Alteryx Designer Ideas

Session connection to Google Sheet exists for 60 minutes. If someone wanted to keep this for more time then "User Login" option requires re-entering credentials every 60 minutes.

However, we can use the Developer Login0 to bypass this limitation. This method requires sign-in using Google API credentials. This option requires obtaining a Client ID, Client Secret, and Refresh Token and does not require re-entering credentials to run a workflow.

My question - can you address this issue in next release of Alteryx?

Now that we have a Snowflake Bulk Loader option, it would be great to utilize the built-in Snowflake internal staging.  This eliminates the need for an end-user to have the technical know-how or access to IT resources to utilize a separate S3 bucket and generally reduces friction in the process. 

There was pretty widespread support in the original Bulk Load thread: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Ideas/Snowflake-Bulk-Loader/idi-p/105291/page/2#co...

The "Manage Data Connections" tool is fantastic to save credentials alongside the connection without having to worry when you save the workflow that you've embedded a password. 

Imagine if - there were a similar utility to handle credentials/environment variables. 

• I could create an entry, give it a description, a username, and an encrypted password stored in my options, then refer to that for configurations/values throughout my workflows. 
  • Tableau credentials in the publish to tableau macro
  • Sharepoint Credentials in the sharepoint list connector
• When my password changes I only have to change it in one place
• If I handoff the workflow to another user I don't have to worry about scanning the xml to make sure I'm not passing them my password
• When a user opens my workflow that doesn't have a corresponding entry in their credentials manager they would be prompted using my description to add it.
• Entries could be exported and shared as well (with passwords scrubbed)

Example Entry Tableau:

Then when configuring a tool you could put in something like [Tableau Prod].[Password] and it would read in the value.

Or maybe for Sharepoint:

Or perhaps for a team file location:

Any of these values could be referenced in tool configurations, formulas, macro inputs by specifying the Alias and field.

I know that incoming and outgoing connections can be wired and wireless, and that they will highlight when one clicks on a tool. However, it would be very useful to be able to highlight a particular connector in a particular colour (selected from a palette, perhaps, from the drop down window, or from the configuration). This would be especially useful when there are many connectors originating from a single tool.

Thanks

Alteryx has different behaviours for conversion errors depending on the type of conversion desired. When converting from string to date data type, a conversion error will generate a NULL value. When converting from a string to a numeric data type, a conversion error will generate 0. Why the different behaviours? There is a lack of harmony here. 0 is a valid value and should not be the generated value for a failed string to numeric conversion. It should be NULL.

When I perform data type conversions, i do not apply them directly to the source field and then cast it. If there is a conversion error, then I have lost or corrupted the source information. Rather, I create a target field with the desired data type and use a formula to apply a conversion, such as datetimeparse or tonumber. Finally, I do a comparison of the source and target values. If the datetimeparse generated a NULL then I can PROGRAMMATICALLY address it in the workflow by flagging or doing some other logic. This isn't so easy to do with numerics because of the generated 0 value. If I compare a string "arbitrary" to the generated 0 value as a string then clearly these do not match. However, if I compare a scientific value in a string to the converted numeric as a string, then these do not match though they should. My test of the conversion shows a false positive.

I want a unified and harmonised conversion behaviour. If the conversion fails, generate a NULL across the board please. If I am missing something here and people actually like conversion errors to generate 0 please let me know.

While In-db tools are very helpful and cut down the time needed to write complex SQL , there are some steps that are faster by directly writing SQL like window functions- OVER (PARTITION BY .....). In Alteryx, we need to create multiple joins and summaries to perform a window function. It would be immensely helpful if there was a SQL editor tool for in-db workflows where we can edit the SQL code at any point in the workflow, or even better, if they can add an "edit" function to every in-db tool where we can customize the SQL code generated and then send to the next tool.

This will cut down the time immensely and streamline the workflow to make Alteryx a true contender for the ETL solution space.

Who needs a 1073741823 sized string anyways?  No one, or close enough to no one.  But, if you are creating some fancy new properties in the formula tool and just cranking along and then you see that your **bleep** data stream is 9G for nine rows of data you find yourself wondering what the hell is going on.  And then, you walk your way way down the workflow for a while finding slots where the default 1073741823 value got set, changing them to non-insane sized strings, and the your data flow is more like 64kb and your workflow runs in 3 seconds instead of 30 seconds.  

Please set the default value for formula tools to a non-insane value that won't be changed by default by 99.99999% of use cases.  Thank you.

Dear Alteryx GUI Gang,

I'll create a container and then customize the colours, margins, transparency, border and then want consistency for other containers.  It would be nice to have a format painter function (brush) to apply the format of one container to another.  This of course could be extended to other tools like comments.  There might be a desire to apply this to more tools too, but the comments and containers would be my focus as they are almost always custom configured.

Cheers,

Mark

I would like the ability to take custom geographies and write them to a table in Exasol. We visualize our data with Tableau and rely on live connections to Exasol tables rather than Tableau extracts. One shortcoming with spatial is that we have to output our custom geographies as a .shp file then make a Tableau Extract.  This would save us a few steps in sharing this data with our users. 

Thanks!

Hi,

Please provide users the option of downloading course videos and transcripts. If it is already there, please let me know.

Regards,

Meenakshi

I think I'm liking the new UI, but I think it's necessary to bring back save, undo and re-do buttons....

1. Frequent saving of workflows is crucial and not everyone uses keyboard shortcuts

2. The ability to undo (lots) of changes is a key part of iterating and rapidly building workflows in Alteryx and again not everyone uses keyboard shortcuts to do this.

Looks like there's potentially space to add this to the right of 'help' (I suspect this might be technically quiet difficult) or to the left of 'run', 'schedule' and 'active documents' as seen in the image below.

Out of interest, where has the 'documents' terminology come from?

As of today, for a full refresh, I can :

-create a new table

-overwrite a table. (will drop and then create the new table)

But sometimes, the workflow fails and the old table is dropped while the new one is not created. I have to modify the tool (setting "create a new table")to launch it again, which may be a complex process in companies. After that, I have to modify it again back to "overwrite".

What I want :

-create a new table-error if table already exists

-overwrite a table-error if table doesn't exist

-overwrite a table-no error if table doesn't exist (easy in sql : drop if exists...)

Thanks!

Some of the workflows I use have multiple inputs that can take a long time to initially load. The new cache function itself has been amazing, but there is one big drawback for me: I can't cache multiple tools at the same time.  Alteryx will allow me to eventually cache all of the tools I want cached, but it will take multiple times running the file.  This still saves me time in the end, but it feels a bit cumbersome to set up.

Hi Everyone,

Many workflows I work with along with those of my colleagues, use big databases in order to get some data. After a few steps down stream and testing, we normally just add an output and then open up that data in a new workflow to save time running the original workflow. Not that this is much of a burden, but I am used to copying and pasting tools from workflow A to workflow B, but you can't do that with the output, because in workflow B the output needs to be converted to an input. I just think it would be a cool added feature if possible. Anyone else agree?

Thank you,

Justin

Hello,

From my experience, an SSD drive allows a big improvement of performance when the RAM is not sufficient and Alteryx has to swap on the temp storage location. It really changes the user experience. Also, I noted a correlation with the AlteryxProcessManager:tart : ConnectNamedPipe :  error : I think it happens less with a SSD.

Given that, shouldn't be a requirement or at least a recommandation?

Hi,

I would like to be able to modify my connection string in the Alias Manager.

Connection string is greyed out :

If I want to change my connection string, I have to create a new alias.

Hello

Alteryx Desktop 2018.4 has a new interface which looks nice, but the labels and texts of its interface is difficult to read (as seen in the below screenshot).

It's seem that the interface's font type or size is not appropriate!

(Knowing that we didn't have any problem with the previous versions of Alteryx Desktop 11.7, 2018.2, & 2018.3)

So, I suggest to change the interface's font type or size of Alteryx Desktop 2018.4 as it was in the previous versions or to another font which is easy to read,

or at least having an option that allow the user to adjust the interface's font type and size.

My solution now is to downgrade to version 2018.3 where I have no problem at all regarding the interface's font.

With the release of 2018.3, cache has become an adhoc task. With complex workflow and multiple inputs we need a method to cache and save the cache selection by tool. Once the workflow runs after opening, the cache would be saved at the latest tool downstream.

This way we don't have to create adhoc cache steps and run the workflow 2X before realizing the time saving features of cache.

This would work similar to the cache feature in 11.0 but with enhanced functionality...the best of the old cache with the new cache intent.

Embed the cache option into tools.

Thanks!

I like the new cache option in 2018.3, but I would like it to function a little bit different. Let's say you cache at a certain point and then continue to build after that. If I reach another checkpoint and want to cache, it currently re-runs the entire workflow (ie it ignores my cache upstream and just goes back to the beginning of the workflow); instead, I would rather have it utilize the upstream cache. Personally, caching is usually an iterative effort during development where I keep caching along the way. The current functionality of the cache is not conducive to this. Thanks!