Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

I often need to create a record ID that automatically increments but grouped by a specific field. I currently do it using the Multi-Row Formula tool doing [Field-1:ID]+1 because there is no group by option in the Record ID tool.

Also, sometimes I need to start at 0 but the Multi-Row Formula tool doesn't allow this so I have to use a Formula tool right after to subtract 1.

So adding a group by option to the Record ID tool would allow the user not to use the multi-row formula to do this and to start at any value wanted.

When a user wants to use the find nearest to say find the nearest within 200 miles the dropdown stops at 100.

Similar if they want a number in between IE 15 the interface is not intuitive.

While you can just type the number in the interface doesn't look like you are able to.

Simply adding a "Custom" selection at the bottom would make this much more intuitive.

Enable files as inputs to Alteryx that have been protected with either Azure Information Protection (AIP) or Microsoft Information Protection (MIP)

From: Alteryx Support <support@alteryx.com>
Sent: 04 February 2022 22:43
To: candice.darcybryant@alteryx.com
Cc: Sundaramoorthy, Nishanth-XT <nishanth.sundaramoorthy@ubs.com>; clientsvcs@alteryx.com; Bignell, Nicholas <nicholas.bignell@ubs.com>; chiggins@alteryx.com; Jaganathan, Prasanth-Ram <prasanth-ram.jaganathan@ubs.com>
Subject: [External] Case #00528349 - Fw: Azure Information Protection (AIP) or Microsoft Information Protection (MIP) [ ref:_00DE0JJZ4._5002R1On7Ru:ref ]

Hi Candice,

Thanks for reaching out. At this juncture, formal validation of data sources with AIP or MIP applied has not been conducted. Coincidentally, earlier this week, another user submitted an inquiry pertaining to Sensitivity Labels of MIP. They had observed that files with their organization's "Confidential" label applied were unable to be input within workflows.

Similar to password protected or encrypted files, Sensitivity Labels (and other AIP/MIP implementations) may be configured in a manner that prevents drivers (e.g. Excel) of Designer from reading the file. For any incompatibility that's observed within data sources with AIP or MIP applied, it's recommend to submit an Idea as to the Designer application supporting the scope of these implementations. Our Product and Engineering Teams actively monitor Ideas to help ensure we're delivering the best product experience to our users.

Thanks for writing in.

Best,

–Josh
Sr. Customer Support Engineer | Alteryx
 

You may be selected to participate in a short feedback survey. Any comments regarding your experience will help to ensure we're delivering the best support. Thanks!

--------------- Original Message ---------------
From: Candice D'Arcy-Bryant [candice.darcybryant@alteryx.com]
Sent: 2/4/2022 1:59 AM
To: clientsvcs@alteryx.com
Cc: nishanth.sundaramoorthy@ubs.com; nicholas.bignell@ubs.com; chiggins@alteryx.com; prasanth-ram.jaganathan@ubs.com
Subject: Fw: Azure Information Protection (AIP) or Microsoft Information Protection (MIP)

Hi Support,

Please could you provide the options we have for files protected with either Azure Information Protection (AIP) or Microsoft Information Protection (MIP) to be used as inputs to Alteryx?

Please let us know if you require additional information.

Many thanks,

Candice D’Arcy-Bryant  

Strategic Customer Success Manager | +44 (0) 7872 959 067 

ca?ndice.darcybryant@alteryx.com | alteryx.com

Upcoming Out of Office:

February 07-11, 21-25

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Alteryx UK Ltd is a company registered in England and Wales with company number 08806138.  Its registered office is located at 5 New Street Square, London EC4A3TW.  

This email and any files transmitted are for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information.  Any unauthorized use or disclosure is prohibited.  If you have received this email in error and are not an intended recipient, please contact the sender and remove it from your system.

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From: Bignell, Nicholas <nicholas.bignell@ubs.com>
Sent: 03 February 2022 10:15
To: Candice D'Arcy-Bryant <candice.darcybryant@alteryx.com>
Cc: Sundaramoorthy, Nishanth-XT <nishanth.sundaramoorthy@ubs.com>; Jaganathan, Prasanth-Ram <prasanth-ram.jaganathan@ubs.com>; Craig Higgins <chiggins@alteryx.com>
Subject: RE: Azure Information Protection (AIP) or Microsoft Information Protection (MIP)

Hi Candice.

Seems there is an internal programme to implement this.

I have been contacted by three teams so far in the IB,  IB FX trading and IB Operations and IB Risk management.

In terms of potential impact it could be bank wide, but seems to be starting with the IB since November last year.

The program site (called DRM internally) states:

The Digital Rights Management (DRM) solution helps us manage data more effectively by putting a 'digital lock' on highly sensitive files. This means that even when a file is lost by accident, the external person who finds it cannot access its contents. These DRM classified and protected files can still be accessed and edited internally by UBS employees.

After a file has been classified according to its level of sensitivity DRM will automatically encrypt files if they are classified as 'confidential' or 'strictly confidential'. The classification and protection of a file can be set manually, or is automatically set for downloads of reports from applications that contain sensitive information or for users that have access to CID from specific applications (see details in the DRM guideline).

DRM is available globally in UBS.

Thanks Nick

From: Candice D'Arcy-Bryant <candice.darcybryant@alteryx.com>
Sent: 03 February 2022 09:32
To: Bignell, Nicholas <nicholas.bignell@ubs.com>
Cc: Sundaramoorthy, Nishanth-XT <nishanth.sundaramoorthy@ubs.com>; Jaganathan, Prasanth-Ram <prasanth-ram.jaganathan@ubs.com>; Craig Higgins <chiggins@alteryx.com>
Subject: [External] Re: Azure Information Protection (AIP) or Microsoft Information Protection (MIP)

Hi Nick,

Yes, I'm enquiring internally and will get back to you as soon as I have some information.

In the meantime, it would be good to understand:

• Who is impacted by this issue?
• What the impact is?
• Where in the business this is being felt the most?
• How many users / workflows are affected by this?
• When did this first start to affect users / workflows?

Many thanks,

Candice D’Arcy-Bryant  

Strategic Customer Success Manager | +44 (0) 7872 959 067 

ca?ndice.darcybryant@alteryx.com | alteryx.com

Upcoming Out of Office:

February 07-11, 21-25

*******************************************************************************************************************

Alteryx UK Ltd is a company registered in England and Wales with company number 08806138.  Its registered office is located at 5 New Street Square, London EC4A3TW.  

This email and any files transmitted are for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information.  Any unauthorized use or disclosure is prohibited.  If you have received this email in error and are not an intended recipient, please contact the sender and remove it from your system.

*******************************************************************************************************************

From: Bignell, Nicholas <nicholas.bignell@ubs.com>
Sent: 03 February 2022 08:48
To: Candice D'Arcy-Bryant <candice.darcybryant@alteryx.com>
Cc: Sundaramoorthy, Nishanth-XT <nishanth.sundaramoorthy@ubs.com>; Jaganathan, Prasanth-Ram <prasanth-ram.jaganathan@ubs.com>
Subject: Azure Information Protection (AIP) or Microsoft Information Protection (MIP)

Hi Candice

Can you investigate what options we have for users that want use files as inputs to Alteryx that have been protected with either Azure Information Protection (AIP) or Microsoft Information Protection (MIP)

Thanks Nick

ref:_00DE0JJZ4._5002R1On7Ru:ref

I've seen this question before and have run into it myself.  I'd like to see a new tool that would allow a developer (of a workflow) to choose a path of logic based upon criteria known only during the execution of a module.

If LEFT INPUT Count of records < 10,000 THEN Path1 (e.g. use a calgary join)

ELSE Path 2 (e.g. use a standard join)

endif

Thanks,

Mark

Note: This idea doesn't strictly fit into any given category as it involves enabling support for something that affects numerous aspects of Alteryx's already existing spatial features.

I live in Australia. As do a large number of your users. Like me, many of those users use Alteryx to process spatial data. There is only one problem; we live on a roving continent. Every year our continent shifts ever so slightly but over time that shift becomes significant. For this reason we have our own continental system of spatial coordinate projections. It's called the Geocentric Datum of Australia or GDA.

Since 2000, the official Australian geodetic datum has been GDA94.  However, according to the Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping (ICSM), because the coordinates of features on our maps, such as roads, buildings and property boundaries (and so on), are all based on GDA94, they do not change over time. This is why they have since adopted a new datum: GDA2020. This has now become the standard for mapping in Australia, bringing Australia’s national coordinates into line with global satellite positioning systems.

A more detailed explanation of this can be found on the ICSM's website: What is changing and why? | Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping (icsm.gov.au).

Of course Alteryx supports the more global WGS84 standard, which like GDA94 is a fixed datum. But there is up to a 1.8 metre discrepancy between GDA94 (and WGS84) and GDA2020. For spatial analysis projects that don't require metre accuracy that's not a problem. But imagine you are building a bridge, plotting the lanes of a road or programming a GPS enabled tractor. That 1.8 metre discrepancy between the real world coordinates and the projection is enough to cause problems. 

And it is. Which is why we request that Alteryx include support for GDA2020 in its existing selection of spatial projections.

This will enable spatial datasets configured in GDA2020 to not require conversion and thus risk corruption or error. This includes providing the ability to configure GDA2020 as the spatial projection in the input tool and all spatial tools.

Doing so would go a long way to supporting your ever growing Australian user base and maintaining Alteryx's position as a trusted software for processing spatial data.

Please add either or both

1. "CustomFile/Database", similar to the TREE tool to the Text Box interface tool
2. An option to make TREE Tool "silent" or passive when using the "CustomFile/Database" option

The purpose is to provide a better way to pass data, and thus allow "Action" tool to be used, from interface responses in a previous App chained to the current App.

Use Case:

We had a workflow with 8 TREE tools and 3 of them had significant number of rows associated.  This caused frequent failures where the queries getting the multiple layers of data for the TREE would time out.

Through trial and experiment we determined this was the issue by removing TREE tools until we had consistent function.

Most if not all the TREEs and all of the 3 offending TREEs were used to modify FILTER tools, in this case each of those 3 TREEs 3 or 4 Actions driving the same number of FILTERs

So we had to find a way to break up the operation.  Ultimately I separated the 3 large volume TREE tools into a separate workflow to run first and then CHAIN to the original flow with modifications to read the responses passed from the new 1st workflow in the chain and replaced the FILTER with JOINs, effectively filtering by JOIN.

This worked but was extra work and it made me think of the many other situations where I would like to take input from an external source and affect a FORMULA or FILTER or a few other tools where an ACTION is best/only way to modify tool configuration at run time.

I think this lack of a way to use an ACTION tool with a "Non-Interface" data source has probably limited the opportunities of Applications.

Given the division of labor in an APP,

1. run all Interface tools first and modify config of other tools
2. then run the rest of the tools on the canvas

there is no way to make a run time ACTION tool as it must do its job before the core job runs. 

This adaptation of the TREE tool, which is my preference, or the adaptation of the Text Box tool, offer good solutions that should be fairly simple to code and roll out the the user base.

Currently, when a new version of Alteryx Designer is released, you get a banner at the top of your Designer to upgrade. You can manually select to disable this for up to 30 days. 

However, this is really causing issues with Server compatibility. Users get notified to upgrade, thinking it's from the Server owners and upgrade then is no longer compatible with Server. Alternatively, it causes differences between users, etc. 

It would be ideal that it would be disabled in general but also controlled when software is pushed to machines through IT policies.

Hello!

As many of you know, i'm a big fan of Alteryx Apps. However, one of the most painful parts of Alteryx Apps is moving around elements in the Interface Designer. Currently when you have many elements in your interface designer:

And add a new element from the dropdown, or through a new tool:

It is added to the bottom of the interface. Moving it to the top is currently done with the arrows, however this is very slow, especially when you have many interface elements:

Currently (with 9 radio buttons) it takes 18 clicks (each taking a couple of seconds due to delay between movements) to move it, because it moves between each step:

It would be fantastic if we could drag and drop the elements of the interface to where we like, for speed of development and ease of use.

Thanks,

TheOC 

Currently when debug mode is entered in analytic apps and macros, the direct inputs to the app/macro when the error occurred are hardcoded into a workflow in debug mode, so that errors can be more easily detected.

However, inputs into analytic apps also create global variables which can be used in the more code-heavy aspects of Alteryx such as the Formula Tool. These are not updated in the same way which can cause workflows to break in debug mode - it would be really helpful if global variables could be updated in the same way as the inputs into tools are.

While the result window allows sorting and filtering, every time the user switches to another tool within the same run, the configuration is lost. It would be good if there was a 'Retain" button so that the user does not have to keep setting this each time the tool is switched or when the canvas is retriggered.

Hello,

I think the option Overwrite File (Remove) shouldn't throw an error if the file is not present

Or, I don't know, make 2 options : one with fail if file is missing, the other to not fail.

This idea is the same than https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Ideas/Overwrite-Table-for-output-write-indb-should... but for files.

Best regards,

Simon

Please add support for Databricks' Unity Catalog

Currently, when selecting a Databricks-connection in the “Connect In-DB”-tool, and opening the “Query Builder”, only tables in the catalog named “hive_metastore” are listed. That is, Alteryx submits the following SQL query to Databricks:

Listing tables 'catalog : hive\_metastore, schemaPattern : %, tableTypes : null, tableName : %'

However, with Unity Catalog in Databricks the namespace is three-tier and there may be multiple catalogs (and not just the "hive_metastore" catalog), see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/azure/databricks/lakehouse/data-objects#--what-is-a-catalog

I reached out to Alteryx support, which replied that you currently have a feature request for implementing this change (ID TDCB-4056) and they furthermore suggested that I post here.

Thanks in advance.

I'm not sure if this will ever be possible, but I know that it would greatly benefit me and I'm sure thousands of other users. In my work place I am constantly working in a conference room and at my desk. At my desk I am wired into an Ethernet connection while in the conference room I am wireless. When I start my workflows after working with my team in the conference room, I can't go back to my desk until the workflow is finished running because I am changing internet connections and I lose connection to the databases. With the pause button it would become possible to run a workflow and then change my internet without losing connection to the databases.

Another use for this would be while testing a workflow with a new tool. There are times I run a workflow that can take a few hours, but then I realize there is a mistake somewhere in my workflow, where the data hasn't reached yet. I think it would be very helpful to be able to pause the workflow and add the new tool in, while seeing results from tools it has already passed through.

But yet again this is just an idea that relates to me, I wonder what the rest of the community thinks.

SOOOOoooooo many times it'd be great to just dictate the character length/count (fixed width) for the parse (just like you can in excel), instead of being constrained by a delimiter or being obligated to go create (potentially complex) REGEX.  Ideally you could go into the column and insert the <break> (multiple times if needed) after the given character where you'd like the parse to occur.  Anything past the last <break> would all be included in the final parse section/field. 

You could also do it a little less visual and just identify/type the character count you want for each column.  If you really want to enhance this idea, you could also include the ability to name the fields and prescribe the data type.  Those would just be gravy on the meat of the idea however, which is, provide the ability to parse by fixed length fields.

I wasn't able to find an existing idea for this, so here goes...

We often put URLs in Comment boxes in order to direct workflow users to different resources, but users are then required to go into the Comment and copy the string (and then paste in their browser). It would be quite handy if the Comment tool simply turned text strings with a url format into clickable links (as seen in Word, Slack, etc).

It would be even more handy if it also had basic text formatting tools (bold, italic, underline, coloring, highlighting of specified characters/words) -- or if it could just render html (like this text tool I'm typing into right now) 😎

I'm testing out the new Data Connection Manager (DCM) and think it needs 1 enhancement based on the way we'd use DCM. Whenever Alteryx opens, it should sync the Data Sources/Credentials from the Server. This is critically important when sharing these with more than 1 user when a password needs updated.

For example, DesignerA updates the password in the source system, and then updates the password in their Designer DCM settings. In order for this new password to get synced to DesignerB, 2 things have to manually happen: DesignerA would need to sync the new password to the server, and then DesignerB would need to sync the new password from the server. I can live with the first part where DesignerA needs to sync to the server. It's just part of the password update process. The second step though seems perilous. DesignerB should get the new password without having to do anything; as things currently stand, DesignerB will have the old password until they manually intervene and sync the password. Imagine a scenario where it's just DesignerB, but hundreds of people who would all have to sync their credentials. 

I also think this idea makes sense in light of the way Data Connections currently work (pre 21.4) where a similar sync happens automatically every time alteryx opens.  

When you start using DCM - you may have existing canvasses which use regular old connection strings which you want to migrate to DCM.

Currently (in 2023.1.1.123) - when you select "Use Data Connection Manager" - it shreds the configuration of your input tool which makes it difficult to just convert these from an existing connection to a DCM connection

The only way to then make sure that you don't lose any configuration on the tool then is to use the XML editing functionality of the tools and copy across your old configuration.

Could you please add the capability to keep my current tool configuration, but just change from using a regular old connection string to using DCM?

Many thanks 

Sean

cc: @wesley-siu @_PavelP 

Just like there is search bar for Select Tool, there should be one for Data Cleansing tool also.

Hello all,

I suggest a new string function Repeat()

Repeat() forms a string consisting of the input string repeated the number of times defined by the second argument.

Repeat(text[, repeat_count])

Repeat('to',3) gives tototo

It's also a standard SQL function
https://www.w3schools.com/sql/func_mysql_repeat.asp

Best regards,

Simon