Featured Ideas
Hello!
I am just making a quick suggestion, specifically for the Formula tool within Alteryx.
Often when I am working on a larger workflow - I will end up optimising the workflow towards the end. I typically end up removing unnecessary tools, fields, and rethinking my logic.
Much of this optimisation, is also merging formula tools where possible. For instance, if I have 3 formulas - its much cleaner (and I would suspect faster) to have these all within one tool. For instance, a scaled down example:
to this:
This requires a lot of copy and paste - especially if the formulas/column names are long - this can be two copy and pastes, and waiting for tools to load between them, per formula (i do appreciate, this sounds an incredibly small problem to have, but on what I would consider a large workflow, a tool loading can actually take a couple of seconds - and this could burn some time. Additionally, there's always potential problems when it comes to copy/pasting or retyping with errors).
My proposed solution to this, is the ability to drag a formula onto another - very similar to dragging a tool onto a connection. This integration would look like:
Drag to the first formula:
Release:
Formula has been appended to the formula tool:
I think this will help people visually optimise their workflows!
Cheers,
TheOC
This is a QoL-request, and I love me some QoL-updates!
While I'm developing I often need the output of a workflow as input for the next phase of my development. For example: an API run returns job location, status, and authentication ids. I want to use these in a new workflow to start experimenting what'll work best. Because of the experimenting part, I always do this in a new workflow and not cache and continue in my main flow.
Writing a temporary output file always feels like unnescesary steps, and tbh I don't want to write a file for a step that'll be gone before it reaches production. Esp if there is sensitive information in it.
Thanks.
Adding a up and down arrow on each column would make it easier and quicker to sort columns then the drop down menu or sort tool
Please improve the Excel XLSX output options in the Output tool, or create a new Excel Output tool,
or enhance the Render tool to include an Excel output option, with no focus on margins, paper size, or paper orientation
The problem with the current Basic Table and Render tools are they are geared towards reporting, with a focus on page size and margins.
Many of us use Excel as simply a general output method, with no consideration for fitting the output on a printed page.
The new tool or Render enhancement would handle different formats/different schemas without the need for a batch macro, and would include the options below.
The only current option to export different schemas to different Sheets in one Excel file, without regard to paper formatting, is to use a batch macro and include the CReW macro Wait a Second, to allow Excel to properly shut down before a new Sheet is created, to avoid file-write-contention issues.
Including the Wait a Second macro increased the completion time for one of my workflows by 50%, as shown in the screehshots below.
I have a Powershell script that includes many of the formatting options below, but it would be a great help if a native Output or Reporting tool included these options:
Allow options below for specific selected Sheet names, or for All Sheets
AllColumns_MaxWidth: Maximum width for ALL columns in the spreadsheet. Default value = 50. This value can be changed for specific columns by using option Column_SetWidth.
Column_SetWidth: Set selected columns to an exact width. For the selected columns, this value will override the value in AllColumns_MaxWidth.
Column_Centered: Set selected columns to have text centered horizontally.
Column_WrapText: Set selected columns to Wrap text.
AllCells_WrapText: Checkbox: wrap text in every cell in the entire worksheet. Default value = False.
AllRows_AutoFit: Checkbox: to set the height for every row to autofit. Default value False.
Header_Format: checkbox for Bold, specify header cells background color, Border size: 1pt, 2pt, 3pt, and border color, Enable_Data_Filter: checkbox
Header_freeze_top_row: checkbox, or specify A2:B2 to freeze panes
Sheet_overflow: checkbox: if the number of Sheet rows exceeds Excel limit, automatically create the next sheet with "(2)" appended
Column_format_Currency: Set selected columns to Currency: currency format, with comma separators, and negative numbers colored red.
Column_format_TwoDecimals: Set selected columns to Two decimals: two decimals, with comma separators, and negative numbers colored red.
Note: If the same field name is used in Column_Currency and Column_TwoDecimals, the field will be formatted with two decimals, and not formatted as currency.
Column_format_ShortDate: Set selected columns to Short Date: the Excel default for Short Date is "MM/DD/YYYY".
File_suggest_read_only: checkbox: Set flag to display this message when a user opens the Excel file: "The author would like you to open 'Analytic List.xlsx' as read-only unless you need to make changes. Open as read-only?
vb code: xlWB.ReadOnlyRecommended = True
File_name_include_date_time: checkboxes to add file name Prefix or Suffix with creation Date and/or Time
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Examples:
My only current option: use a batch macro, plus a Wait a Second macro, to write different formats/schemas to multiple Sheets in one Excel file:
 
Using the Wait a Second macro, to allow Excel to shut down before writing a new Sheet, to avoid write-contention issues, results in a workflow that runs 50% longer:
 
Hello all,
As of today, you can populate the Drop Down tool in the interface category with a query launched from a in-memory connection. I would really appreciate the ability to use instead an in-db connection.
Why ?
It means managing two connections instead of one, and finding ways to manage it on server for both of them, etc etc.. Simplicity is key.
Best regards,
Simon
