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Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

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This is a question which is somehow in between Designer and Gallery ideas.

When saving a workflow to the Gallery, the user can select the Assets (elements which are also copied to the Gallery). The point in time during the save process is a bit questionable from my perspective.

 

Often, I develop workflows locally until they reach a state in which I want to move them to the Gallery so that they can be included in Schedules or be made available to other users. I would like to be able to select which macros or datafiles are copied to the Gallery as well much earlier in the development process. From my perspective, it would be great if the user could set the Assets settings in the "Workflow Dependencies" window as well. I propose 3 possible values for each element (macro or data file):

  • "Auto" → decide on asset when saving the workflow to the Gallery (current behaviour)
  • "Yes" → Copy this element as asset in the Gallery
  • "No" → Do not copy this element to the Gallery 
  • "N/A" → The question does not apply to this row (e.g., directory)

It could look like this:

workflow_dependencies-01.png

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When I open I'd workflow, I'd like the option click on "something" to see content previous created for the workflow.  The content I'd use most frequently is:  How was the INPUT data obtained?  ALL of the Alteryx workflows I will be creating with my current employer will require some level of pre-build of the data sources.  I would like to document the pre-build requirements (could be pages of text, so "comments" aren't optimal) and be able to ask for them as needed.

 

Optimally, this feature would accept .docx, .pdf and other standard formats.  Another option would be to support a URL that would link me to the content.  For my purposes, this would be even more advantageous as all of our knowledge content is on-line.

In short:
Add an option to cache the metadata for a particular tool so that it doesn't forget when using tool that have dynamic metadata such as batch macros or alteryx metadata engine can't resolve such as python tool.

 

 

Longer explanation:

The Problem:

One of the issues I often encounter when making dynamic workflows or ones that require calling external services is that Alteryx often forgets the metadata of what columns to expect. This causes the workflow to forget configuration of downstream tools when a workflow is first opened or when the metadata engine refreshes. There is currently the option to disable the metadata engine from automatically refreshing but this isn't a good option because you miss out on much of the value it brings.

 

Some of the common tools where I encounter this issue:

  • Json parse
  • Batch macros
  • Python tool
  • Regex parsing to rows

 

Solution:

Instead could we add an option to cache the metadata for a particular tool, this would save the metadata from the last time the workflow ran to within the workflows XML so that it persists when closed and reopened. Then when the metadata engine runs when it gets to this tool instead of resolving the metadata from the tool it instead uses the saved version in the XML. Obviously when it actually runs it would ignore this and any errors would still occur.

 

This could be an option in navigation pane of each tool. Mockup below:

Mockup.png

 

 

 

This would make developing dynamic workflows far easier and resolve issues of configuration being lost when the metadata changes and alteryx forgets the options.

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One of things I like to do is select a bunch of tools and to see the collective performance of particular part of a workflow. It would be super cool if these stats were aggregated. 

 

I could imagine then you could run alternative solutions side by side and then just select the tools involved to compare.

Maybe this pointless but my guess is that memory usage could be as important as processing time and is probably a simple addition to the performance profiling feature.

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Currently, Cache and Run Workflow cannot be used if there's a second branch of data which goes around the tool which you want to cache. This slows down intermediate runs especially in complex workflows with a lot of inter-dependencies.

 

For example:

workflow_original_no_cache_ausschnitt.png

If you want to cache at the formula "Do something", Alteryx will not allow this because a single temporary cache file at this tool will not be sufficient:

workflow_cache_not_possible_ausschnitt.png

My suggestion is that Alteryx allows multiple cache files for one single cache event. In this case:

workflow_proposed_behaviour_ausschnitt.png

Proposed process:

  1. Run the cache run from the initial source(s) of data (here the Text Input tool) via all tools needed to produce the output of the selected tool (here Formula "Do something"). In this case: Text Input, left Select, Formula.
  2. Produce a cache file for every tool which has a connection towards outside of the direct tool chain. In this case: Cache file 2 (as Alteryx does it today), Cache file 1 (new behaviour)

This way, I could use Cache and Run Workflow much more often which would save me a lot of time. 

 

 

When I run a Standard Workflow in the Designer, I can continue to work on other workflows, I can even run two workflows in parallel.

In contrast, when running an Analytical App in the Designer, the entire program is blocked and neither another workflow can be edited or run.

 

I propose to allow access to the Designer GUI also when running Analytical Apps.

 

0 Likes

Quite often, I would love to be able to use Browse tools already while the workflow is still running, if that specific Browse tool has completed (green box around). This would help to debug and save a lot of time.

haraldharders_0-1686727471952.png

In this case, the lower Browse tool would be enabled already now.

 

0 Likes

Currently,  using AMP Engine will cause any workflow that depends on Proxies to fail. This includes any API workflow or any workflow with Download tool, etc.

 

They will all fail with DNS Lookup failures.

 

Many newer features in Alteryx Designer are now dependent on using AMP Engine, making those features (such as Control Containers) totally useless when running inside a corporate network that uses proxies to the outside world.

 

Please re-examine the difference between how a regular non-AMP workflow processes such traffic vs how AMP does it, because AMP is broken!

Similar to being able change the parameters of a tool using the interface tools, it could be very useful if Alteryx Designer had an option where the configuration of a tool can be modified by another tool's output (which can only consist of one row & column and may include line breaks/tab characters, only first row is used if there are multiple rows) while the workflow is running, therefore reducing the need to chain multiple apps.

 

This feature could be made possible as the "Control Containers" feature is now implemented, and it could work like below:

 

Suppose you need to write to a database and may need to specify a Pre-SQL statement or Query that needs to be dynamically changed by the result of a previous tool in the workflow.

 

In this case, as the configuration of a tool in the next container needs to be changed by the result of a previous formula, there would need to be an additional icon below the tools, indicating that the tool's result can be used for configuration change.

 

This icon which will appear below the tools will only be visible once at least one Control Container and an Action tool is added to the workflow, and will automatically be removed if all the control containers are removed from the workflow. User can change the configuration of the destination tool using an action tool, which must be connected to a tool in a container that will be run after the one it is contained in has finished running, as a tool (or several tools) that is contained in the next CC in the workflow needs to be dynamically modified before the container it is contained in is activated.

 

If a formula tool containing multiple formula fields is added to the action tool, the user will see all the formula outputs similar to connections (i.e. [#1], [#2]...) that can be used as a parameter.

 

The screenshot below demonstrates the idea, but please note that this is a change where adding an action tool may not mean that this workflow will need to become either a macro or an analytic app, so a new workflow type may or may not have to be defined, such as "Dynamic Configuration Workflow (YXDW)". Analytic Apps and Macros which utilize this feature could still be built without having to define a new workflow type.

 

NeoInfiniTech_1-1684933846530.png

 

0 Likes

Hi!

 

Under User Settings, if you could add options to change what Alteryx shows in the tool configuration window. Currently, it shows Field, Type, Size, Rename, Description. I've been using Alteryx for almost 20 years, I've never used the Description field for anything. If Alteryx provided the option to remove it from the view for users who never use it, then the Rename field would no longer get truncated, which is a field I think is more widely utilized.

1.JPG

 

0 Likes

There are certain constants available for use with the tools supporting formula, WorkflowFileName being one of them. This makes it possible to i.e. capture the date information in the workflow name using RegEx to dynamically filter a field by this information (especially useful in Analytic Apps).

 

Based on this example, I think it would be useful to make it possible for the users to use the container's name as a constant (such as CurrentContainerName), especially when it is necessary to add a hardcoded value to several tools and update the values i.e. periodically or client-based. This would also make it easier to track the hardcoded values used in the tools.

Hello all,

So, right now, we have two very separated products : Alteryx Designer and Alteryx Designer Cloud. But what if you want to go from Alteryx Designer on your desktop to the cloud ?

well, you will have to rewrite every single workflow because you can't publish or import your current workflow on Alteryx Designer Cloud. You cannot  export Designer Cloud workflow to Alteryx Designer on Desktop either.

This is a huge limitation on cloud implementation and sells and the ONLY product I know that's not compatible between on-premise and cloud.

Please Alteryx, this is a no-brainer situation if you want to convince your customers !

Best regards,

Simon

Hello all,

As of today, we can easily copy or duplicate a table with in-database tool.This is really useful when you want to have data in development environment coming from production environment.

But can we for real ?

 

Short answer : no, we can't do it in these cases :
-partitions

-statistics
-index

-any constraints such as primary-foreign keys

But even if these ideas would be implemented, this means manually setting these parameters.

So my proposition is simply a "clone table"' tool that would clone the table from the show create table statement and just allow to specify the destination path (base.table)

simonaubert_bd_0-1680504054872.png

 


Best regards,

Simon

 

Hello all,

Like many softwares in the market,  Alteryx uses third-party components developed by other teams/providers/entities. This is a good thing since it means standard features for a very low price. However, these components are very regurarly upgraded (usually several times a year) while Alteryx doesn't upgrade it... this leads to lack of features, performance issues, bugs let uncorrected or worse, safety failures.

Among these third-party components :

- CURL (behind Download tool for API) : on Alteryx 7.15 (2006) while the current release is 8.0 (2023)
- Active Query Builder (behind Visual Query Builder) : several years behind

- R : on Alteryx 4.1.3 (march 2022)  while the next is 4.3 (april 2023)
- Python : on Alteryx 3.8.5 (2020) whil the current is 3.10 (april 2023)
-etc, etc....
-

of course, you can't upgrade each time but once a year seems a minimum...

Best regards,

Simon

Can we have an option to disable all tool containers at once? Similar to disable all browse tools or tools that write output.

 

Hello all,

 

I'm currently learning Pythin language and there is this cool feature : you can multiply a string

image.png

 

 

 

Pretty cool, no? I would like the same syntax to work for Tableau.

 

Best regards,

 

Simon

Hello,

Just like Monetdb or Vertica, Clickhouse is a column-store database, claiming to be the fastest in the world. It's available on Cloud (like Snowflake), linux and macos (and here for free, it's open-source). it's also very well ranked in analytics database https://db-engines.com/en/system/ClickHouse and it would be a good differenciator with competitors.

https://clickhouse.com/

 

image.png

it has became more popular than Greenplum that is supported : (black snowflake, red greenplum, orange clickhouse)

simonaubert_bd_0-1677359498791.png

 


Best regards,

Simon

Hello all,

MonetDB is a very light, fast, open-source database available here :
https://www.monetdb.org/

 
image.png

 

Really enjoy it, works pretty well with Tableau and it's a good introduction to column-store concepts and analytics with SQL.

 

It has also gained a lot of popularity these last years :
https://db-engines.com/en/ranking_trend/system/MonetDB



Sadly, Alteryx does not support it yet.

Best regards

I can't even count how often I looked at an Excel, CSV or even YXDB file, where I KNEW that it was generated by Alteryx, but I couldn't remember the workflow. Currently, I have to simply go through all workflows I ever build and see if I can find it.

 

Theoretically, I could use a text-search across all workflows and see if I can find the output names - problem here: Most of my output filenames are generated dynamically on the run.

 

It would be amazing if Alteryx could simply write the Workflow name (maybe even path) into the metadata of a file.

2b32a469-58fc-4219-b567-795509ca50dd.png

(Screenshot from Google, as my os is set to German) 

 

How about, we write "This file was created with by "Create Controlling Reports.yxmd on 2023-02-06 with Alteryx Designer 2021.4.298434" in the field 'Comments'?

 

This would make it extremely easy to find what workflow the file generated. I think it would be an option to talk about "filepath" instead of filename, but the filepath could include the local machine name, which might include GDPR information.

 

@Community: Is there any additional information that you'd like to see in the metadata?

 

 

Best

Alex

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