Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Hi all 

Currently when you set your workflow to don't write outputs (disable all tools that write output) under runtime of the configuration of workflow- the render and green output tools become greyed out and do not write an output (as expected). 

However, this is not the case for connectors - for example, if you use the SharePoint output tool and click disable all tools that write output, it will not be greyed out and still write an output. Is it possible for these connectors to also not run when this is selected in the configuration? As otherwise currently, you have to add it to a container and disable it.

Hi is it possible to add sheet names (to spreedsheet files) to the output of a file directory tool

Hello,

I think I have neer wrotten an easier idea : the tooltip for the run workflow button should indicate the keyboard shortcut (ctrl+R). So simple, so intuitive..



Best regards,

Simon

I love the ability to cache data. Sometimes, I've cached too far and I need to go back and alter a tool's configuration or make some other cache-destroying change. I then have to recache somewhere and sometimes the dataset is so huge it is a pain. I'd love to create multiple cache points as a safety or backup.

In conjunction with the "First N% of Rows" and "Group by column (optional)" features, an additional option that would be great to have would be to tell the tool to take at least 1 record per group. If I am telling the tool to take the first 3% of records and grouping by a field, but one of the groups only has 5 records, it won't return any records for that group, as 3% of 5 is .15, so the tool rounds that down to 0. If I could also choose an option for the tool to always round up, that would also be sufficient.

In the formula tool, you can generate uniform random values using the RAND() function.

I would like to have similar functionality to get normal random values by calling RANDN().

As a workaround, the values can be produced from a Python tool using 

numpy.random.randn()

Python documentation on numpy.random.randn.

The full script below produces 100 random normal values in a column called 'Normal_Rand'.

The zip file has both a direct workflow and macro solution to produce the random normal values.

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?!

Would like to have the ability to filter to searched fields. Having the ability to search for already known fields, and then selecting those fields, temporarily, and isolating them for view. While there is the selection of fields under "X of Y fields", this still requires manual clicks and could be tedious when there could be a large amount of fields.

While you could also use the SELECT tool, that would still require manually searching for the field and isolating it for viewing. This could possibly be an enhancement for the SELECT tool or it could be an enhancement for the "X of Y fields".

I'd like to suggest that Alteryx make annotations able to be hidden or visible by right clicking or hovering over a little highlighted corner similar to comments/notes in Excel.  Have a highlighted corner of tools when there is an annotation. When hovering over the colored corner, user is able to view the annotation otherwise it is hidden and out of the way of the tool box. 

when you bring in a comment box or tool container to your canvas it should come in with your preferred defaults for  fill colors, font color & size, etc.  I have specific color schemes to identify what my comments are for and one scheme that I use most often has font size, position & color, and background color that I have to set every time i bring in a new comment box.

 I LOVE working in Alteryx it because unlike excel you set a "macro" to perform repeating operations once and then ignore them to do your real work.  This concept should extend to the little things within Alteryx, i.e. settings for preferred defaults for comment boxes & tool containers. 

I know y'all are working on data lineage for some future offering and it is very much needed. For highest quality results, please make logs a primary source of lineage information. Being able to use dynamic naming with some tools and macros makes the names in the workflows simple foobar placeholders and do not reflect what actually happened. Today Connect doesn't use logs and leaves many lineage gaps because of this

Please move this to a more appropriate category if needed. This future feature work is not part of Connect.

Hello all,

My idea is very simple, and this is most likely I'm used to do. After highlighting the fields in the select tool, the next action is to click Options and to apply what to do. My idea is just after highlighting, right click on mouse button to go exactly on Options menu. Just a simple right click. I think this behavior is most likely comes from Microsoft, I'm used to select multiple lines or cells and with right click to do the next action. It's a simple, but powerful. What do you think?

Albert

Idea

I feel the necessity of the features to know the version of Alteryx Designer Desktop for each user within an organization. 

As well as some usage data of each user like 'Last Used' are available in License Portal, if 'Version of Alteryx Designer Desktop' for each user is also available in License Portal, it would be more manageable and could enhance the governance in organization.

Background

When the organization uses Alteryx Server and Designer Desktop, it is more challenging to make alignment of version of these products.

We frequently see our users install/upgrade to newer version of Alteryx Designer than that of Alteryx Server, and cause incompatibility issue when interacting with Alteryx Server.

Although we instruct our users to install the particular version, they sometimes upgrade to newer version later on by themselves, but it's not detectable.

I mean, even if they're using a wrong version of Alteryx Designer Desktop, we won't realize it until a problem occurs.

In order to identify such users and rectify their version, administrator shall be able to know which version they use whenever needed.

License Portal would be one of the best platform to make that information available in my opinion.

Hi all,

When preparing reports with formatting for my stakeholders. They want these sent straight to sharepoint and this can be achieved via onedrive shortcuts on a laptop. However when sending the workflow for full automation, the server's C drive is not setup with the appropriate shortcuts and it is not allowed  by our admin team.

So my request is to have the sharepoint output tool upgraded to push formatted files to sharepoint. 

Thank you!

The DateTime Tool currently displays incoming date-time data types in a dropdown menu and "If no date-time columns are present, the field appears dimmed and shows 'No Suitable Input Fields Available'". However, considering the complexity of date formats, it's beneficial to directly view the data type of incoming date-time data instead of relying solely on visual inspection. While Designer filters options based on string or date/time types automatically, having visibility into the data type ensures a more sound interpretation of the input for analysis purposes.

When making changes to a UI, it would be beneficial if I could move objects horizontally instead of only vertically. Additionally, being able to resize items in the interface designer could improve end user experience. Currently I have List Boxes that are cutting off some words in a workflow and if I could extend the box or wrap the text then I wouldn't lose any context. 

The second idea is the freedom to sort the workflows in collections that I control in anyway that I choose.

I pull data from APIs frequently in my workflow, which has some potential for error if the API is unavailable.  I would love to be able to develop the workflow without having to add in some text box place holders or record count feature to allow the remainder of the workflow to run without error and potentially be able to try the API again so if "Invalid authentication" route to a section that will regenerate an authentication and retry the data call.  I have currently worked out some hacks to be able to work through the issue but it makes the workflow very messy.  A tool like the Detour tour that goes if value contains 400 go this way.  If value contains 200 then close off this container and continue on the other one.   Maybe the request is to allow the detour tool to be set to a specific value and maybe have multiple route options  if A then do connection one,  if B then do connection two or If C then do connection three.

Please update the Render tool to allow users to name the Excel sheet for the output. Alteryx currently errors when using same naming convention that works in normal Output tool.