Alteryx Designer Ideas

Similar to how the Join tool allows to "Select all Left" or "Select all Right" I'd like to see the Append Fields tool have an option to select all source or select all target. Same for deselect. 

The Formula Tool does a good job of autocompleting expressions (for example an open square bracket will show you variables in your dataset), as well as syntax highlighting (coloring variables, keywords, strings, etc).

I propose having this feature available in all tools that use the expression editor, particularly common ones such as the Multi-Row Formula Tool and the Multi-Field Formula Tool.

This parity across tools would provide a more consistent experience for the user and increase one's productivity using these tools. It's incredibly helpful for beginners and seasoned Alteryx users alike and should be available wherever possible.

A very useful and common function
https://www.w3schools.com/sql/func_sqlserver_coalesce.asp

Return the first non-null value in a list:

I use the skip 1st N rows in almost all my workflows and find that I have unwanted rows at the bottom of my data a lot and will end up having to sort the data before being able to skip the 1st N rows. It would be a lot easier to just skip the last N rows instead.

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 surprisingly couldn't find this anywhere else as I know it's been discussed in person on many occasions.

Basically the Formula tool needs to be smarter in many ways, but this particular post focuses on the Data Type component.

The formula tool, should not always default to V_String as the data type when entering data or a formula into the formula tool, it should look at the data type and estimate the most likely option.

I know there are times where the logical type might not be consistent in all fields, but the Data Preview and the Function of the formula should be used to determine the most likely option.

E.G. If I type a number or a date directly into the formula tool, then Alteryx should be smart enough to change the data type from the standard V_String to Int, Double or date.

This is an extension to the ideas posted here:

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Ideas/Tab-from-Select-Column-to-Enter-Expression-H...

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Ideas/Formula-tool-data-type-should-be-prominent/i...

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Ideas/Alteryx-11-formula-tool-default-data-type/id...

i thought i was an old issue,  but i search few time and can not find any.

can we direct convert string to number without remove ","?

1,000.00 from string  convert directly to 1,000.00 number.

it is annoying to add a formula tool to remove the ","

can we have a formula tool to refer multiple field (especially dynamic as well) 

i KNOWN we can use transpose and crosstab tool. but it silly to do one thing with two tool.

Problem

To sum all the fields in the file. so now is A-D. 

I can use formula tool to do it. easy. But, what if fields add / delete frequently?

Now, it sum A-E, what if G-F tomorrow, and B-Z after tomorrow, i do not want to update workflow every time.

suggestion :

I hope we have a tool that similar to multiple field tool, but it output to a new field only.

I KNOWN SUM() is not alteryx function but just an example. we can expand further other formula for string and date.

Dear Alteryx Team, 

please put an option marker /button in the formula tool to ask if the newly added column should be placed at the beginning as first column or at the end (as it is now- this could be a default setting). 

The problem is that with a lot of fields it is quite time consuming to drag and drop the newly added column from the end of the field array to the beginning. Depending on where you want to reallocate the column you might want to start from the front or from the back to drag and drop (right click holded) the column in order to reorder it. 

Mostly I would like to start from the front, I noticed. 

Thank you

I often need to create a record ID that automatically increments but grouped by a specific field. I currently do it using the Multi-Row Formula tool doing [Field-1:ID]+1 because there is no group by option in the Record ID tool.

Also, sometimes I need to start at 0 but the Multi-Row Formula tool doesn't allow this so I have to use a Formula tool right after to subtract 1.

So adding a group by option to the Record ID tool would allow the user not to use the multi-row formula to do this and to start at any value wanted.

This is a pretty quick suggestion:

I think that there are a lot of formulas that would be easier to write and maintain if a SQL-style BETWEEN operator was available.

Essentially, you could turn this:

ToNumber([Postal Code]) > 1000 AND ToNumber([Postal Code]) < 2500

Into this:

ToNumber([Postal Code]) BETWEEN 1000 AND 2500

That way, if you later had to modify the ToNumber([Postal Code]), you only have to maintain it once.  Its both aesthetically pleasing and more maintainable!

it would be great if the formula tool could expand the intellisense to the select column box. For example, I could start typing in the select column box and it would widdle down the list of fields down.let's suppose I wanted to update field 79A, I could type in 7 and it might show something like 

7

17

27

37

70

71

79A

79B.

So if I typed in 79 then, it would further reduce it to 

79A

79B

And i could select 79A.

Similar to the thoughts in this idea, it would be great if the parenthesis matching functionality could be added to the formula tool as well.

Cleanse Macro

Given a choice between the delivered macro and the CReW macro, I’ll choose the CReW macro for both speed and functionality.  Wikipedia says, “Data cleansing or data cleaning is the process of detecting and correcting (or removing) corrupt or inaccurate records from a record set, table, or database and refers to identifying incomplete, incorrect, inaccurate or irrelevant parts of the data and then replacing, modifying, or deleting the dirty or coarse data.”  If Alteryx were to convert the macro to a true tool, here is my feature request list:

Performance:

• AMP compatible – Fast!
• Faster than the CReW macro for deleting empty fields/rows
• Resolve time it takes to load the tool (current macro versions are slow), html is faster.

Feature Enhancement:

• Allow selection of fields based on data type
• Include incoming/outgoing SELECT functionality
• Allow for PREFIX functionality (like multi-field formula), but NOT default
• Read incoming metadata to provide color coding of fields to indicate where potential problems exist (e.g. NULL, Whitespace) – part of browse everywhere currently
• Allow for Nulls to convert to 0/blank or 0/blank to convert to Null
• When removing punctuation, provide for exceptions (e.g. Numeric set of negative, comma and period).
• Include HTML tag removal
• Support internationalization (character sets)

Going the extra mile:

• Display or opt for output, cleanup metrics.  How dirty was my data?  Potentially, allow for ERROR to stop workflow if garbage is detected.
• Optional:  Detect outliers in numeric data.  I’ve got an outlier detection macro that we can review, but while you are passing all of the data for numeric values, explaining or tagging outliers would be useful.  Could be a box-whisker on numeric values maybe?
  • Make outlier actionable
    • Identify in data (new field indicator)
    • Remove
    • Modify/Impute
  • Test/Preview against metadata:  (pre-run), see what the incoming/outgoing results would be on *all of the metadata before I run the workflow.
  • camelCase:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel_case
  • Identify/Replace unknown values (e.g. N/A, Not Applicable, #) with Null() or other?
  • Identify/Remove duplicate values within a cell
  • See also:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_cleansing
  • Option to point to a “personal” dictionary for spelling or validation
  • Provide “smart” annotation on tool

Could we please have a Type field added to the "Select Fields to Cleanse" configuration window for the Data Cleansing Tool? This small feature would save a lot of time (saving the time needed to check the Metadata for every field every time I use the Data Cleansing Tool). Similar functionality to the way the Summarize Tool displays both Field and Type (just one additional field).

Today:

Future Version:

Pardon my sad photoshopping 🙂

Note: I realize the Data Cleansing is a macro and this functionality is not currently available with the "Check Box" interface tool.

Thank you!

I use the field name auto-complete feature whenever I can. One issue with it, however, is when there are parentheses in a field name. After auto-completing the field name, Alteryx highlights a portion of the field name after the first parenthesis. This is not ideal as I typically expect the cursor to be at the end of the field name so I may continue to type. In this scenario, unfortunately, I would begin to type over my field name and the expression gets messed up. 

For example, as shown below, I begin to type "st" and then hit the tab button to complete the field name in my expression.

In this case, because my field name has parentheses in it, however, some of the field name remains highlighted and the cursor does not go to the end of the right bracket, as one would expect.

If I were to continue typing at this point, the highlighted portion of the expression would get erased and replaced. 

Field names that do not contain parentheses continue to function correctly as shown below. 

It would be useful to be able to select a single container (containing a data input) or multiple containers using Shift, and run those and only those.

When building a new element to a larger workflow, I often enter a new Input in a new container, the ability to run just that container without having to turn off all my other containers would be really useful in speeding up the start of joining things together.

Hope that makes sense.

Thanks,

Doug 

When writing an expression in a Formula tool, I love that you can just type an open bracket and suggestions pop up that allow you to auto-fill the rest of the variable name. What I find frustrating, however, is that once you type the open bracket, the highlighted field automatically moves to the one where your mouse is pointing, regardless of if you have moved your mouse or not. I think it makes more sense to always highlight the first field in the list and only take mouse position into account once it has actually moved.

It is hard to describe in just a picture as opposed to a video but essentially I had my mouse below where I was typing in the screenshot below then when I typed the open bracket, the 3rd field listed automatically got selected even though I never moved my mouse.

Cc: @Hollingsworth 

When we edit formula tool, only first expression is expanded. I prefer all expressions are expanded as a default. When I want to shrink them, I want to 'expand all' icon like attached snap shot. This icon is toggled same as each expression's expand icon('expand all' <-> 'shrink all')