Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

As part of the options of the select tool, it would be really helpful if the 'Change Field type of Highlighted Fields' included the Forced type which would detect for each highlight field, the current type, and change it to the forced version of that type. Currently we need to go through each column to achieve this, and with a lot of columns (that are not consistent across different sheets, so a .yxft is not suitable) this is a massive pain. It seems fairly straight forward to add this as an option called 'forced' or something alongside the other data types

I've seen a few older threads on this but wanted to bring it up again.

I have numerous workflows in which I have built in "fail safes" to prevent passing bad data out to downstream databases/reports.  I have Message tools that provide a specific message on whether the fail safe was triggered or the new/refreshed data was passed through.  The problem with the Message tool is that it is very easy for the message to get lost in the myriad log results so you don't automatically see it.  The same is true for using the Browse tool to view a dynamic and more easy-to-read message/result, you still have to make the overt decision to click the Browse tool to review the result/message.  

Admittingly, on their own, these "issues" seem minor.  However, when running multiple workflows as part of a group or on a regular basis, some of which can be very large and complex, its easy for these "minor issues" to become major inconveniences to utilize as they are intended or they just get lost in the static of everything that happens when a workflow runs.

Having something similar to a Report Text tool that can render an image and formula-driven text/conditions (font and background color controls) directly and conspicuously on the canvas would be AWESOME and go a long way to providing immediate/easy-to-see information regarding the results of the workflow.

I ask/encourage the Alteryx team to explore providing this capability.

I only have 2023.2, hoping to get 24.2 soon, so I haven't been able to try the newest color feature, but my idea is additional columns in the Navigation panel of a tool to update multiple connection features in one place (names and color at the moment). I'm using Python, and I have a variety of data inputs I would like to be able to easily reference in my code. Currently default names are #1, #2, based on order of connection. Similarly, I know for tools that accept multiple inputs, like Union and Join Multiple, this could also be useful if needing to reorder based on the connection names. I'm also not sure how this ties in to the color feature as described in Connection Configuration, but this could also be a good place to change colors of multiple connections at once instead of clicking into each connection. This would also require this list to allow for multiple selection at the same time, as right now you can't hold shift and select multiple lines.

Currently, the Marketplace Add-ons interface when opened within Designer only contains the more significant, Alteryx made tools:

Which is a very useful feature, however if the tool I want to download is not on this limited list (or, I want a particular version), I still need to go through the Marketplace to download this.

It would be great if this functionality had all tools on the Marketplace included - potentially with the option to filter to Alteryx made tools only.

Cheers!

In the 20 years of my career I have built many automations using many tools. Alteryx is one of the best but lacks a key function that many others have. The File Browse Tool and the Folder Browse tool should be able to be configured with default values.

There should be an option under the File Specification that says "Default Location". When the user clicks browse button in the Analytical Interface it should default to opening that location ( eg.. \\ShareDrive\Reports\Finance\ ). If this location in inaccessible by the user or Account running the job then either an error should be thrown and the flow stopped or a default location open as in 2024.2

Users have requested this as when you have a large network browsing to the file you need can be slow and cumbersome. Ideally we should be able set the default location in the Designer to the folder where the file they want "most likely" is. Saving the user time and effort. This same concept applies to Folder Browse.

The funny part about this is when you ask Alteryx Co-Pilot  (or ChatGPT, or Microsoft Co-Pilot) how to do this. Even it figures this was a option that exists.  

Given that the current Iterative type Macro will hold each iteration output in memory, to merge it all at the end of the iterations, wouldn't it make sense to have a checkbox for "Large Data Sets" where each iteration's output is stored to a tmp file, to be merged after the iterations stop?

As it is, holding multiple iterations in memory may often be too much data for a PC, no matter how hefty.  By off-loading the memory objects to a tmp file and only holding the currently working iteration in memory, speed and efficiency would be gained.

This is especially critical when using Iterative Macros to cycle through APIs (pagination) and while each individual data pull may be small enough, they quickly grow in memory as each data pull is added to the in-memory object.

In CrossTab tool, it have Total Row and Total Column as option. 
For Total Row, it work all the sum, count, and avg etc.
but for "Total Column", it only sum (even i not select the sum)

To solved this I suggest to add Total Column for Count, Avg and etc.

version 2024.2

Is there a way to update workflow constants in analytic apps using an interface tool?

Whenever we upload a workflow in the Gallery, we have to manually unselect, one by one, all the workflow assets in order to avoid them being packaged, because we use absolute UNC paths everywhere: if an asset is packaged, there might be errors due to relative paths

It would save time to have the option to either "Select all" or "Unselect all" in the interface shown in the attachment (Capture.png)

Additional Dynamic Select Mode for All Native (Non-Macro) Tools with Select Functionality (with or without Data Type Selection)

This is the updated version of an idea I posted a while ago (which only included Multi-Field Formula), and after the release of Alteryx Designer 2025.1, which I found to be very successful from a new tool and functionality perspective, I decided to post about it.

My proposition is to add the Dynamic Select functionality* (at least the Select via a Formula mode) to all native (non-macro) tools in all tool categories that include a Select functionality (as an alternative, where the user would be OK with not being able to also change the field types of the selected fields, such as Join and Append tools, the opposite would apply to Multi-Field Formula, where the user would be able to dynamically select which fields the Multi-Field Formula would be applied to, in addition to changing the data type), including but not limited to (to account for any new tool with a Select functionality that might be added in the future):

Preparation Category

- Auto Field

- Data Cleanse Pro (added in 2025.1)

- Multi-Field Formula

- Multi-Row Formula (for Group By option)

- Rank (for Group By option)

- Record ID (for Group By option)

- Sample (for Group By option)

- Tile (for Group By option)

- Unique

Join Category

- Append Fields

- Find Replace

- Join

- Join Multiple

Transform Category

- Arrange

- Cross Tab

- Make Columns (for Grouping Fields (Optional) option)

- Running Total (for both Group By (Optional) and Create Running Total options)

- Transpose (for both Key Columns and Data Columns options, the tool would generate an error if the Dynamic Select formula written for both options are selecting the same field(s), as the Transpose tool is not supposed to allow it)

- Weighted Average (for Grouping Fields (Optional) option)

In-Database Category

- Select In-DB

Reporting Category

- Layout (for Group By and Per Column Configuration options)

- Table (for Group By and Per Column Configuration options)

Machine Learning Category

- Transformation (for Select Features mode only, as the other two modes with Select functionality (Clean Up Missing Values and One Hot Encoding) require Method and Missing Category Action specification)

Developer Category

- Download (for And values from these fields option present in Headers and Payload tabs)

- Dynamic Rename (for the Select functionality present in Formula mode)

Spatial Category

- Find Nearest

- Spatial Info

- Spatial Match

Data Investigation Category

- Pearson Correlation

Skipping Address and Demographic Analysis categories as they have tools that seem to be using a static input, therefore not requiring a Dynamic Select functionality.

Laboratory Category

- JSON Build (for Grouping Fields (Optional) option)

- Transpose In-DB (with a similar logic to the regular Transpose tool found in Transform category)

*The Dynamic Select functionality added tools that have more than one input anchor (such as Join and Join Multiple) could have new additional fields the users can utilize, such as:

- [Origin] (can have the values "L" or "R" for Join and Append tools)

- [Connection_ID] (can have the values 1, 2, 3 etc. for Join Multiple tool)

- [Unknown] (can have the values "True" or "False" for the Data Columns option of the Transpose tool, or any other tools such as Join that would have the Dynamic or Unknown Columns option as a part of their Select functionality)

Hi,

I was wondering if would be great to have something like TEST RUN. Where it would check all settings of the tools. 

Example -  I have workflows that pull a lot of data, do some calculation and at the end they post to Tableau. It happens from time to time that my Table Token has expired so after running for like 3 hours I am getting error for the Tableau Tool. Or similar situation with output to excel to discovered that I have choose to Create not overwrite the sheet and have to re-run the workflow. 

It would save me a lot of time when I could just do a Test Run for all the tools to make sure that everything is set correct and I am good to run the workflow and start pulling down all the data. 

Not sure if this is possible but I am pretty sure that I am not the only one with this issue :)

Currently the select tool can reorder data by sorting or selecting the field and then clicking the up or down button.  This is tedious when you have a data set with 400 fields.  I suggest you add a drag and drop functionality to the field list to facilitate reordering data.

Hello,

As of now, you can't choose the DCM connections to synchronize. It's either all or none.

However, I have one designer and two servers (Sandbox/Production). Most connections must be common, but not all.

Best regards,

Simon

I have to switch to using alternate software anytime I need to input a file where the spatial projection is not recognized by the input tool for a spatial object field.

I would really like to see an option added to the input tool that allows custom designation of a spatial projection. Allowing manually choosing the projection and being able to open a ".prj" (or something similar) for Alteryx to use when ingesting the data.

Description:

Currently, when running a workflow in Alteryx that writes output to a file (e.g., Excel), if the target file is already open (such as being open in Excel), the workflow will proceed through all steps and only fail at the very end when it attempts to write to that file.

Problem:

This behavior is inefficient and frustrating, especially with large workflows. You only find out there's a problem after all the upstream processes have already run. It wastes time and compute resources, and it can also be confusing for less experienced users.

Suggested Improvement:

Alteryx Designer should prevalidate output file accessibility at the beginning of workflow execution. Specifically:

Check if the output files are locked or otherwise unavailable before starting the run.

If any output file cannot be written to, immediately halt the workflow with a clear, early warning. 

Optionally, display a prompt listing which outputs are unavailable and why.

Benefit:

This enhancement would save users significant time, reduce confusion, and improve user experience, especially in development or iterative testing workflows. It aligns with good design principles by failing fast and providing immediate feedback.

I was setting up a rather large set of repetitive filters and formulas and when I got done, I wanted to select the output of each tool all at once to drag them in to a Union tool. I think it would be great if you could hold the control key to select multiple outputs to drag to the next tool at a given time. 

In the regex tool, there is a checkbox called "copy unmatched text to output".

Unfortunately, if you are using regex from within the formula tool, this is not an option. It would be helpful if this could be added as an optional parameter in the regex formula i.e: 

REGEX_Replace(String, pattern, replace, icase=1, unmatched=1)

Without this, regex outputs can sometimes be confusing, as string characters not specified by the pattern (unmatched) appear in the output. This confusion would be alleviated with the optional parameter.

Hello,

What about a new tool to deal with file actions, such as deleting, renaming, moving, etc ? Today, we do that with cmd, not the easiest way to do. I have developed a tool on Amphi that gives a good idea of what we could have on Alteryx

Here the result :

That can help with temporary, useless files and probably other use cases.

Best regards,

Simon

As many Alteryx Designer users are already aware, there is an option to connect a tool to multiple tools at once by right clicking on it and selecting View Possible Connections.

I would like to suggest an enhancement for this feature, which I think will make it even easier to connect multiple tools.

Scenario 1

Suppose you drag & dropped many Append tools to existing connections as you realized you needed to add an extra information to your data. For example, a year input from a Text Input tool that is modified by the interface tool. If there were 30 Append tools, you would have to select all those available "ID - Append Fields S" checkboxes one by one.

Scenario 2

You added multiple Input Data tools to canvas but don't want to select them individually to connect them to a single Union tool.

Idea

If there were a group checkbox for each tool category on each side (Output Connections and Input Connections), creating multiple connections would be as easy as clicking on the group checkbox on the Append Fields category on the Input Connections side (for Scenario 1) or clicking on the group checkbox for Input Data category on the Output Connections side (for Scenario 2).