Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Hi,

Would be helpful to have an Input and Output Tool for ProjectOnline like the SharePoint and OneDrive Tools.

This way we can read the projects in a tabular form and automate our project management tasks.

Thank you.

Hello All,

As of today, Alteryx can use the proxy settings set in Windows Network and Internet Settings "Server pulls the proxy settings displayed in Engine > Proxy from the Windows internet settings for the user logged into the machine. If there are no proxy settings for the user logged into the machine, Engine > Proxy isn't available within the System Settings menu.". Then, you can override the credentials (but not the adress) in system settings but also in user settings.

The issue : in many organizations, there are several proxies that you can use for different use case. And by default, it can happen access to API are blocked by these proxies. The user, which is not admin cannot change his Windows Settings... and even if it's done by IT, it will impact all the system, including other software and leading to safety failures.

What I suggest :
-ability to change credentials AND adress

-a multi-level settings for both credentials and adress:
    default : Windows Settings
    System Settings
    User Settings

    Workflow Settings

    Download tool/ Settings

Best Regards,

Simon

When configuring a FILTER tool, the results of your formula are uncertain until you RUN/PLAY the workflow.  Compare that experience with the configuration of a FORMULA tool where you see a "Data Preview" of the first record results.

TRUE or FALSE could readily be added to the Filter Tool and save the execution time for the workflow.  

When you get to HTML tool versions, you could check many rows of data and potentially give back counts of TRUE and FALSE results as well.

I'll put this on my x-mas list and see if Santa has me on the naughty or nice list.

Cheers,

Mark

Please add either or both

1. "CustomFile/Database", similar to the TREE tool to the Text Box interface tool
2. An option to make TREE Tool "silent" or passive when using the "CustomFile/Database" option

The purpose is to provide a better way to pass data, and thus allow "Action" tool to be used, from interface responses in a previous App chained to the current App.

Use Case:

We had a workflow with 8 TREE tools and 3 of them had significant number of rows associated.  This caused frequent failures where the queries getting the multiple layers of data for the TREE would time out.

Through trial and experiment we determined this was the issue by removing TREE tools until we had consistent function.

Most if not all the TREEs and all of the 3 offending TREEs were used to modify FILTER tools, in this case each of those 3 TREEs 3 or 4 Actions driving the same number of FILTERs

So we had to find a way to break up the operation.  Ultimately I separated the 3 large volume TREE tools into a separate workflow to run first and then CHAIN to the original flow with modifications to read the responses passed from the new 1st workflow in the chain and replaced the FILTER with JOINs, effectively filtering by JOIN.

This worked but was extra work and it made me think of the many other situations where I would like to take input from an external source and affect a FORMULA or FILTER or a few other tools where an ACTION is best/only way to modify tool configuration at run time.

I think this lack of a way to use an ACTION tool with a "Non-Interface" data source has probably limited the opportunities of Applications.

Given the division of labor in an APP,

1. run all Interface tools first and modify config of other tools
2. then run the rest of the tools on the canvas

there is no way to make a run time ACTION tool as it must do its job before the core job runs. 

This adaptation of the TREE tool, which is my preference, or the adaptation of the Text Box tool, offer good solutions that should be fairly simple to code and roll out the the user base.

Hello all,

I suggest a new string function Repeat()

Repeat() forms a string consisting of the input string repeated the number of times defined by the second argument.

Repeat(text[, repeat_count])

Repeat('to',3) gives tototo

It's also a standard SQL function
https://www.w3schools.com/sql/func_mysql_repeat.asp

Best regards,

Simon

When a user wants to use the find nearest to say find the nearest within 200 miles the dropdown stops at 100.

Similar if they want a number in between IE 15 the interface is not intuitive.

While you can just type the number in the interface doesn't look like you are able to.

Simply adding a "Custom" selection at the bottom would make this much more intuitive.

Currently, when a new version of Alteryx Designer is released, you get a banner at the top of your Designer to upgrade. You can manually select to disable this for up to 30 days. 

However, this is really causing issues with Server compatibility. Users get notified to upgrade, thinking it's from the Server owners and upgrade then is no longer compatible with Server. Alternatively, it causes differences between users, etc. 

It would be ideal that it would be disabled in general but also controlled when software is pushed to machines through IT policies.

Hello all,

as of today, a join in-db can only be done with an equal operator.

Example : table1.customer_id = table2.customer_id

It's sufficient most of the time. However, sometimes, you need to perform another kind of join operation, (especially with calendar, period_table, etc).

Here an example of clause you can find in existing sql

inner join calendar on calendar.id_year_month between fact.start_period and fact.end_period

helping to solve that case :

(the turnaround I use to day being : I make a full cartesian product with a join on 1=1 and then I filter the lines for the between)

or <,>, .... et caetera.

It can very useful to solve the most difficult issues. Note that a product like Tableau already offers this feature.

Best regards,

Simon

I'm testing out the new Data Connection Manager (DCM) and think it needs 1 enhancement based on the way we'd use DCM. Whenever Alteryx opens, it should sync the Data Sources/Credentials from the Server. This is critically important when sharing these with more than 1 user when a password needs updated.

For example, DesignerA updates the password in the source system, and then updates the password in their Designer DCM settings. In order for this new password to get synced to DesignerB, 2 things have to manually happen: DesignerA would need to sync the new password to the server, and then DesignerB would need to sync the new password from the server. I can live with the first part where DesignerA needs to sync to the server. It's just part of the password update process. The second step though seems perilous. DesignerB should get the new password without having to do anything; as things currently stand, DesignerB will have the old password until they manually intervene and sync the password. Imagine a scenario where it's just DesignerB, but hundreds of people who would all have to sync their credentials. 

I also think this idea makes sense in light of the way Data Connections currently work (pre 21.4) where a similar sync happens automatically every time alteryx opens.  

Our company has a need to link a new data source in Athena.  We have been able to establish a connection using the input functionality however the connection is so slow it is unusable.  We need to have Alteryx build an In Database option for Athena to allow us to link our data lake to Alteryx.  

Hello!

Currently when using the formula tool, you can create a string using the two following methods:

With speech marks, or an apostrophe being used respectively.

I would expect both of these methods to behave the exact same way, however what is interesting is that if you type within the apostrophes anything that would prompt a formula, this is still prompted:

This is not the case within the speech marks:

This can cause mistakes with autocompletion when typing within the field. I propose a small QoL change that the formula tool will recognise a string is being written when within two apostrophes. I believe the logic is already built for that, given that it behaves in every other way the same, and highlights green too. 

Cheers,
TheOC

It would be oh so nice to be able to copy a container's properties and paste those formatting options onto other containers.  It could be accomplished through a Paint Brush icon on CTRL-Copy and Right Click to paste format.  either way it would save setting the Color (multi-step select), Margin, transparency.

Cheers,

Mark

Hey all,

At present, if you have an existing canvas and you want to move to a DCM Connection - you are asked something like "this will reset all of your connection details - are you sure".    If you have complex queries; or pre+post SQL - then you first have to copy all of this out into Notepad before you can convert to DCM and then reconfigure it all again.

However, if you are not using DCM you can change data sources when you go into Workflow Dependancies without losing your queries etc.

Could we revisit the user experience of changing to or from a DCM connection to eliminate this "start from scratch" phenomenon - if you are converging from an existing SQL ODBC or ODB or SSVB connection to a SQL connection via DCM then it should allow you to make this conversion without losing your current configuration; and the same for any other database type.

cc: @mbarone 

Please consider implementing a consistent case-sensitive option for all tools and functions.

To compare string values, including case-sensitivity:   This post had a good description of the challenge, but the post has been archived:

   https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/IF-equation-ignoring-case-BUG/m-p/4170...

   For all the time I've used Alteryx, I thought that IF "test" = "TEST" would evaluate to false. Today I realised that isn't the case and I was surprised. I'm very surprised that "equals" performs like it does.

A few existing Ideas request case-sensitivity for individual tools:

   Case insensitive option while joining two data sets
   https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Desktop-Ideas/Case-insensitive-option-while-joinin...

   Unique tool enhancement - deal with case sensitive data
   https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Desktop-Ideas/Unique-tool-enhancement-deal-with-ca...

This new Idea requests system-wide consideration for case-sensitivity, for all tools and functions.

Current state:

These tools and functions are case-sensitive:

• Tool: Join
• Tool: Tile
• Function: FindString
• Functions: MD5_ASCII, MD5_UNICODE, MD5_UTF8

These tools and functions are NOT case-sensitive:

• Tool: Unique
• Function: CompareDictionary

These tools and functions can be either case-sensitive or NOT case-sensitive, depending on the options used:

• Function: Contains
• Function: EndsWith
• Function: StartsWith
• Functions: REGEX_Match, REGEX_Replace, REGEX_CountMatches

Current Challenges:

   How do we easily identify Lower Case, Upper Case, Mixed Case?

   How do we easily compare strings for equality, using case sensitivity?

Request:

   Ensure all tools and functions include an option to ignore or consider Case

   Create new functions for IsUpperCase, IsLowerCase, IsMixedCase

   Create a new function for IsEqual, with an option to ignore or consider Case

See attached workflow, which

• uses REGEX_Match to create 3 new fields: IsUpperCase, IsLowerCase, IsMixedCase
• creates a field [Flag: Original value IsEqual, case-sensitive], to compare strings for equality, using case sensitivity

Data Cleansing Tool:   There should be a sub-category on the "Punctuation" cleansing.  Ideally to have an option to "Include Only" or conversely "Exclude these characters" which would allow you for example to remove all characters except   "." from a dollar formatted field .  There are times when you need to clean almost everything except a certain punctuation or not. 

Hello all,

OLEDB is usually way faster than ODBC so that the way to connect we promote. However, the new DCM only works for ODBC connection, which is quite strange.

Best regards,

Simon

Multi-Fill Tool

Please consider a new Multi-Fill tool, not for Apps, but for regular workflows, manually run or scheduled.

Similar to the Interface tool-combination of the Text Box & Action (Update value) tools, this Multi-Fill tool would enable the user to update, for example, the User Name and Password in one place for multiple Download tools. It could also be used to update other tool variables like Filter, Sort, Unique, etc.

Hello all,

Change Data Capture ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change_data_capture ) is an effective way to deal with changes in a database, allowing streaming or delta functionning. Several technos, more or less intrusive, can be applied (and combined). Ex : logs reading.

Qlik  : https://www.qlik.com/us/streaming-data/data-streaming-cdc

Talend : https://www.talend.com/resources/change-data-capture/

Best regards,

Simon

Hello there!

Currently the email tool has the following configuration:

It is a fairly easy tool to use - however one part that I would like to be improved is testing the SMTP settings - similar to how it is done on the Alteryx Server. It would be awesome to have a button as part of this page, that would send a test email, and return true/display to the user that the email sent correctly. This would stop the need to setup dummy data and a dummy output to test a connection before rolling the email tool out into a live environment/use-case.

I imagine something along these lines for this functionality:

Clicking test (and passing):

Clicking test (and failing):

Thanks,
TheOC