Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Most databases treat null as "unknown" and as a result, null fails all comparisons in SQL.    For example, null does not match to null in a join, null will fail any > or < tests etc.    This is an ANSI and ISO standard behaviour.

Alteryx treats null differently - if you have 2 data sets going into a join, then a row with value null will match to a row with value null.

We've seen this creating confusion with our users who are becoming more fluent with SQL and who are using inDB tools - where the query layer treats null differently than the Alteryx layer.

Could we add a setting flag to Alteryx so that users can turn on ISO / ANSI standard processing of Null so that data works the same at all levels of the query stack?

Many thanks

Sean

I find the myself often needing to create unique IDs for a given category. Currently I end up using the multi row tool and leveraging the "group by" option. Enabling the record ID tool to create a unique count by grouping on distinct categories in an underlying data set would unlock an new level of grouping that would consolidate record keeping functionality in a single tool.

Cross tab automatically alphabetizes the column headers this can be a little awkward when unioning on column position later on. Would be nice to have this as an optional feature through a tick box on the tool.

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.

Hello, 

Please can we have some drawing tools, so we can add another dimension to our workflows.  I would like to draw arrows and lines across my workflow, so I can show the different stages of the workflow. I could use containers as an alternative, but feel lines would be better.

Also, is their a grid-line option, and a space equally (to spread tools evenly across work page), and an auto straighten!

Also, when you FIND, it would be nice if the Find box is allowed to stay on screen, whilst you work on the tool that has just been found; and if the founded tool can be highlighted more clearly so it can be seen. 

Also, a timer, so we can see how long the workflow runs for.

That's it for now. 

Thanks

I am currently using alteryx to generate pdf reports and noticed there is no option to have multiple row headers. In my line of work i cant skip this as the end users insist on having it like they have always had it.

I definitely think this should be available as many of us like replicate canned reports which are otherwise in excel and hence see the need for such an option.

The following might give an example of the multi row header,

Also the ability to merge certain columns to create the above effect should be available.

Today, the behaviour of batch macro can be strange.

If I refer to https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Batch-Macro-not-looping-after-running-...

we can have big behaviour differences between :

-wf and app

-designer and scheduler

Example here with a batch macro running for all lines in designer and only for line in scheduler

Designer works fineScheduler only runs the first line!!

I know the turnaroud (just use a message box) but it's not natural and I think

-at least the same behaviour is needed in any use case
-if you want to do some optimization, ok, but make it an option!!

Hello!

I remember a while ago running into a peculiar error:
'The R.exe exit code (4294967295) indicted an error'. This was peculiar, as the data output was still seemingly correct, however, the error made me double-check the community for answers.

There are some very technical sources here:
https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/R-tool-Fake-Errors/td-p/25163
https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Boosted-Model-Error/td-p/5509

but in short, this seems to be caused by a return code from C++ libraries, being understood by R as an error. Its a very inconsistent error, typically caused by low memory. This creates what most call a 'fake error' - the code runs perfectly fine, but seems to produce an error that doesn't actually indicate anything wrong.

Within those threads, its also stated that calling the garbage collection function (gc()) does tend to solve the problem on R exit, however this requires a user to understand basic R, and have access to the macro to be able to change the code - thus making predictive analytics more intimidating than it already is for new Alteryx users.

The first occurrence of this error seems to be way back in 2015, however the error is still being reported by users (see posts from 2020 and 2021):
https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Password-protected-Excel-files-R-solut...
https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Knowledge-Base/Error-The-R-exe-exit-code-n-indicat... 

An important issue of these 'fake errors', is not only that they cause confusion, but also that they will cause analytic apps and server workflows to not work as expected, and stop running depending on the configuration.

My suggestion would be to revisit this issue, as by my understanding it occurs inconsistently, and calling garbage collection does not always seem to fix it. Even if the Error message is still created, it may be worth Alteryx suppressing these errors, in the case they are not real errors.

Steps to reproduce:

(as mentioned, its very inconsistent)

1. Open the Boosted Model example workflow

2. *10 the number of maximum trees in the model, in the boosted model configuration (Model customization)

3. Run the workflow, inspect the results (which are seemingly correct), and the error message in the results window.

Hope this helps!
TheOC

Hi there,

When creating a database connection - Alteryx's default behaviour is to create an ODBC DSN-linked connection.

However DSN-linked connections do not work on a large server env - because this would require administrators to create these DSNs on every worker node and on every disaster recovery node, and update them all every time a canvas changes.

they are also not fully safe becuase part of the configuration of your canvas is held in the DSN - and so you cannot just rely on the code that's under version control.

So:

Could we add a feature to Alteryx Designer that allows a user to expand a DSN into a fully-declared conneciton string?

In other words - if the connection string is listed as 

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

Then offer the user the ability to expand this out by interrogating the ODBC Connection manager 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

NOTE: This is exactly what users need to do manually today anyway to get to a DSN-less conneciton string - they have to craete a file DSN to figure out all the attributes (by opening it up in Notepad) and then paste these into the connection string manually.

Thanks all 

Sean

We aren't getting a huge amount of help from support on this, so I'm posting this idea to raise awareness for the product teams responsible for the Salesforce connectors and the embedded Python environment.

This post from user Dubya describes the issue in detail:

I have a workflow with several salesforce tools in it, which works fine on my machine. But we need another alteryx user in our office to be able to access, run and maintain the workflow too, via their machine and copy of alteryx designer.

However we're finding that the salesforce inputs and outputs can only be authenticated on one machine at a time.

When the other new user opens the original workflow from the shared network location, the salesforce tools display an error "Salesforce Input (1): {'error': 'invalid_grant', 'error_description': 'authentication failure'}" and the tools fail to load any data. But we can see the full query in the tool and we can even set the custom query option and validate the query successfully, which suggests the source is being correctly connected to and queried, but we just cant run the tool.

The only way to run the tool successfully is to change the credentials and re-authenticate the tool. However this then de-authenticates the original machine, and when we open up the workflow on there and try to run ying the workflow brings back the same error.

We've both tried this authentication back and forth on our own machines and each time one of us re-authenticates, it de-authenticates the other, leading to it triggering the error.

Can someone help explain what's going on and how to fix it, as this doesn't bode well for our collaboration.

We're both running:
The latest build of version of designer 2021.2 (original machine also running desktop automation)
Salesforce Input Tool v4.1.0
Salesforce Output Tool v1.3.0

My response here identifies that this is a problem for our organization as well:

We're experiencing the same issue. It appears to be related to how the tool handles password and security token decryption. I've found that when you modify the related registry entry from "true" to "false", you can see in the tool's xml that the encrypted password and security token are still in there. I'm not sure what else is going on behind the scenes beyond that, but that ought to be addressable by the product teams handling the Salesforce connectors and the Python installation embedded in Designer.

The only differences in our environment compared to u/Dubya's are that we're running on 2020.4 and attempting to use Salesforce Input Tool v4.2.4.

This is a must have for anyone who needs the ability to share workflows among multiple users. This is part of a series of problems that these updated connectors have been plagued with since introducing them years ago, and no one at Alteryx seems to care enough to truly fix the problems. Salesforce is a core system for our organization, so having tools that utilize the latest version of Salesforce's APIs is very important to us. The additional features that the Input tool provides are welcome, but these bugs have to be sorted out in order for us to extract any kind of value out of them. If the "deprecated" Salesforce tools were ever to be removed from Designer while there are issues with the "new" connectors, we would have no choice other than to never upgrade Designer/Server again and be forced to look for another product to serve as our ETL platform.

Please, please, please address this.

As of today, Alteryx is not compatible with PAC, althouth it is pretty common in companies.

Asking for a few machine to be out of the GPO may be a real struggle with IT security and has only a few chances to succeed. I have a case when we cannot do an upgrade because of that regression (since old licensing seems to be ok).

Please change

It would be great if there was an output option for excel files where you could overwrite the data in the sheet, but keep the formatting in the sheet. Similar to how the Paste Values option works in Excel. This would allow me to create a template with data validation, conditional formatting, column widths, cell fill colors, etc and set a workflow to run on a schedule and just paste the data into the existing template.

To get around this right now I have to output it to a separate tab and then paste the columns as values over the existing template. This is fine unless I am out of the office and need to bother someone else to do it. I know there have been many times where i wish this was an option outside of the report I am currently building. I am honestly surprised I couldn't find an idea already submitted about this!

Thanks,

Wes

Hi all,

I think it would be great if Alteryx could send calendar invites in Outlook (and perhaps other calendaring systems) like it sends emails.

Currently the only way to accomplish this is to send it as an attached ICS file on a regular email.  

In my use case, rather than auto-populating a Shared Mailbox/calendar, someone has to go into the inbox, the email has to be opened then the ICS has to be clicked on to interact with.  

There are ways in Outlook to send an item like this but have it appear automatically without the end user ever seeing the actual invite.  (Our Company adds holidays and other important dates in this manner)

So basically I want this functionality available in Alteryx to do the same.  I have posted about it before in the discussions threads, but basically right now we enter our time in HR system, then have to manually enter the same info on our personal calendar in Outlook and any team calendar whether it be a SharePoint calendar, a group calendar in Outlook etc.

If Alteryx had the ability to send these types of invites, employees could enter the info in our HR system then Alteryx can get the data feed and automatically populate the other calendar (whichever type it may be).

Hopefully this gets some likes.  

Experts - 

During development it would be helpful to be able to do the following in both Formula and Filter tools (and perhaps any other tool that uses custom code):

1) Highlight a line or block of code

2) Right click

3) Comment/Uncomment

Easier than manually typing or deleting "//" at every line.  

Thanks in advance!

Alteryx is unlike many BI tools in the sense that it joins NULL. It is difficult to think of another platform that has this behaviour. Either people know about this and work around it or they don't and their joins are a ticking time bomb. Please add a check box to the Join and Join Multiple tools to allow or prevent joining NULL. This will serve to remove the need for workarounds as well as educate users about this default behaviour.

I want to jump to expression #3 of formula (3), when I see following error message. Now I can jump to formula (3), but only expression #1 is opened, not #3. If I have 30 expressions, it is hard to find #20 in 30s.

Hello all,

I try to use Alteryx and MonetDB, a very cool column store database in Open Source.
 
When I use the Visual Query Builder, I get this :

The fields names are totally absent.



The reason is Alteryx does not use the standard ODBC SQLColums() function at all but send some query (here "select * from demo.exemplecomparetable.fruit1 a where 0=1" ) to get a sample of data. In the same time, Monetdb sends the error "SELECT: only a schema and table name expected" (not shown to user, totally silent)

I think this should be implemented like that :
1/use of SQLColums() function which is a standard for ODBC and should work most of the time
2/if SQLColums() does not work, send the current queries.

It's widely discussed here with the MonetDB team.

https://github.com/MonetDB/MonetDB/issues/7313

Best regards,

Simon

We have Alteryx running in AWS which seems to be a common setup.Our AWS instances are set-up with IAM roles which has been one of the security measures applied in order to finally allow our enterprise company to allow some development in the cloud. IT will not allow the sharing of Access keys to connect to S3.

• Would like to use the AWS S3 Tools from the connectors palette as the AWS CLI has limited ability to handle/report exceptions or issues with any detail. At the moment, we are limited on what goes into production as we are using CLI for what we can.
• Ideally, an option would be to add to the S3 Tools allowing the user to select IAM Roles rather than Key Access. Refer the screen attached.

I set up my canvas how I want it, but I will sometimes undock or auto-hide the canvas windows (Results, Configuration, etc.).  My suggestion is to add a Locked Dock as a selection that will allow for resizing, but not undocking.