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Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

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Here are a few things that I feel would be useful enhancements for the stacked column chart:

1. In series styles, replace current "Label Data Points" Yes/No dropdown options with "No/Top/Bottom/Left Side/Right Side/Alternating Sides" options to allow label text to fall above the line marking the top of the set (current implementation), below the top line, to the left or right or alternating between left and right.  Side labels reduce the need for #3 below and alternating side labels partially mitigate the need for #2.

2. If "Label Data Points" is turned on, allow an option to set a minimum threshold to display the labels.  In the current implementation the data point labels are placed on top of each other in cases where series with comparatively high volume are mixed with series with very low volume unless there is only one low volume series and it happens to be the last series in the set.  With alternating side labels from #1 above this would only be an issue if more than one consecutive low volume series was displayed.

3. Lighten default series colors or change default text color to white.  Black label text does not stand out or is unreadable against most of the default colors (dark blue, dark brown, etc.).

You can call me new school, but when I browse for inputs etc. in Alteryx, they are the old school windows interface where I have to hunt and peck through the file directory.  Can you make it so we can use the newer interface with so I can type in my location and navigate a bit easier?

It would be nice if we could change the tool numbers and effect which one gets done first. If I'm working on a module and I later add some more analysis upstream it won't get done or pulled first since it has a greater number. a simply ability to change the numbers would really make things a lot easier and it will allow the flow of work to flow smoothly visually
In other data programs like access or Toad you can put conditions on a join. You can choose if something is greater than, less than, left join, right join, etc.
But with Alteryx you are only allowed to join a perfect match. It would be really great if you could add that functionality into 9.0

Currently Atleryx just takes a flat file and create a Tableau Extract (.tde) file.  I would like to be able to to take two files and cube them together like Tableau allows me to use when I create my own Tableau Extract using Tableau.  Right now I have to export two different files into excel files and then use Tableau to cube them and create an extract that gives me more power and functionality than the extract that Alteryx provides.

Implement an option to toggle the automatic creation of the .bak file or allow a destination different than the yxmd file.
Once we have our files under code control (git) the bak file is not necessary and effectively doubles our storage usage.
A client has requested that we provide the ability to have the two digit year begin a date string.  Currently, we have the following:

yyyy-MM-dd
yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss
yyyy*MM*dd
yyyyMMdd

In addition, they have requested that we have the ability to convert from a date field to another date field.  Currently, we can only convert to/from a string to date and vice versa, but not date to date (which would be helpful in a date format).
I'd like to see some added configuration in the Chart tool to allow more space for the chart legend so that the names of elements don't have to be truncated.  The only way to eliminate truncation right now is to decrease the font size and/or increase the width of the table which also in effect reduces the font size.  This is specifically an issue in "Stacked Column" or similar charts.
This should be quite easy to implement. I think it would be great if could we have:

1. A User repository for macros in the Users folder, e.g. My DocumentsMy Alteryx Macros

This would make it easier to install macros without needing any administrator rights

2. A right click operation on a yxmc file (or a menu operation in Alteryx) that Install the macro ie. will move any macro into the folder above.

This would make it very simple to show new users how to install any macro you send them

Both these ideas will make it easier for partners and the Alteryx user community to share macros.
 

While Alteryx is processing it displays information in the module with record/file infromatoin.  Once processing is complete this information is gone, except for in the output window.  Could you add a key combination or button toggle to redisplay this info from the prior run.  It would be very helpful for debugging.

Abiltiy to have multiple streams come into/out of 'Block Until Done' tool.
Allow User to set priorities of streams in tool and to be able to release streams in a certain order.
it would be good if this was supported among the conenctors, I can connect via third party ODBC (paid) driver but it's not really as user friendly as I'd like, I'm sure you guys would do a much better job of building a connector (hoping flattery will push help push this idea up a little 😄 )

Chris
Within one of my modules I use the “Find Replace” tool quite often to find keywords within a customer name field.  By chance, I have found that irrespective of what order my keywords are sorted in, Alteryx will look at each word in the customer name and try to match them in order.
 
For example, the customer name of EAST RIDING YORKSHIRE COUNCIL, when matched to my list of keywords matches the word RIDING before it matches the word COUNCIL, even though COUNCIL appears higher up my list than RIDING does.
 
I would like to be able to prioritise my keywords so that Alteryx starts at the top and works its way down my list of keywords, rather than just taking the first word in a customer name that matches any of my keywords. Is this possible?
It would be great if the mapping allowed point themes to be bi-variate, i.e. you could change the size of a point at the same time as adjusting its colour to show two variables on the map at once, relative to each other.

Chris
In the question type "DropDown/ListBox", there's an option to use an external file. The file should be able to influence whether the record is selected or not. Maybe there's a reserved column name called "SELECTED" which could contain True/False values which the UI would key off.
In the histogram tool, I would like the ability to specify the bins, not just the number of bins, but the values of the bins. That would be especially helpful when comparing different data sets when I want to see an apples to apples comparison across two different histograms. 
Issue: When I use any of the Multi-Field Formula tool, I lose the variable names in the field description. This is a problem when I'm working with demographic data because the name of the variable is often something like PCT0010005. The user friendly name is in the field description metadata.

Solution: Please have the Multi-Field Formula tool behave as the Formula tool does by persisting the field Description values.

Thanks!

John Hollingsworth

Allow the User to 'de-authenticate' a license so it can be installed on a new laptop.

I would the ability to run/call a module from within another module. I've thought of two solutions:

Simple - Add an option that currently exists in the Analytic App properties to "On Success - Run Another Analytic App". Instead this option would be to Run Another Module

Complex - Create a new tool that would have a single input that would accept a list of filepaths to Alteryx modules. The modules would be run sequentially (module 2 run once module 1 was finished).

Cheers,

John Hollingsworth

Shapefile generate 4 filetypes (shp, shx, dbf, prj). When Alteryx generates a shapefile, the latter 3 file types are in uppercase, only shp is in lowercase. Can you change all 4 filetypes to lowercase so we don't have problems reading them in linux?
Thanks!