Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Submitting this idea from a different category as I couldn't find an appropriate category.

I think that it is important to have an offline documentation in either PDF or HTML format (or both) with each major release (or minor release where new features are introduced, such as Alteryx Designer 2025.1.2) for at least the on-prem products (such as Designer and Server) for the use cases or scenarios where either internet connectivity might be limited or non-existent or the user might want to access a part of the documentation quickly (especially in PDF format though searching from the index, where one wouldn't have to navigate between web pages).

It would be great to have the new expression editor in the Interface tools such as Action and Error Message to have the modern expression editor, not only for highlighting and autocomplete but also the "preview result for the first row" (which is the only row when you are writing an expression for an Interface tool.

I think that the addition of this feature is especially necessary because of the "Update Raw XML with Formula" feature, which requires you to clearly be able to see the output of your formula, which in turn usually requires you to first test the XML in a separate workflow with a Text Input tool.

While JSON Parse tool is useful for processing data, it is possible that a name corresponding to a JSON value may contain a period (.) symbol and this can be problematic when you are dealing with a nested JSON value, as Alteryx automatically uses the period character as a delimiter for the JSON_Name column.

I would like to propose an enhancement where the user can select the delimiter the JSON_Name column would be created with, allowing the user to select a character not used in the names for the JSON values, therefore eliminating the need to take extra steps (like finding each name with a period and/or writing specialized RegEx patterns) for dealing with the names that contain a period.

Problem:
In large Alteryx workflows, renaming a column using a Select tool (or similar) causes downstream tools like Formula, Filter, Join, Sort, etc., to break or throw errors if they reference the old column name.
This means every time a column is renamed, I have to manually go through every tool that used the old name and update it - which is tedious, time-consuming, and error-prone.

Proposed Enhancement:
Add a feature to automatically propagate field name changes across all tools in the workflow that reference the renamed field.

This could work similarly to how modern IDEs allow you to "rename variable" across an entire codebase, or how refactoring works in platforms like Tableau Prep or Power BI.

Benefits:

• Saves time when making structural changes to data schemas.

• Reduces human error caused by missing updates in some tools.

• Makes workflows more scalable and easier to maintain.

• Improves usability and development speed for all users, especially in large or collaborative workflows.

You've built a workflow, but you want GIS to bring it into a systems-based report structure. Alteryx provides the blueprint, but GIS has to now take and translate each step into code.

Rather than have a developer spending valuable time interpreting and recoding the work you have already completed, what if Alteryx had a tool or ready-made output feature that translates your entire workflow into your code of choice (e.g. SQL, Python, VBA, other) that you could just send to GIS and they implement? Kind of like the Macro recording feature in Excel that translates steps into VBA. This would provide a near immediate solution, reducing the days, weeks or even months of additional development work and capacity for an already under pressure GIS.

Ah, but you say there's a catch to this idea. Let's say you need an enhancement to the workflow that has been hardcoded in system. You would need to now submit a ticket to GIS for them to develop and update the code, right?

No, just adjust and iterate in workflow, rerun and submit the updated code to GIS.

Block-Until-Done could be improved through adding time delay option settings between steps 1,2 and 3. An Excel workbook, for example, must be opened and closed before it can be reread or multiple tabs appended which takes time for a computer to process. Often a workaround or custom macro must be used to account for this time delay. A time delay feature directly in the tool would enable a user to customize the delay period between steps and allow for functions external to Alteryx to complete before next step is taken without macros or workarounds. If no option(s) is selected, default parameters would apply.

Hi, currently using the reporting tools, you need to use the render tool to output it, which makes sense.

However, is there away to render an output when using a connector tool e.g. sharepoint output

Our team was very excited with the deployment of Alteryx One Enterprise Edition, but had to scratch our head on why DateTimeNow and Data Cleansing is available to Full Users but not Basic Users. What had us scratching our heads further, is Designer Cloud for Basic Users have DateTimeNow and Data Cleansing. 

Hopefully the community and Alteryx can agree these are basic tools for everyone!

Alteryx Help References:

Alteryx>Alteryx One Editions>User Roles>Basic User Role>Basic User Capabilities

Alteryx>Alteryx One Editions>User Roles>Full User Role>Full User Capabilities

Alteryx>Alteryx One Platform Editions>Enterprise Edition>Enterprise Edition Capabilities

Additional formatting functionality would be great to see in the Interface Designer.

First off, I want to acknowledge other submitted ideas (vote for them too!):

• Allow Drag and Drop in Interface Designer - Alteryx Community
• Alteryx Interface Designer - Place Element Where S... - Alteryx Community

Both of these are great suggestions and I want to show support of them as well!

To take it another step further from targeted placement or drag/drop... I would also like to see new objects included in the ADD menu.  We have Groupings but I'd like to see horizontally split groupings.  Meaning, I want the ability to place two Date Inputs next to each other, or short prompts across instead of listed vertically.

Example:

Why this matters:  If Alteryx aspires to be a bonofied contender in the Analytic Application space (which I think it is), then we need added functionality that puts a greater emphasis on the user-experience side of things.  Because as we know, user acceptance, ease of use, and adoption all depend on a clean presentation for the elements they interract with.

If you agree, your "thumbs up" of support is only one click away!

Search Box for Tools like Formula Tool where a drop down list of all columns is present to choose from the list. It might take quite a while to search for a specific column in a Formula tool when there is hundreds of columns in a data stream. This is quite an important case when we work with raw columns directly from an SAP extractor.

The constant [Engine.GuiInteraction] can be used to determine whether a workflow was run in the Designer or Gallery. Currently, there's no method to also find out whether a workflow was initiated by a schedule or run manually in the Gallery. The information is available in the Gallery but not forwarded to inside the workflow.

Please introduce a new variable [Engine.ScheduledRun] (or similar) which determines whether the workflow was initiated by a schedule (value "true" if boolean or "schedule" if string type) or manually (value "false" or "manual").

It doesn't seem that Alteryx tests data that isn't on the same hard drive. If my data is located locally, Alteryx works great. If my data is located on a shared server, OMG it takes forever for it to do anything. Simply clicking off a tool onto the canvas can cause a 30-60 second freeze/wait. I literally spend about 1-3hrs per DAY waiting for Alteryx to simply load a tool view. 2024.2 is the worse so far, I have to wait for it to do anything.

It seems Alteryx is getting worse and worse at this, processing non-database data that isn't located locally on hard drive. My idea is to get better at this.

Hello,

Right now you can write a file into sharepoint. However, sometimes, you just want to upload a file. There is already the ability to download (for Sharepoint input). I would like the same for uploading a file (based on an path or workflow dependancies).

Best regards,

Simon

Hi

Currently the date time now input outputs data only in string format, it could be useful if there was an option to output the data in date or date time format.

We have a feature to limit the number of records, and I thought why not have a column limit as well? 

Columns take up a lot of space and processing, the more columns we have the more it slows down. So if we can declare it at the start to import the first 20 columns always, it’ll ensure that any new or unwanted columns in Excel will be avoided. 

When building join operations in Alteryx, it can be time-consuming to manually scroll through long lists of fields to find the right one to join on, especially when working with large datasets or unfamiliar schemas.

It would be great to have a search-as-you-type filter in the Join tool’s field selection interface. Similar to the existing field selector search, this feature would allow users to start typing a field name and instantly see a filtered list of partial matches. This would significantly speed up the process of identifying and selecting the correct join fields and reduce the risk of selecting incorrect fields due to visual clutter.

I would like the parse tools (regex, split to columns...) to by defualt, not point at any column.

The parse tools need to be pointed at a column, however they by defualt configure them selves to point at the first column. Every time I use them, I enter the other configuration options, such as a regular expression, then hit run. After hitting run, my output column will be populated with only null values yet I will recieve no error. 

The reason for this, is 100% EBKAC (error between keyboard and chair), as I have forgotton to point the tool to the correct column, and instead its looking at the defualt (first column)

If the defualt option didnt exist, or was blank, the tool would then error telling me to think about what im doing and point the tool to the correct column. 

I believe this change in the tools defualt behaviour would save hours of debug time, wondering why my regex statment isnt working, when in actual fact im just looking at the wrong column. 

When working within the Table Tool, there are many options to help users format the width of their columns (i.e. Automatic, Fixed, or Percentage).

It would be nice to see an option added to disable word-wrapping.  Meaning, expand to encompass the header or data within the field so that each row is of uniform height regardless of the option:

Fixed:  The rest of the data would just be masked like in excel:

Percentage:  Same as fixed (above), but relative to the variable width...

Automatic:  Resizing to the required width, regardless.

• It would also be nice to have options under automatic, akin to constraints
  • Automatic, but with a maximum width of...
  • Automatic, but with a minimum width of....
• But regardless without word-wrapping

Why this matters:  When producing automation, especially for finalized outputs such as reports and tables; having maximum control over the output format is vital to ensuring downstream users don't have to continue to manipulate the output to suit their needs.  Maybe this isn't best practice, but when has customer demands ever taken a backseat to best practices!  😉

Idea: “Create THEN Append” Output Mode for Files and Databases

When outputting data in Alteryx—whether to an Excel file or a database table—the standard practice is:

First run: Set the output tool to “Create New Sheet” or “Create New Table.”

Subsequent runs: Manually change the setting to “Append to Existing.”

This works fine, but it’s very easy to forget to switch from "Create" to "Append" after the first run—especially in iterative development or when building workflows for others.

Suggested Enhancement:
Add a new option to the Output Data tool called:
“Create THEN Append”

Behavior:

On the first run, it creates the file/sheet or table.

On future runs, it automatically switches to append mode without needing manual intervention.

Why This Matters:
Prevents data loss from accidentally overwriting files/tables.

Improves automation and reusability.

Makes workflows more reliable when shared with others.

Mirrors functionality found in many ETL tools that allow dynamic "upsert-like" behavior.

Applies To:
Excel outputs (new sheet creation vs. append)

Database outputs (new table vs. append to existing)

CSV or flat file outputs where structure remains consistent