Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Currently, if the same Excel file is being updated on the workflow, but different sheets within the file, it will error out if the saving process overlaps one another. And there are some cases that using the tool Block Until Done will not work because there are two data streams (for example if you have a filter and is saving the data from the two outputs on the same file).

It would be great if we could output to the same Excel file more than once on the same workflow. 

Hi,

It would be very useful for me If I could consolidate in the same output two different inputs: 1- the whole output flow; 2- The summarize from the output. That would save some time from doing pivot table analysis for instance. 

Thanks

Currently if I read multiple files through Directory Tool +Dynamic Input, I will not know which final records is from which file, which can be extreme useful.

I also know, the files need to be the same schema (a second limitation), but the filename itself will be handy

One feature in the input tool that would be great to have added to the already existing "Output file name as field" option would be to set the field at the beginning of the data set or end (i.e. you could set your default, click a check box or select from two options). Because with large data sets sometimes you need to do data manipulation on that field and it can be easier to work with right away if at the beginning of data set. Right now you have to drag in a select tool to fix it.

Dear Alteryx Community,

I've tried my best to make sure this suggestion wasn't posted before so hoping I haven't missed a feature already present in Alteryx or re-posting an idea already submitted.

In any case, there is one operation I do so much that I wonder if it could be made easier.  I would consider myself a very basic Alteryx users so many of my workflows usually end in either Excel files, CSV, or Alteryx Database files. In any case, here is what I would love (if possible)

In my workflow, I wish I could Right-click on my Output Tool using a file-based output such as Excel, .csv, .yxdb and have a R-Click menu option which said "Start Workflow".  This would open a new Workflow with one input tool already present with a the path being the same as what was in the Output tool that I right-clicked on.

So many times I create an output and then need to use that output.  This usually means I have to copy/paste the path, create an Input Tool and paste that path in.  Would be so many easier if a few of these steps could be done automatically.

Otherwise, if the community knows a simpler/better way...I'm would love to know.

Thanks in advance

Amar

Would be interested if it was possible to turn off individual output tools individually rather than also disabling tools that write output, as it would be good to choose which output tools can write output, instead of placing them in a tool container for all of the output tools.

I notice that at least my Output files are tied up "being used by another program" after the workflow is closed.  I have to actually close out of Alteryx to release the file.  The file s/b released as soon as the workflow using it is done running.  Failing that, as soon as the workflow is closed vs having to close Alteryx completely.

...or is this just my issue?

Hello All,

I received from an AWS adviser the following message:

_____________________________________________

Skip Compression Analysis During COPY
Checks for COPY operations delayed by automatic compression analysis.

Rebuilding uncompressed tables with column encoding would improve the performance of 2,781 recent COPY operations.
This analysis checks for COPY operations delayed by automatic compression analysis. COPY performs a compression analysis phase when loading to empty tables without column compression encodings. You can optimize your table definitions to permanently skip this phase without any negative impacts.

Observation

Between 2018-10-29 00:00:00 UTC and 2018-11-01 23:33:23 UTC, COPY automatically triggered compression analysis an average of 698 times per day. This impacted 44.7% of all COPY operations during that period, causing an average daily overhead of 2.1 hours. In the worst case, this delayed one COPY by as much as 27.5 minutes.

Recommendation

Implement either of the following two options to improve COPY responsiveness by skipping the compression analysis phase:
Use the column ENCODE parameter when creating any tables that will be loaded using COPY.
Disable compression altogether by supplying the COMPUPDATE OFF parameter in the COPY command.
The optimal solution is to use column encoding during table creation since it also maintains the benefit of storing compressed data on disk. Execute the following SQL command as a superuser in order to identify the recent COPY operations that triggered automatic compression analysis:
WITH xids AS (
SELECT xid FROM stl_query WHERE userid>1 AND aborted=0
AND querytxt = 'analyze compression phase 1' GROUP BY xid)
SELECT query, starttime, complyze_sec, copy_sec, copy_sql
FROM (SELECT query, xid, DATE_TRUNC('s',starttime) starttime,
SUBSTRING(querytxt,1,60) copy_sql,
ROUND(DATEDIFF(ms,starttime,endtime)::numeric / 1000.0, 2) copy_sec
FROM stl_query q JOIN xids USING (xid)
WHERE querytxt NOT LIKE 'COPY ANALYZE %'
AND (querytxt ILIKE 'copy %from%' OR querytxt ILIKE '% copy %from%')) a
LEFT JOIN (SELECT xid,
ROUND(SUM(DATEDIFF(ms,starttime,endtime))::NUMERIC / 1000.0,2) complyze_sec
FROM stl_query q JOIN xids USING (xid)
WHERE (querytxt LIKE 'COPY ANALYZE %'
OR querytxt LIKE 'analyze compression phase %') GROUP BY xid ) b USING (xid)
WHERE complyze_sec IS NOT NULL ORDER BY copy_sql, starttime;

Estimate the expected lifetime size of the table being loaded for each of the COPY commands identified by the SQL command. If you are confident that the table will remain under 10,000 rows, disable compression altogether with the COMPUPDATE OFF parameter. Otherwise, create the table with explicit compression prior to loading with COPY.

_____________________________________________

When I run the suggested query to check the COPY commands executed I realized all belonged to the Redshift bulk output from Alteryx.

Is there any way to implement this “Skip Compression Analysis During COPY” in alteryx to maximize performance as suggested by AWS?

Thank you in advance,

Gabriel

Good afternoon,

I work with a large group of individuals, close to 30,000, and a lot of our files are ran as .dif/.kat files used to import to certain applications and softwares that pertain to our work. We were wondering if this has been brought up before and what the possibility might be.

Yeah, so when you have 15 workflows for some folks and you've actually decided to publish to a test database first, and now you have to publish to a production database it is a *total hassle*, especially if you are using custom field mappings.  Basically you have to go remap N times where N == your number of new outputs.  

Maybe there is a safety / sanity check reason for this, but man, it would be so nice to be able to copy an output, change the alias to a new destination, and just have things sing along.  BRB - gotta go change 15 workflow destination mappings. 

There should be an option to not update values with Null-values in the database, when using the tool Output Data, with the options:

• File Format = ODBC Database (odbc:)
• Output Options = Update;Insert if new

This apply to MS SQL Server Databases for my part, but might affect other destinations as well?

When outputting files, it is usually beneficial for characters that would cause trouble with formatting/syntax to be properly escaped. However, there are situations where suppressing this behavior is desirable.

Of particular importance for such a feature is in the outputting of JSON files. Currently, if a file is output as JSON it will always have quotations escaped if they occur within a field, regardless of whether this conforms to the JSON standard. There are a variety of current workaround for this, including pre-formatting all fields to look like JSON and then outputting as a \0 delimiter CSV, but in many cases there is no need to escape any characters when outputting a JSON.

A simple toggle--as was created for suppressing BOM in CSVs--to disable character escaping would make the creation of JSON objects simpler and reduce the amount of workarounds required to output proper JSON.

Please add a tool to edit different cells in table randomly and update the source after editing. Similar to the "Edit Top 200 rows in SQL". That would be very much helpful

On the output data component, when outputting to a database, there are Pre & Post Create SQL statement switches.  This allows for the execution of a SQL statement in the DB but only after a create table action.  To use this functionality you must have populated a table using the 'create new table' or 'overwrite' option, which is no good if you're using the Update or Append options.  Change these switches to Pre & Post SQL Statements as per the Input Data component.  This will allow you to execute SQL statements in the DB either before or after the population action.  Can be really handy if you need to execute database stored procedures for example.  

Please note:  You can already work around this by branching from your data stream and creating or overwriting a dummy table, then use the pre or post create switch for your SQL statement.  This is a bit messy and can leave dummy tables in the DB, which is a bit scruffy.

Add extra capabilities int he Output Tool so that the following can be accomplished without the need for using Post SQL processing:

- Create a new SQL View

- Assign a Unique Index key to a table

Having these capabilities directly available in the tools would greatly increase the usability and reduce the workload required to build routines and databases.

Hi,

I am sure that I can't be the only person that would be interested in an output tool that allows categorical fields on both axes.  THis would allow you to visualise the following example and I would suggest that this was either similar to the heatmap with boxes or the colour / size of the entry was determined by a third numerical value - such as 'Confidence' from the table below.  THere might be ways to extend the idea as well as having a fourth parameter that puts text in the box or another number but it would be useful and not too hard I am sure.

Many thanks in advance for considering this,

Peter

I run into this a bunch.  There are some Alteryx workarounds for some use cases but not all.

Hi,

Is there an easy way through Alteryx to rename a file once I have processed it... Would like file name to be- FileName.csv.Date.Time (FileName.txt.20180424.055230)

Thanks.

I would like to able to limit the data being read from the source based on the volume , such as 10GB or 5 GB etc. This will help in case of POC's where we can process portion of the dataset and not the entire dataset. This will have many different used cases as well.