Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

 The Download tool is so much more than Downloads. Think about the situation where you are using the Download tool to upload invoices and try explaining that to co-workers. "Oh yes - I'm going to implement the API to upload the invoices using the Alteryx download tool..." Could we call it the Curl tool or something?

It seems odd to me that Alteryx has so many connectors for complex data sources but lacks a built-in tool for standard FTP and SFTP which is arguably the most common external data source of all.

 

I've searched around the community and of course there are all kinds of methods involving using the download tool or command line, but all these require quite a bit of setup and advanced understanding.  Why not just setup a built-in tool for FTP that would allow users to easily download and upload to FTP?

 

Alteryx is all about simplicity and democratization of the data shaping role, so the need for a simple FTP tool seems key to that product vision.  Thanks for considering...

 

A connector tool for the GSuit API that would enable us to import email contents, attachments, and other Google apps data into Alteryx.

Maybe this pointless but my guess is that memory usage could be as important as processing time and is probably a simple addition to the performance profiling feature.

I got to know that in version 9.1 Alteryx will have Unique Tool with "Unknow"check box to make it dynamic. I want to suggest same logic for Summarize tool for making it Dynamic.
Please add Unknow like functionallity in Summarize Tool

Thanks,
Pratik Gujarathi 

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

Consider, for a moment, Standard Macros as old-school Subroutines in which you would have a library of Subroutines that could be invoked from numerous code sets.  Each Subroutine could have any number of arguments, and when the Subroutine is invoked, the calling code provides the arguments and their values to the Subroutine.

 

You can do this in Alteryx - but with a very large but.  The source field names being passed to the Standard Macro have to be the same field names the Standard Macro is expecting.  To make the Standard Macros more "library friendly" - allow the calling workflow to alias fields in the dataset for the sole purpose of sending them to the Macro.

 

Example:  Standard Macro that returns a Vendor ID based on a Location and Item Number.

Macro Input: Location ID, Item Number

Calling Workflow has: Purchase Location and Item Code

 

The Macro on the calling workflow would have a mapping:

Data Set Object	Macro Input Object
Purchasing Location	Location ID
Item Code	Item Number

Adding "Lightning Bolt" connectors to the standard workflow tools to allow dynamic automation of the settings would be a game changer. I believe that this would enable us to create universally dynamic and adaptive workflows which could be used as drop in solutions for most datasets. This would turn the standard tools into a dynamic ones and dramatically reduce the tool count to accomplish dynamic tasks, and make complex workflows much easier to internalize. Making standard workflow tools more dynamic would allow us to easily dynamically incorporate conditional tests / values / fieldname selections / bypass / etc into tools like detour / filter / formula / unique / transpose / crosstab / summarize / Outputs / etc. I would also like to see the ability to utilize a bool field to bypass any given tool in a workflow. That way we could do things like conditionally bypass an entire formula tool which would dramatically simplify complex formula construction, turn on and off inputs / outputs, simplify error avoidance, etc.

 

In order to build complex dynamic conditional workflows with the current tool capabilities, most of us are forced to use custom macros (often a multitude of workflow specific ones as well), constantly add and remove formula created fields for message relay, and create complex multi-routings / tests / unions in a standard workflow with large numbers of tools and containers. This hides many of our tasks within short-term use fields / custom macros and it makes the rest of our workflows voluminous and less intuitive.

 

On the User Interface side, I recommend a simple approach. Next to the standard tool setting there should be a dynamic input option which allows you to select the source field in the lightning bolt connector. Next to that, there should be an icon that can be clicked on to pop up a short text description and a basic screen shot of data in the correct format for dynamic input. I would also like to see a check box at the bottom for manual tool "bypass" which can also be dynamically controlled. (This would especially be helpful on outputs, but it would also be helpful to allow formulas and filters to be kept in place for future use even when they should not currently be used) Turned off tools could be highlighted in a red background or something.

 

This would be useful for anyone creating dynamic and adaptive workflows, but it would especially expand Alteryx Designer's capability to attract more custom software developers like me.  It would dramatically reduce the need for a large number of complex workflow specific macros that clutter our systems. Users that find the traditional workflow tool approach easier for them could easily use the tools as normal by simply using the standard manual settings. Advanced users could simplify the creation of universally dynamic and self adaptive workflows.

At the moment, we use ODBC driver to connect with Dremio.  However, we have experienced that this connection fail when connect with Tableau until a native connector has been built.  

 

Do you think Alteryx can work with Dremio on building a connector for stable connection?  Thank you.

As a best practice, I label a Control Parameter with the exact field name that I want to map to in the workflow. This takes any guesswork out of maintenance down the road. I want the macro questions to automap the labels to field names, just like a Join tool automaps the right side to the left when a field name is chosen from the left side drop down.

There are times where new versions of Alteryx come out, but there are situations where you cannot keep the Desktop and Server versions in sync.

 

As an example, at his time of the year, we are getting ready for year-end and al the workflows located on the server have been tested and signed off on. Now there is a new version of desktop with new features, but advise everyone to stay on the current version in case we need to make a fix. Typically, if we updated Designer desktop and try to publish the server -- you will get a versioning error.

 

I propose that when saving to the server, I can choose the compatible version and Designer/Server can let me know if there is any features I am using that will not work. If I don't use any features from a newer version, the workflow will publish.

 

So, let's say my server and Designer are at version 2022.1 and I decided to download version 2022.2. Typically, if I open and make any change with the new version -- I would get an error saving to the server - even if I am not using new features. However, what I am saying is that there is an option asking me what version I would like to save the workflow to the server as and I can choose 2022.1. Designer or server can check if I did or did not use any incompatible features, and if not, can save to the with the appropriate version.  

 

Thanks,
Seth

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

When dealing with very large tables (100M rows plus), it's not always practical to bring the entire table back to the designer to profile and understand the data.

 

It would be very useful if the power of the field summary tool (frequency analysis; evaluating % nulls; min & max values; length of strings; evaluating if the type is appropriate or could be compressed; whether there is whitespace before or after) could be brought to large DB tables without having to bring the whole table back to the client.

Given that each of these profiling tasks can be done as a discrete SQL query; I would think that this would be MASSIVELY faster than doing this client-side; but it would be a bit of a pain to write this tool.

 

If there is interest in this - I'm more than happy to work with the Alteryx team to look at putting together an initial mockup.

 

Cheers

Sean

In Powerpoint, you can right-click on a picture and replace it with a different picture without losing formatting.

 

Similar functionality would be useful for replacing custom macros.

• I would like to be able to switch an old version of a custom macro with a new version in situ, without losing the connections to other tools, interface tools, or location in a container. 

Currently, the only option is to insert the new custom macro and then reset all incoming and outgoing connections. Some downstream tools (e.g., crosstab) lose their existing settings and that has to be reset too. On complicated workflows, this can introduce silent errors.

 

This capability would be especially helpful for team coding, where different team members are revising different modules for a parent workflow.

 

Currently:

Right-clicking on the canvas shows Insert > Macro > (choose from list of open macros)

Right-clicking on an existing macro shows Open Macro

 

New functionality:

Right-clicking on an existing macro shows Replace/Change Macro > (choose from list of open macros)

 

 

The most difficult part about quickly sharing Community Questions and Solutions is constructing representative "Dummy" data values as static Text Inputs that can be packaged in a workflow. Most of us are almost exclusively working with sensitive client and company data that cannot be shared. It would be great to have a tool that converted values over to dummy values based on the type of data in that field. Kind of like a dynamic find and replace that randomizes values, replaces occurrences with similar dummy values, or scrambles string values in an indecipherable way.

 

The tool output could directly update a connected "Create Text Input" tool, or it could be connected to a browse tool that could quickly be converted to a Text Input.

One major improvement in version 11 is that you can now schedule workflows directly in the Gallery. One thing I miss though is the ability to see the whole log from the workflow (messages, warnings and conversion errors).

 

I have made a workaround by using the list runner (Crew Macros), but I think this should be a functionality on the server itself.

 

To see the workaround and the expected output, you can watch this video:

 

https://vimeo.com/214995668

Hey @A11yKyle and Alteryx Accessibility Team! It would be great if we could add alt text (dynamic based on input data would be even better!) and set the tab order of rendered PDFs so we could create reporting outputs that are digitally accessible.

Many of us use auto-increment primary keys in our tables, but these PK's don't exist in the raw data as a natural key.  So when we get new raw data, we cannot use the Update / Insert if New method which keys off the Primary Key.

 

Imagine if you could select ANY unique key on the table instead?  

 

There's no reason not to allow this from a SQL perspective, though it might be a little less efficient for some DB engines.  But it would make things so much easier!!!

 

Right now, I instead load to a temp holding table and then do deletes and inserts using the Post Create SQL statement.