Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

A client just asked me if there was an easy way to convert regular Containers to Control Containers - unfortunately we have to delete the old container and readd the tools into the new Control Container.

What if we could just right click on the regular Container and say "Convert to Control Container"? Or even vice versa?!

I am aware that an Auto-Documenter tool is available in the Gallery, but that has not been maintained since 2020. 

It would be great if Alteryx could have that as an added feature to the Designer as an option for end-users to utilize. 

The breakdown of it can be done via XML parsing as such: 

<Nodes>: Configuration of tools

<Connections>: The tools used

<Properties>: Workflow properties

Right now, the current workaround is for users to export their XML, and the internal Alteryx development team has to build another workflow that reads the XML accordingly + parses it to fit what is needed. 

It would be better for Alteryx to build something more robust, and perhaps even include some elements of AiDIN which they are promoting now.

Add the remove or add Prefix or Suffix Feature on the Summary Tool because this is where the prefix is added automatically by the Summary tool, so instead of adding a new select tool after the Summary tool to remove the prefix. why not to embed it with the summary tool it self. 

Not sure I'd call this a user setting, but I couldn't figure out the right heading this belongs to. 

When opening files, there are often times a couple of files at that aren't run on any kind of schedule or set time frame but you come back to when you need to run them.  

There should be a way to set "FAVORITES" for a handful of files that you find yourself referring to on a repeated basis, but too far back to be on the 'recents' list because you open too many other files. 

Currently if I have a connection between two tools as per the example below:

I can drag and drop a new tool on the connection between these tools to add it in:

And designer updates the connections nicely, however if I select multiple tools and try and collectively drop them inbetween, on a connection then it won't allow me to do this, and will move the connection out of the way so it doesn't cause an overlap.

Therefore as a QoL improvement it would be great if there was a multi-drop option on connections between tools.

I can be picky about how my workflows are laid out.  Oftentimes, the connector between tools has a "mind of its own" as to what direction it goes and how it crosses other objects.  I'd like to see the ability to control the connector lines with "elbows" that can be positioned in custom locations and directions, like an MS Visio diagram. Alternatively, add a simple "pin" tool could be added to the canvas and it's only function is to take in and send out a connector line by defining the input and output location.  The input and output locations could be defined angularly/radial in degrees, for example.  Image attached below of existing workflow with a "troublesome" connector and the concept of "elbows" and "pins" added as an alternate control mechanism.  Both would be great!  :)

Lots of use cases involve concatenating some values based on group by clauses within the Summarize tool.

It will be great to have the option to Concatenate Unique as an aggregation method, so the results will have just one appearance for each value in the results.

Plus, having the option to get the chance to have them sorted or not will be awesome.

This may have been raised before, but we would like to see the equivalent of PRICE and YIELD formulas from Excel in Alteryx's Formula tool. I believe many users in the finance industry are using formulas like these frequently and it would be helpful to be able to replicate the formula in Alteryx.

Manually building the formula is possible, however it is unnecessarily complicated especially if you are working on different calendar basis e.g. 30 /360 European.

Thank you!

The idea is to have a Run option, where the workflow runs everything up to the selected tool (Like the Cache functionality does).

You select the tool, hit Run Up and the workflows executes everything "before" the selected tool.

That'll make developing much easier, specially when dealing with big workflows and constant changing data.

Love the new Sharepoint Files Input tool. Significant improvement over previous options! 

A suggestion that could improve the impact of the tool:

File Download Only

Current state: The tool performs two actions simultaneously: 1) downloading the file (csv/xlsx/yxdb) AND 2) reads the file into the data stream. When processing the supported file types, this is very convenient! However, the beauty of Alteryx is being able to read in raw data from almost any file type (pdf/zip/doc/xml/txt/json/etc) and process the data myself. Being limited to only officially sanctioned file types greatly diminishes the impact of the tool. 

Suggestion: Allow the user to 1) specify a filepath, 2) download the selected file(s) to that destination, and 3) optionally use a dynamic input tool to process the file. 

It would be ever so helpful and save a couple extra steps if a count distinct option could be added to the crosstab tool.  Seems like a slam dunk since plain ole 'count' is already a choice.

FILE==>Open Recent==>

(add the ability to Pin Favorite Workflows)

The Pinned workflows will persist at the top of your recent files each time you open your Alteryx Designer Application.

When inputting a CSV file via the Azure Data Lake File Storage tool the default behaviour is for the first row to be interpreted as data.

When reading the same file locally using the File Input tool the default behaviour is for the first row to be interpreted as headers.

Since the majority of files will include headers on the first row, it would be helpful to have the "First row contains field names" option selected by default in the Azure Data Lake File Storage tool, and this would also bring the defaults of this tool in line with the standard File Input tool.

Illustration below showing the issue:

When configuring a FILTER tool, the results of your formula are uncertain until you RUN/PLAY the workflow.  Compare that experience with the configuration of a FORMULA tool where you see a "Data Preview" of the first record results.

TRUE or FALSE could readily be added to the Filter Tool and save the execution time for the workflow.  

When you get to HTML tool versions, you could check many rows of data and potentially give back counts of TRUE and FALSE results as well.

I'll put this on my x-mas list and see if Santa has me on the naughty or nice list.

Cheers,

Mark

Hi Alteryx community,

It would be really nice to have v_string/v_wstring and max character size as a standard for text columns.

it is countless how many times I found that the error was related to a string truncation due to string size limit from the text input.

Thumbs-up those who lost their minds after discovering that the error was that! 😄

I love the new right click and duplicate workflow feature, but I think the duplicated workflow that opens, should open next to the original workflow and not at the end of all of your already open workflow tabs...

cc: @jpoz @jeffv 

Adobe analytics api current version is 2.0 but the connector still uses 1.4. This works for log in access but does not for automated access since the end points are changed and 2.0 uses a new key structure

Sometime I confused DateTimeParse(dt,f) and DateTimeFormat(dt,f).

My idea is changing "DateTimeParse(dt,f)" to "DateTimeParse(string,f)" when we select DateTimeParse from function list.

Because DateTimeParse uses string type data as a first variables, not datetime type data.

No need to change DateTimeParse function itself.