Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

The following idea might not be as valuable as some of @SeanAdams posts, but it would save this user precious fractions of time.   When I leave the canvas with my mouse (point A) to go up to the pallet I select and drag the tool down to the canvas.  Sometimes I do right-click and go through the menus to add the next tool, but generally I go through that labor only when I'm inserting in-stream the tool.  So here is my idea:

Double-Click your NEXT tool and it "Alteryx-ly" appears on your canvas in proximity to the hi-lighted (last) tool.  Better yet, connect it!  Now I can move from the pallet to the configuration panel directly without having to move my mouse down to the canvas and then over to the configuration panel.

Hopefully, my friend @Hollingsworth will find this time-saving idea worthy of a star.  Speed demons like @NicoleJohnson and @BenMoss might not need this turbo boost, but at my age it is worth the ask.

Cheers,

Mark

It would be great if we could have a Windows Active Directory data connector tool added to the standard Alteryx toolset.

MS Excel Power Query and PowerBI both can connect to Active Directory for use as a data source, but are both very cumbersome to use.  Having a connector in Alteryx that can read AD data into a workflow would be super helpful for a long list of use cases.  A couple that are top of mind for me are:

-Leveraging group membership info for dynamic distribution of reports or datasets

-Being able to build reporting and dashboards about the organization (useful for Tech audit, HR, etc.) 

I've seen links to an old project on GitHub of someone that started development on this, but the method (just copy these random .dlls into your program directory) is seriously frowned upon by any enterpise IT.  Would be great if Alteryx could pick up that work, polish it a bit and add it to the actual Alteryx Designer toolset.

It would be really nice to be able to easily trace a selected field through a workflow (see below, trace in green). This would greatly help with troubleshooting.

I like to suggest having a Batch Macro Container (besides the existing Container) which acts as a Batch Macro within a Workflow and is stored within the Workflow.

I understand that having a batch macro available as a separate tool can be very powerful and reduces redundant work.  However, very often Batch Macros are set up for a specific workflow only and are of no use for other workflows. The Creation of a Batch Macro in a container will significantly reduce the time to deploy a batch macro and keeps the Macro folder clean of one-time Batch Macros.

Attached a picture of how this could look like

Thanks

Manuel

It would be very helpful to have an output of the workflow into a step by step document. so someone who does not have access to Alteryx can undestand the steps taken to create the flow hence the result or output.

This has probably been mentioned before, but in case it hasn't....

Right now, if the dynamic input tool skips a file (which it often does!) it just appears as a warning and continues processing. Whilst this is still useful to continue processing, could it be built as an option in the tool to select a 'error if files are skipped'? 

Right now it is either easy to miss this is happening, or in production / on server you may want this process to be stopped.

Thanks,

Andy 

Hi all,

In supporting our Alteryx users - we often have situations where users have had multiple different versions of Alteryx installed on their machines over time - and this leads to a situation where settings / configurations are carried forward from one install to another, and there doesn't appear to be an obvious way to force a full & clean reinstall and reset.    This creates a problem when something like the Python settings are broken, since the reinstall does not fix this.

In this line - it would be very useful to have the ability to perform a full & clean uninstall - potentially in 2 phases:

• Initially - a script (e.g. Powershell) which is available on community, which cleans out all files that are installed by Alteryx (any version); all registry entries; an any user settings
• Later - it would be valuable to build this into the uninstaller so that the user has the ability to uninstall and remove ALL traces of the software and user settings.

Many thanks

Sean

When packaging a workflow, or uploading to a Server environment the ability to manage the assets which need to be included is critical, particularly in more complex solutions which may have numerous dependencies. 

The asset management display should be modified to present two column with the first showing just the file name and extension of the asset, and the second column can then show the full path of the asset. This easy change would would prevent the need for scrolling left and right to see the file name when longer paths are utilized. 

An alternative approach would be to allow the window to be resizable so the user could see everything without the need to scroll.

The ability to filter/sort the assets by type would also be useful with the following categories: Macros (.yxmc), Data Files (supported file types from file input screen), Other Assets.

When using the output data tool, it would save me and my cluttered organizational skills a lot of effort if the writing workflow was saved as part of the yxdb metadata. 

I've often had to search to find a workflow which created the yxdb. I tend to use naming conventions to help me,  but it would be easier if the file and or path was easily found. 

cheers,

 mark

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

Salesforce Input connector tool currently uses REST API.

Can we please enhance this tool to use BULK API?

Use Case:

We are sourcing about 2 million rows of opportunity data from Salesforce do to some insight analysis. This Alteryx workflow takes over an hour to run. The same dataset when pulled using a different ETL tool (Informatica) produces the dataset within 2 min! That makes a HUGE difference when you have a number of process to run in a limited amount of time. Enabling BULK API functionality on Salesforce input tool will help solve this problem.

Hello all,

I just love the DCM feature. However, you have to enable it manually in system settings after the install or the update.

I don't think there is a good reason for that and it would save time to enable it by default.

Best regards,

Simon

When I create a new table in a in-Db workflow, I want to specify some contraints, especially the Primary Key/Foreign Key

For PK/FK, the UX could be either the selection of some fields of the flow or a free field (to let the user choose a constant).

From wikipedia :

In the relational model of databases, a primary key is a specific choice of a minimal set of attributes (columns) that uniquely specify a tuple (row) in a relation (table).[a] Informally, a primary key is "which attributes identify a record", and in simple cases are simply a single attribute: a unique id. 

So, basically, PK/FK helps in two ways :
1/ Check for duplicate, check if the value inserted is legit

2/ Improve query plan, especially for join

I think the undo/redo capabilities in Alteryx could be greatly improved. Here is an idea that I think would be beneficial... 

I'd like to see which exact tools are affected by my undo/redo actions. An idea was suggested a couple years ago to move your location on the canvas, but that was not added to the roadmap. Instead, is it possible to add the tool ID to the undo menu so that it is obvious which tool each line is detailing?

This is the current debug menu that shows your previous actions:

When a tool is created, the ID can be displayed in this menu, but this is not shown when a change is made to an existing tool. My suggestion is that the menu would say:

4. Change Sort (3) Properties

This same change should be made in the Edit dropdown menu.

Hi all,

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Knowledge-Base/Tool-Mastery-RegEx/tac-p/74936

@AlexKo did an excellent article on RegEx, and Mark @MarqueeCrew Frisch has helped me out of many pickles with Regex - and one of the things that I've discussed with a few folk on the community is that Regex is super-powerful ( @Ken_Black made this same comment) and can do way more than we initially understand.

The problem is not one of the power of the tool, but rather the onramp to using it (it's painful to do/experiment/run/try etc, it doesn't give you any visual guides or hints when you've got it right or wrong, etc)

My method is to hop straight on to http://regex101, paste in sample text, and figure out the right RegEx in their AWESOME UI which really make this into a 5 minute job, and makes me feel like I've scored at least one victory today (it is so easy, you actually feel more powerful and competent).

Could we bring some of this great User Interaction design into the RegEx tool?   I honestly believe that if the RegEx tool was as easy and approachable as RegEx101.com (or why not go one better than them), we'd see an explosion in usage and creativity.

Thank you all

Sean

With the growing demand for data privacy and security, synthetic data generation is becoming an increasingly popular technique for generating datasets that can be shared without compromising sensitive information especially in the healthcare industry.

While Alteryx provides a range of tools, I believe that a custom tool could help meet the specific needs of a lot of healthcare organizations and customers.

Some potential features of a custom synthetic data generation tool for Alteryx could include:

Integration with other Alteryx tools: The tool could be seamlessly integrated with other Alteryx tools to provide a comprehensive data preparation and analysis platform.

Customizable data generation: Users could set parameters and define rules for generating synthetic data that accurately represents the statistical properties of the original dataset.

Data visualization and exploration: The tool could include features for visualizing and exploring the generated data to help users understand and validate the results.

I believe that a custom synthetic data generation tool could help our organization and customers generate high-quality synthetic datasets for testing, model training, and other purposes.

Hi GUI Gang

At the moment, I have a lovely formatted XLS with corporate branding, logos, filled cells, borders etc.  The data from the Alteryx output needs to start in cell B6.  I have tried the output tools to this named range, but Alteryx destroys all the Excel formatted cells in the data block.

As a workaround on the forums, many Alteryx users pump out to a hidden "Output" tab, and then code =OutputA1 in the formatted sheet.  This looks messy to the users who then go hunting for the hidden tab.  Personally I end up pumping the workflow out to a temporary CSV file.  Then opening that in Excel, selecting all, and then pasting values in the pretty Excel file.

This is fine for one file, but I need to split the output report block by a country field and do this 100s of time for each month end.

Please can we have a output tool that does the same as my workaround.  Outputs directly from a workflow to a range in Excel that doesnt destroy the workbook's formatting.

Jay

Similar to how the Join tool allows to "Select all Left" or "Select all Right" I'd like to see the Append Fields tool have an option to select all source or select all target. Same for deselect. 

Hi all,

At present, Alteryx does not support DSN-free connections to Snowflake using the Bulk Connector.    This is a critical functionality for any large company that uses Alteryx - and so I'm hoping that this can be changed in the product in an upcoming release.    As a corollary - every DB connection type has to be able to work without DSNs for any medium or large size server instance - so it's worth extending this to check every DB connection type available in Alteryx.

Here are the details:

What is DSN-Free?

In order to be able to run our Alteryx canvasses on a multi-node server - we have to avoid using DSNs - so we generally expand connection strings that look like this:

odbc:DSN=DSNSnowFlakeTest;UID=Username;PWD=__EncPwd1__|||NEWTESTDB.PUBLIC.MYTESTTABLE

to instead have the fully described connection string like this:
odbc:DRIVER={SnowflakeDSIIDriver};UID=Username;pwd=__EncPwd1__;authenticator=Snowflake;WAREHOUSE=compute_wh;SERVER=xnb27844.us-east-1.snowflakecomputing.com;SCHEMA=PUBLIC;DATABASE=NewTestDB;Staging=local;Method=user

For Snowflake BL:

Now - for the Snowflake Bulk Loader the same process does not work and Alteryx gives the classic error below

With DSN:

snowbl:DSN=DSNSnowFlakeTest;UID=Username;pwd=__EncPwd1__;Staging=local;Method=user|||NEWTESTDB.PUBLIC.MYTESTTABLE

Without DSN:

snowbl:driver=SnowflakeDSIIDriver;UID=SeanBAdamsJPMC;pwd=__EncPwd1__;SERVER=xnb27844.us-east-1.snowflakecomputing.com;WAREHOUSE=compute_wh;SCHEMA=PUBLIC;DATABASE=NewTestDB;Staging=local;Method=user|||NEWTESTDB.PUBLIC.MYTESTTABLE

Many thanks

Sean