Alteryx Designer Ideas

the SQL Editing screen has recently been changed (thank you @JPoz  and team!) - and now has syntax indenting and keyword coloring.

Could I ask for a minor change:

- The tool seems to be doing a word-wrap even if the container doesn't need it - for example in the screenshot below, the entire on clause can fit on one line because I've expanded the window so that it doesn't need to wrap.

- Could you also default to putting the ON clause for a join 4 spaces indented underneath the join clause?   worked example below.

Wordwrap:

Indenting Structure:

Could we use a default structure for queries where the on part is indented underneath the Join?

Select

    Field1,

    Field2,

    field3

from

    Table1

    inner join table2

        On Table1.key = table2.key

        and table1.keyb = table2.keyb

    inner join table3

        on table3.key = table1.key

        and table3.date = table1.date

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

Hi Alteryx 🙂

When you set maximum records per file, the filename gets _# appended.  Great!  But in reality you get:

Filename.csv

Filename_1.csv

Filename_2.csv

The first filename doesn't get a number.  I think that it should.

Cheers,

Mark

When you add an input tool, and select a connection from the connection history - the password is visible in plain text in some circumstances.   The screenshot below shows this in 2019.4

Please can you ensure that in this view, the password is ALWAYS masked.

Thank you.

Hi Alteryx 🙂

When I select fields within a BROWSE or Browse Anywhere, it would be nice to be able to highlight and deselect  a range of  fields instead of having to check/uncheck fields one at a time.  Yuck!  

Cheers,

Mark

It seems like it is restricted to 255 characters using .hyper as an input (Alteryx designer discussion).  It would be great if we can read at least 2147483648 bytes which is the string limitation in Alteryx.

@JeffA posted an awesome blog about how UI automation testing is being done within Alteryx using the Selenium library and the Python SDK.

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Engine-Works-Blog/Total-Automation-Badassery/bc-p/509096#M2105

This would be a TREMENDOUS addition to the core product - especially given that the alteryx team have already built these into a series of generic tools that can be dropped onto canvasses.

Example of where this would be super powerful for the Alteryx platform:

- the data I need to analyze is on a legacy system with no API; or behind a web login wall

- the data I need requires a user to hit a series of steps to download Excel or CSV (again, no API)

- I've found an outlier - can I submit this to an application so that someone can act on it?

This would be a very valuable addition to the core product; and really increase the scope of analytics capability - please could you consider adding this to the standard downloadable version as a brand new tab full of automation tools?

When selecting a HANA view in Alteryx that has a required prompt/parameter/variable Alteryx does not pre-populate the SQL with the required HANA prompt code.  Instead it give a SQL Error.   Requesting an Alteryx enhancement that would read the HANA view and determine the required HANA prompt SQL required and prepopulate the prompt or ask the user to fill in the prompt/variable box.  This may work similar to how Tableau work when connecting directly to a HANA view that requires a prompt (it would pop up the prompt and allow you to select, when you convert Tableau to custom sql it would save the SQL code required for the prompt.

Right now the Directory tool; Input tool; Output tool all do implied credentialing (for input and output it's implied for file-based data-sources).    This implied credentialing is not obvious because most people working on the desktop want the designer to pass on their own credentials as they access a file.

This is a significant data-leakage risk since an canvas running on the server can access the full content of EVERY network share that has any input files that are used in Alteryx canvasses.    

Please can you add explicit credentialing to all input and output tools in Alteryx, especially the Directory tool; Input tool (for files) and output tool (for files).    That way, teams will be able to use a teamID to access secure content, and the cross-team leakage risk on the designer and server can be closed out.

Many thanks

Sean

+  @Hemanth @marydest24 @Shreyasi @Sotoll @Kosi @revathi @Bethanyturner012  

TIBCO Data Virtualization is a Data Virtualization product focused on creating a virtual data store consolidating data from throughout the enterprise.  It can be accessed via a SQL query engine, and has a variety of supported connectors, including an ODBC driver.

This data source can be connected to via ODBC in Alteryx today, but error messaging is unclear/unhelpful, and attempting to use the Visual Query Builder causes Alteryx to crash.

Adding TIBCO Data Virtualization as a supported ODBC connection would empower business users to leverage this product and easily utilize this enterprise data store, enhancing the value of the Alteryx platform as a consumer of this data.

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

Hello,

According to wikipedia :

A partition is a division of a logical database or its constituent elements into distinct independent parts. Database partitioning is normally done for manageability, performance or availability reasons, or for load balancing. It is popular in distributed database management systems, where each partition may be spread over multiple nodes, with users at the node performing local transactions on the partition. This increases performance for sites that have regular transactions involving certain views of data, whilst maintaining availability and security. 

Well, basically, you split your table in several parts, according to a field. it's very useful in term of performance when your workflows are in delta or when all your queries are based on a date. (e.g. : my table helps me to follow my sales month by month, I partition my table by month).

So the idea is to support that in Alteryx, it will add a good value, especially in In-DB workflows.

Best regards,

Simon

Referencing the previous idea: Inputs/Output should have the option to read/write a compressed file (ZIP or GZIP)

This idea has been implemented for inputting .zip files. However, we still need to use the run command workaround for outputs. It's very common for many users to want to output their .csv, .xlsx, .pdf to a .zip. The functionality would also need to extend to Gallery.

See the following links for people that are looking for this type of functionality:

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Server-Discussions/Download-Multiple-Outputs-from-the-Galle...

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Output-files-to-ZIP/td-p/163502

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Zip-files/td-p/151456

Feel free to merge this idea with the previous one for continuity.

I would like to see more files types supported to be able to be dragged from a folder onto a workflow. More precisely a .txt and a .dat file. This will greatly help my team and I do be able to analyze new and unknown data files that we receive on a daily basis.  

Thank you. 

My specific use case relates to writing to AWS but am sure there are many other use cases for federated user session token support.

Specifically, using the S3 Upload tool or Athena Bulk Write (via SIMBA and Athena ODBC), the configuration works when using a IAM user, access key, and secret access key but when using a federated user via Okta there is no option to enter the session token and authentication fails.

Alteryx desktop should support federated users' session tokens.

Please consider adding the ability in the Power BI Output Tool to create/modify multiple tables per dataset - having to work with only single table datasets in Power BI is very limiting.

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...

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

When developing and/or troubleshooting workflows, I frequently disable the outputs using the checkbox in the Runtime configuration settings to speed up the workflow and prevent sending emails and/or overwriting data in the output sources... however, 9/10 times I forget to turn off this checkbox when I save my workflow back up to the Gallery. This results in countless emails from users to the tune of "I ran the workflow successfully, but there was no output?" 🙂

Would love love love to see some sort of warning notification (similar to the ones that already shown for data sources etc.) when saving to the Gallery if the "Disable All Tools that Write Output" option is selected in the Runtime settings.

Thank you!!

NJ