools to join our database and filter before extracting (seems logic), but to do it dynamically we have to use the dynamic input in db, which allows to input a kind of parameter for the dates, calculated locally and easily or even based on a parameter table in excel or whatever, it would be great to be able to dynamically plug a not in db tools to be able to have some parameters for filters or for the connect in-db. The thing is when yu use dynamic input in-db, you loose the code-free part and it can be harder to maintain for non sql users who are just used to do simple queries.

You could say that an analytic application could do the trick or even developp a macro to do so, but it would be complicated to do so with hundreds of tables.

Hope it will be interesting for others!

it would be great to have an Azure SQL DB or/and Azure SQL DW Connector. In the moment it is only possible to connect with the Standard SQL Db connector. To be successful a username and password is always required.

It would be perfect, if you can use your Azure AD User and Password and connect against the relevant Database within the Azure environment. 

I have several .yxdb files that I’ve been appending to daily from a SQL Server table in order to extend the length of time that data is retained.

They’re massive tables, but I may only need one or two rows. 

I had hoped to decrease the time it takes to get data from them by running a query on them (or a dynamic query/input) as opposed to using a filter or joining on an existing data set which would have equal values that would produce the same result as a filter.

Essentially, the input of .yxdb would have the option of inputting the full table or a SQL query just like a data connection.

As stated in the help on the Alteryx website, hive as a data source in Alteryx is validated for Hive 2.0. We were wondering if the most recent version of hive is included in the roadmap and, should anybody migrate to HIVE 3.0, what kind of support can be expected in case of technical issues ?

I know others have talked about it here and here and here other places.  And everyone suggests the dynamic rename tool and it's drawbacks.  

Our users regularly need to write data to various places on a worksheet and we end up authoring VBA to delete the header rows often.  It would make a huge difference to our users if there was a checkbox to exclude column headers when writing out.

I installed version 4.0.0 of the Salesforce Input tool since the old tool is deprecated. When I open a saved workflow that has Salesforce inputs, the inputs display an immediate error, for example "Error: Salesforce Input (95): 401 Client Error: Unauthorized for url: https://servings.my.salesforce.com/services/data/v42.0/sobjects/Task/describe/". The workflow will not run until I click into each Salesforce input and then click outside of it again to make it refresh, which takes a few seconds each time. I'm guessing this has to do with Alteryx saving an expired OAuth access token and trying to pull updated metadata.

My company does installs through a machine with admin rights, but the end user does not actually have admin rights to the laptop. Therefore, when attempting to add modules into the Developer tool for python - pip install fails. The failure is due to the install being in program files where a non-admin is unable to write, the normal workaround is also not possible since the version used is admin and not non-admi designer.

Can the tool be more flexible from the get go. As the only way out of this is to go through articles regarding SDK and creating custom requirements txt files. My goal was just to be able to use Python with Alteryx and add on modules as I need. Very cool updates in 3.5 I'm using but thought this conundrum might happen to others in same situation. Admin install with non-admin rights. Thanks.

Now that spell check is implemented ( https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Ideas/Spell-Check-in-Documentation-Tools/idc-p/343... ), it doesn't work like I expected.

To quote Jpoz :

The language check is based upon the language you selected in the installer when you installed Alteryx.

However, on my computer, Alteryx is set in French. On some project, documentation is also in French, on some others, especially when I have to work with foreign coworker, it's in english.

Can we imagine a language by workflow file, with a default coming from the settings. Something like that :

UI language (User settings)

Default WF language (User settings, if not manually changed, coming from UI language)

WF Language (linked the ywwf/yxmd/yxmc file coming from Default WF)

Use case:  Person running app to select folder from limited list similar to how the tree tool allows for a user to select one or more files.  This selected folder would then be connected via an Action tool to a Directory tool (or by adding a formula tool to a Dynamic Input).  The Folder Browse Interface does not have the ability to restrict or provide a starting parent folder.  The app below pulls data from SharePoint site, which cannot be easily browsed to.  Currently I have the user select a file in the required folder, then use RegEx parse and a Formula tool to pull in all requested files from that folder.  It would be a better user interface if the user selected a folder.  A test sample of the workflow is attached (final version ends in an Alteryx database this is picked up in a chained app).

Loving the fresh new UI, but (there's always a but) I feel like the combination of font usage, (no) smoothing, and kerning in the 2018.4 user interface is very straining on your eyes and makes most of the text pretty hard to read:

On high(er) resolution screens, like laptops, the issues get worse. Working on a ThinkPad P51s, Windows 10, 1920x1080, no weird text and layout upscaling because I'm a sane person.

Description: I have configured a number of customized MapServer files rather than having to manually configure each layer in the ReportMap tool.

For reference, these are stored in the <Alteryx Data Install Folder>\AlteryxMap\TomTom_US_2015_Q3, for the TomTom US - Current Vintage reference base map. Below is a picture of the many versions of the .map configuration file I have created.

Rationale: Using these different files is cumbersome and inefficient. To switch out a map file, I have to rename the current .map file to a dummy name. Then I have to rename the desired file to be the name that the existing file was. Additionally, I can only have one .map file in use at any one time and all of the workflows running use the same one.

Idea: Allow user to choose which .map file to use from within the Report Map tool.

I'm adding a 'Dynamic Input' tool to a macro that will dynmaically build the connection string based on User inputs. We intend to distribute this macro as a 'Connector' to our main database system.

However, this tool attempts to connect to the database after 'fake' credentials are supplied in the tool, returning error messages that can't be turned off.

In situations like this, I think you'd want the tool to refrain from attempting connections. Can we add a option to turn off the checking of credentials? I assume that others who are building the connection strings at runtime would also appreciate this as well.

As a corollary, for runtime connection strings, having to define a 'fake' connection in the Dynamic Input tool seems redundant, given we have already set the 'Change Entire File Path' option. There are some settings in the data connection window that are nice to be able to set at design time (e.g. caching, uncommitted read, etc.), but the main point of that window to provide the connection string is redundant given that we intend to replace it with the correct string at runtime. Could we make the data connection string optional?

To combine the above points, perhaps if the connection string is left blank, the tool does not attempt to connect to the connection string at runtime.

We would like to see more configuration options for renders to PowerPoint PPT. Specifically, we would like to be able to add headers, footers, and repeat column headers in the same way we can with PDF renders.

Refer to this unresolved question:

Powerpoint as an output of macro

@jaq734; @Prasanna921

Probably more of a bug. Not sure if this annoyes anyone else, but when a running workflow in a different tab completes, the current windows focus is gone, even you have the pop-up notification disabled. Check the video and see what happens at 0:11 when tab 105 finishes running while I'm typing a super complicated code 😉