Alteryx Designer Ideas

We have discussed on several occasions and in different forums, about the importance of having or providing Alteryx with order of execution control, conditional executions, design patterns and even orchestration.

I presented this idea some time ago, but someone asked me if it was posted, and since it was not, I’m putting it here so you can give some feedback on it.

The basic concept behind this idea is to allow us (users) to have:

• Design Patterns
  • Repetitive patterns to be reusable.
  • Select after and Input tool
  • Drop Nulls
  • Get not matching records from join
• Conditional execution
  • Tell Alteryx to execute some logic if something happens.
  • Record count
  • Errors
  • Any other condition
• Order of execution
  • Need to tell Alteryx what to run first, what to run next, and so on…
  • Run this first
  • Execute this portion after previous finished
  • Wait until “X” finishes to execute “Y”
• Orchestration
  • Putting all together

This approach involves some functionalities that are already within the product (like exploiting Filtering logic, loading & saving, caching, blocking among others), exposed within a Tool Container with enhanced attributes, like this example:

The approach is to extend Tool Container’s attributes.

This proposition uses actual functionalities we already have in Designer.

So, basically, the Tool Container gets ‘superpowers’, with the addition of some capabilities like: Accepting input data, saving the contents within the container (to create a design pattern, or very commonly used sequence of tools chained together), output data, run the contents of the tools included in the container, etc.), plus a configuration screen like:

1. Refers to the actual interface of the Tool Container.
2. Provides the ability to disable a Container (and all tools within) once it runs.
   • Idea based on actual behavior: When we enable or disable a Tool Container from an interface Tool.
3. Input and output data to the container’s logic, will allow to pickup and/or save files from a particular container, to be used in later containers or persist data as a partial result from the entire workflow’s logic (for example updating a dimensions table)
   • Based on actual behavior: Input & Output Data, Cache, Run Command Tools, and some macros like Prepare Attachment.
4. Order of Execution: Can be Absolute or Relative. In case of Absolute run, we take the containers in order, executing their contents. If Relative, we have the options to configure which container should run before and after, block until previous container finishes or wait until this container finishes prior to execute next container in list.
   • Based on actual behavior: Block until done, Cache, Find Replace, some interface Designer capabilities (for chained apps for example), macros’ basic behaviors.
5. Conditional Execution: In order to be able to conditionally execute other containers, conditions must be evaluated. In this case, the idea is to evaluate conditions within the data, interface tools or Error/Warnings occurrence.
   • Based on actual behavior: Filter tool, some Interface Tools, test Tool, Cache, Select.
6. Notes: Documentation text that will appear automatically inside the container, with options to place it on top or below the tools, or hide it.

This should end a brief introduction to the idea, but taking it a little further, it will allow even to have something like an Orchestration layout, where the users can drag and drop containers or patterns and orchestrate them in a solution, like we can do with the Visual Layout Tool or the Interactive Chart tool:

I'm looking forward to hear what you think.

Best

Can we set our own Comment tool default preferences? - For me I want to set the text alignment to be "Center" by default, currently it's always "TopCenter" when I open it.

When copying and pasting the datetime tool, or disconnecting its input, it loses its configuration. This can be really frustrating if it has an unusual formula, and can result in looking up the datatime functions again: https://help.alteryx.com/current/designer/datetime-functions and working out how to reconfigure the tool.

Steps to reproduce this issue:

1.  Set up datetime tool

2. Delete Input Connector:

3. Reconnect and notice the formula is missing and it has been reset to a completely fresh DateTime Tool:

Proposed solution:
The Datetime tool should remember the previous configuration, and go back to this when the input is deleted or it is copy pasted. It will then be able to be reconnected.



Steps in proposed solution:
1. Setup Datetime tool

2. Delete input Connector (Note the DateTime Config and Annotation Remaining, but still being not editable)

3. Reconnect the tool for it to still be configured for the data

When using a File Browse to get a file from a user on the gallery, I want to be able to limit the sheets available as options to select from. Currently all sheets and named ranges in the workbook appear in the list. In the example below, I would want to be able to limit the options to just the Allow sheet so that the <List of Sheet Names> and the Don't Allow sheet are not even options for the user.

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

I would like for it to be easier to change input (and output) tools to UNC pathing. I think adding it to the right click menu would be great. Currently, I have to go to options >> advanced >> workflow dependencies. A right click option would be easier.

Thanks!

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

When viewing results of a workflow that has Errors, could we add External error resolution data if the user clicks on the error message?  Like browse everywhere it could lookup the error in help and in community posts.  

cheers,

 mark

Having the open / close ( expand / collapse ) button for the tool container in lhe top right corner implies that everytime a big container is expanded, to close it the user has to move the pointer to its new position, which sometimes mean scrolling / zooming out and then zooming in to locate it.

I suggest to locate that button in the top left corner by the side of the enable/disable switch or even a double click mechanism for open/close, which would enable to user to open, see what is inside the container, and close it without moving the mouse to locate the new location of the button.

Idea: Build a version of Designer that runs on ARM devices without requiring an emulator.

Windows 10 on ARM is becoming an increasingly popular option for new devices.  Also, with Apple's move toward ARM, virtualized instances of Windows on Mac will either need to be the ARM version or will have much better performance over an emulated version of x64 Windows 10.

Emulated software is considerably slower than native binaries, so to maintain Alteryx's fast performance, an ARM version of Designer would be the best way forward for those looking to move to ARM platforms.

Alteryx doesnt support querying tables within Apache Ignite via Ignite ODBC connector. Connectivity from Ignite being an in memory database with Alteryx would help in better connectivity via ODBC.

https://apacheignite-sql.readme.io/docs/overview 

In Alteryx Designer, under Workflow Configuration >  Events, there is an option to send email based on the events.

It would be great if this functionality can pick up smtp username that has been set in the server when the workflow is

executed from Alteryx Server. So user does not need to enter username and password anymore on each workflow.

When I proceed with this command in a python tool:

from ayx import Package

Package.installPackages(package='pandas',install_type='install --upgrade')

in Alteryx it only updates to 0.25, but the Latest version is 1.1.2.

When I would like to upgrade from the Python side i get the following:

ERROR: ayx 1.0.54 has requirement pandas<0.25.0,>=0.24.2, but you'll have pandas 1.1.2 which is incompatible.

Can you please make sure we can upgrade to the latest version of pandas without any compatibility issue?

This is important because of json_normalize. Really useful tool, available from pandas 1.0.3!

The original engine support expanding the formula tool with custom functions either in XML or C++. The new AMP doesn't support these yet.

There is a fair number of user who are using these in E1 and would be good to have this available in AMP

I am using Union Tool to effectively append two datasets that share about 30 columns, but the field names are slightly different so I had to manually configure fields. The primary dataset has 300+ columns and none of these can be dropped... The process of clicking the arrows to align the fields is driving me nuts lol

Can we have the 'drag and order' feature in Append Fields Tool? That would be much appreciated!

Currently, if you download and Alteryx package from an alternative version it doesn't allow import into a newer version.

Workflows allow this with a warning it would be good to allow it on packages too. 

Can we please have a tickbox (ideally one that remembers your preference to be ticked or unticked) on the Save to Gallery pop up that would allow us to save a (timestamped?) copy of that workflow on a local drive (perhaps one that is preset in the user settings)?

If you open a workflow in Designer from the Gallery, make some changes, and then attempt to save it back to Gallery (i.e., Ctrl-S), you receive the Save Workflow dialog (as per attached).  However, if you then realize that you want to make an additional change before saving the workflow and click 'Cancel', the workflow closes without saving.  The expected behavior would be for the Save Workflow dialog to close, but not the entire workbook.  This is terrible functionality and should be fixed because it results in lost work.  Thank you