Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

We are using silent Alteryx installation and would like to package license activation within the package. We do not want to expose Alteryx license key to the users to prevent them from sharing it with someone else. Requesting to add a flag/setting to allow admins to not display license key under Options>Manage Licenses.

Related request https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Is-it-possible-to-hide-the-serial-key-...

When writing an expression in a Formula tool, I love that you can just type an open bracket and suggestions pop up that allow you to auto-fill the rest of the variable name. What I find frustrating, however, is that once you type the open bracket, the highlighted field automatically moves to the one where your mouse is pointing, regardless of if you have moved your mouse or not. I think it makes more sense to always highlight the first field in the list and only take mouse position into account once it has actually moved.

It is hard to describe in just a picture as opposed to a video but essentially I had my mouse below where I was typing in the screenshot below then when I typed the open bracket, the 3rd field listed automatically got selected even though I never moved my mouse.

Cc: @Hollingsworth 

Hi, I was using the Image Template tool and I noticed that the icons for import and export are switched.

Imagine the scenario where you have an input that has new columns everyday, like the one that can be seem above. But with millions of rows. And you need to build the Total column. This cannot be achieved with the formula tool, because the columns of the input are dynamic. 

...

The default way that i use and see people using to solve this type of problem is transposing the data/summarizing/joining back the data. I tested this with the Enable Performance Profiling for 10 million rows (workflow attached), and as expected, when you transpose/summarize/join back a large volume of rows, you spend too much computing power. For this test, at least 5x more time than by just using the formula tool (workflow attached):

So, what i propose here is:

1) That the Multi-Field formula could be able to evaluate a set of columns dynamically and generate just one new column (the sum of the evaluated columns, the concatenation of it...).

Example of Designer Discussion that would be benefit from it: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Transposing-Filtering-and-Summarizing-...

2) That the Multi-Field formula could be able to reference column-1, column-2, column+1, column+2, like the Multi-Row formula is.

Example of Designer Discussion that would benefit from it: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Copy-Field-and-create-two-mor-fields-w...

Thanks.

Hello - The Input Data tool allows you to import a list of sheet names, but it doesn't let you import a list of named ranges. I'm proposing the Input Data tool allows you to import a list of named ranges for as many Excel file formats as possible. Right now when I go to import say an xlsx or xlsm the Input Data tool allows me to select from a drop down of named ranges, so it seems the functionality is already there. I am not aware of a reasonable approach to getting a list of named ranges other than opening up the Excel file as XML, specifically xl/workbook.xml - however, I've ran into issues with this approach providing sheet names instead of named ranges (unsure why but I posted about this here https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/How-do-I-get-a-list-of-all-named-range...)

If we were able to import a list named ranges I think the benefits are obvious. The one that really stands out to me is that if you have a standard when creating named ranges (for example "prefix_name1, prefix_name2" etc... you could search for specific prefixes to find the named ranges available. In a large portfolio of models deploying such a standard the total universe of named ranges might not be known ahead of time except the prefix to search. I'm curious if this resonates with others.

Thank you

Hello,


As of today, when you connect o, a database, you go through a batch of queries to retrieve which database it is ( cf https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Ideas/Smart-Visual-Query-Builder-for-in-db-less-te... where I suggest a solution to speed up the process) and then, Alteryx queries the metadata. In order to get the column in each table, Alteryx use a SHOW TABLES and then loop on each table. This is really slow. 

However, since Hive 3.0, an information_schema with the list of columns for each  table is now available. I suggest to use the information_schema.columns instead of the time-consuming loop.

PS : I don't know if it's linked to the Active Query Builder, the third-party tool behind the Visual Query Builder. In that case, it would be a good idea to update it as suggested here https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Ideas/Update-Query-Builder-component/idi-p/799086

Best regards,

Simon

I love Workflow Meta info, especially the ability to put the Author, the search tags,the version, the description, etc...

But why can't we use it as Engine Constant? It doesn't seem very hard to implement and it would change life for development.

I noticed through the ODBC driver log that Alteryx doesn't care about the kind of base I precise. It tests every single kind of base to find the good one and THEN applies the queries to get the metadata info.

Here an example. I have chosen an Hive in db connection. If  I read the simba logs, i can find those lines :

Mar 01 11:37:21.318 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select USER(), APPLICATION_ID() from system.iota

Mar 01 11:37:22.863 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select USER as USER_NAME from SYSIBM.SYSDUMMY1

Mar 01 11:37:23.454 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select * from rdb$relations

Mar 01 11:37:23.546 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select first 1 dbinfo('version', 'full') from systables

Mar 01 11:37:23.707 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select #01/01/01# as AccessDate

Mar 01 11:37:23.868 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: exec sp_server_info 1

Mar 01 11:37:24.093 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select top (0) * from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.INDEXES

Mar 01 11:37:24.219 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: SELECT  SERVERPROPERTY('edition')

Mar 01 11:37:24.423 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select DATABASE() as `database`, VERSION() as `version`

Mar 01 11:37:24.635 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select * from sys.V_$VERSION at where RowNum<2

Mar 01 11:37:25.230 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select cast(version() as char(10)), (select 1 from pg_catalog.pg_class) as t

Mar 01 11:37:25.415 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select NAME from sqlite_master

Mar 01 11:37:25.756 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select xp_msver('CompanyName')

Mar 01 11:37:26.156 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select @@version

Mar 01 11:37:26.376 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select * from dbc.dbcinfo

Mar 01 11:37:26.522 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: SELECT @@VERSION;

I can understand that when Alteryx doesn't know the kind of base he tries everything.. (eg : in memory visual query builder) but here, I have selected the Hive database and I have to loose more than 5 seconds for nothing.

At our organization we are required to change our passwords every few months forcing a change to my Tableau Server password.  How does this relate to Alteryx?  Well, every 90 days I have to change my password in the "Publish to Tableau Server Tool" for all of my workflows.  This is quite a cumbersome process that could be eliminated with AD.

If you dislike manually changing your for each workflow that uses this tool then "star" this post!

Please could you enhance the Alteryx download tool to support SFTP connections with Private Key authentication as well.  This is not currently supported and all of our SFTP use cases use PK.

I propose another wildcard, %ErrorLog%, that would simply output the error codes and narratives instead of having to use the %OutputLog% to see these.  I'd rather not have a 4 MB text email depicting every line of code and action in the module when all I really need to see are the errors.

Could we please have a Type field added to the "Select Fields to Cleanse" configuration window for the Data Cleansing Tool? This small feature would save a lot of time (saving the time needed to check the Metadata for every field every time I use the Data Cleansing Tool). Similar functionality to the way the Summarize Tool displays both Field and Type (just one additional field).

Today:

Future Version:

Pardon my sad photoshopping 🙂

Note: I realize the Data Cleansing is a macro and this functionality is not currently available with the "Check Box" interface tool.

Thank you!

Tools within a workflow needs to be able to run in parallel whereever applicable.

For example: Extracting 10 million rows from one source, 12 million rows from a different source to perform blending.

currently the order of execution is the order in which tools are dragged into the canvas. Hence Source1 first, Source2 second and then the JOIN.

Here Source1 & Source2 are completely independent, hence can be run in parallel. Thus saving the workflow execution time.

Execution time is quite crucial when you have tight data loading window.

Hopefully alteryx considers this in the next release!

Lets say you have a row of 10 filter tools vertically and there's a select tool coming out of each input for each filter. It can get dizzying to tell the difference. It would be great to be able to select a colour for tools when on the canvas so e.g. in the above I could say " my green selects are the true and my red selects are the false"

Hi all,

Is it possible to add an option to 'Add an Image' in the settings option of Interface Designer while building Apps or macros?

Currently, we can add Group box, Link, Tab, and Label. It would be really helpful if we can add static images as well!!

This would enable a developer to add an explanatory image just as a link or label is used to communicate to end user.

I am attaching a screenshot for the reference.

Thanks in advance!!

Regards,

Shreyansh Rathod

Can you put a check box on the container title bar to make it easier to enable/disable containers in the process window? And can you make the minimize/maximize option for a conatiner a separate option from enable/disable?

Sometimes I need to connect to the data in my Database after doing some filtering and modeling with CTEs. To ensure that the connection runs quicker than by using the regular input tool, I would like to use the in DB tool. But is doesn't working because the in DB input tool doesn't support CTEs. CTEs are helpful for everyday life and it would be terribly tedious to replicate all my SQL logic into Alteryx additionally to what I'm already doing inside the tool. 

I found a lot of people having the same issue, it would be great if we can have that feature added to the tool. 

Under the Runtime setting, there is an existing option to "Disable All Tools that Write Output". This is incredibly useful when developing workflows when you don't want to overwrite existing files.

But this option doesn't disable all outputs, like Publishing to Tableau! 

I suggest adding the option to disable ALL kinds of outputs, uploads, and publishing (except possibly logging and caching).

Desperately looking for a way to connect to SQL Server Analysis Services through Alteryx as more and more of our large datasets from our older systems are moving to here in the next few months. We can connect using PowerBi with limitations (connecting 'Live' does not allow merge and connecting with Import, you need to use MDX or DAX syntax). We run into import and export limitations, too. We are not allowed access to the underlying tables, but the tables with the measures, dimensions and fields. PowerBi is a big step up from pivot tables, but Alteryx would be so much better. Ideas for connecting this up are are welcome!