Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

It would be cool if a connector line would turn red when you select it, making it easier to trace the path (similar to how the lines turn red when you click on a join tool).

This setting is currently in the Options menu under user settings, but I think it would be more intuitive and more consistent with the norm for most software if the check box were directly on the splash screen.

Idea:

As a method of deploying preprocessing and ML models it would be awesome to be able to convert a workflow to java... 

Rationale:

models are needed to be deployed into Complex event processes or decision systems. Even for SAS there is a need to implement the datastep algorithms and procs to run in JVM.

Quickwin:

It is possible to convert a workflow into a PMML file and then use JMML package to convert that to Java. Yet the full workflow with all preprocessing alternatives and a series of ML methods may not be captured fully.

Competitor example:

For SAS case here is a similar solution: http://www.dullesresearch.com/carolina-features/

When you do a search for a tool, don't zoom to a blank area of the canvas (because that's where the tool would have been with an enabled container). So when a container is disabled, zoom to the actual container instead containing the tool you're looking for or temporarily enable the container so we can see the tool?

Idea:

In forecasting and in commercial/sme risk scoring there is a need for trying vast number of algebraic equations which is a very cumbersome prosess. Let's add symbolic regression as a new competitive capability.

Rationale:

Summations, ratios, power transforms and all combinations of a like are needed to be tested as new variables for a forecasting or prediction model. Doing this by hand manually is a though and long business... And there is always a possibility for one to skip a valuable combination.

Symbolic regression is a novel techinique for automatically generating algebraic equations with use of genetic programming, 
In every evolution a variable is selected checked if the equation is discriminatitive of the target variable at hand. In every next step frequently observed variables will be selected more likely.

SR comparison with linear regression neural nets and random forests

Benefit for clients:

This method produces variables mainly with nonlinear relationships. It is a technique that will help in corporate/commercial/sme risk modelling, such that powerful risk models are generated from a hort list of B/S and P/L based algebraic equations.
There is potential use cases in algorithmic trading as well...

There are 3 very interesting world problems solved with symbolic regression here.

A very relevant thesis by sean Wouter is attached as a pdf document for your reading pleasure...

R side of things:

I've found Rgp package for genetic programming, here is a link.

Competition:

I haven't seen something similar in SAS, SPSS but there is this; http://www.nutonian.com/products/eureqa/

Also there is Bruce Ratner's page

Is it possible to add some color coding to the InDB tool.  I am building out models InDB and I end up with a sea of navy blue icons.  Maybe they could generally correspond to the other tools.   For example the summary would be orange.  Etc  Formula Lime Green.

I have several .yxdb files that I’ve been appending to daily from a SQL Server table in order to extend the length of time that data is retained.

They’re massive tables, but I may only need one or two rows. 

I had hoped to decrease the time it takes to get data from them by running a query on them (or a dynamic query/input) as opposed to using a filter or joining on an existing data set which would have equal values that would produce the same result as a filter.

Essentially, the input of .yxdb would have the option of inputting the full table or a SQL query just like a data connection.

I would love to see the option to publish the description information from an alteryx workflow into Tableau tde files as the default comment field

As with Output Data tool, it would be very helpful to have this option within the Calgary Loader tool.  I have a series of ordered analytic apps and if I could name the Calgary database using the "Take File/Table Name from Field" option I would be able to chain the apps and be much more efficient.

Thanks.

Idea:

An Alteryx version for Mac OS X sounded like a nice idea... Although there are options for using bootcamp with windows 7-8

or some virtualisation software as mentioned in a community post here.

Rationale 1 (Competitors do it):

First of all there is no need to neglect a customer segment using Mac's.

• Rapidminer Studio comes with a dedicated OS X version,
• Knime has Mac OS X support 
• Weka has Mac OS X support as well
• SPSS Modeler is Windows only but SPSS Stats is Mac OS X compatible.

Seems SAS was compatable in the last decade, but they dropped it. Now SAS is not OS X compatible but

still with the "SAS OnDemand" version Mac users can easly get a hands on experience.

Rationale 2:

The Mac Pro Beast has 7.2 TFlops of computing power with the help of dual ATI graphics cards.

It would be awesome to install Alteryx on one... 

When we copy and paste a tool into a workflow, we then have to drag the pasted tool into the workfow where we want it. It would be better if we could right click on a connector, select "paste", and have the tool paste into the flow where we put the cursor. Or to be able to right-click on a tool and select "paste after" similar to how we can "insert after".

This idea has been superceded by "Paste Before / After"

It would be great if I could save a tool and its configuration for future use. I'm sure this could be done now with a macro, and that's possibly how I'll do it.

The scenario is that we have numerous data inputs that require some finessing to import. Because the field headers are not in the first row, they aren't recognized accurately as comma delimited. But some of our fields also contain commas within the field, so the solution is to add a multi-field formula to replace things like ", Inc." with " Inc." and ", Ltd." with " Ltd."

But on occasion I find new text strings that need to be added to the formula, like ", Inc" (without the period) for instance.

I use this replacement technique with several workflows, so it would be great to change it just one time and have the other instances updated automatically.

Maybe in addition to our Favorites toolbar we could have a Custom or User toolbar where we could save tools along with their configuration.

I run a report generator that can leave you with having to save one at a time several files.

It would be nice to be able to save multiple files at once.  Whether using a check box or a shift select method.  If this method already exists, Great!  Where can I find out how to do it.  If not can it be an added feature?

Hello,

Many mouses (mice?) allow you to tilt the mouse wheel either left or right. It would be great if this would scroll the canvas left or right, similar to rolling the wheel to scroll the canvas up or down. This would be especially useful considering that users have been nudged to create their workflows horizontally.

Thanks!

It is very difficult moving from Alteryx functions to SQL In-Database as a business user, I need to learn a whole new language.

In the short term Alteryx should provide a simple function reference, as similar as possible to the Formula tool, for building formula in the in-database tools.

Longer term I'd like there to be a parser from Alteryx Formulae to SQL so I can just write in my favourite Alteryx formula (or a subset thereof) and Alteryx handles the conversion to SQL. 

Is there a technical reason why you can't navigate the GUI while the module is running? There can't be because it works using Overview. Can you enable the scroll bars?

Idea:

Let's add the universal PMML predictive markup language to rapidly deploy our predictive models. 

Rationale:

Most of the predictive models created are essentially built to be deployed into well known enterprise level decisioning tools.

These decisioning tools are working at banks, non bank financial institutions, credit card issuers, insurers on a daily basis.

If Alteryx want's to replace SAS, SPSS and similar competitor this PMML addition seems to be a must.

They all have a common markup language and even with the newer version we can deploy almost all data pre-processing steps too...

Current status in Alteryx as I'm aware of:

Only case where Alteryx and PMML comes close is the following link; http://www.alteryx.com/topic/pmml promising including PMML in the upcoming releases in 2012. And then no word of it. The writer is retired already and no word since 2012 (3 yrs is a long time span). 

What to do:

On easy way is already done for R, this is a Java library for converting R models to PMML https://github.com/jpmml/jpmml-converter

Clients:

FICO is one of the well known credit bureaus worldwide and also the vendor of decisioning software. They also have an Analytics Modeler Suite. All FICO systems are PMML compliant. Chek it out: http://www.decisionmanagementsolutions.com/2014/10/17/first-look-fico-analytic-modeler-suite-jtonedm...

Also Experian is one of the other big software vendors in the Analytics space with decision management tools and they are actually a partner of Alteryx too... Their well known widely implemented Powercurve tool has PMML language import too... Check it out: http://jtonedm.com/2014/05/13/first-look-experian-powercurve-update/

IBM ODM is a nother vendor for decisioning tools in the enterprise level. They also have PMML integration, look; http://www.prolifics.com/blog/odm-integration-spss-predictive-analysis-suite-part-1-pmml-import

Competitor status:

SAS supports PMML export from SAS Enterprise Miner

IBM SPSS products (Modeler and Statistics) offer a great deal of support for PMML

KNIME is one of the leaders in processing PMML documents 

RapidMiner has a PMML extension

MicroStrategy strongly supports the standard