Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Allow users to disable any steps in workflow except input and Join conditions.

To edit existing workflow sometime we may required to remove few steps, it is better if we have option to disable and update mapping instead of delete.

Hi there,

As a beginner in Alteryx with experience in other analytics software, I noticed that there may be a very simple thing that I think could be adjusted which I feel could improve the experience of a beginner in Alteryx. Also happy to know if this is already possible.

When I was doing a introduction training, I noticed that a lot of the questions were regarding not being able to see the right output, regardless of the usage of the right tools & settings. Luckily, we were provided with a good trainer that immediately saw that there was a very simple reason for this: the 'output' button (sometimes called differently, for instance in a select it is called 'true' or 'false') was not selected. Instead people were looking at the input or something else. I can even imagine that some more advanced users have spend a few minutes wondering what was wrong until they realised they weren't looking at the output.

It seems to me to be a bit random when output or input gets selected, and as someone with experience in (preventing) addiction in the gaming industry, I know that the first experience is crucial for someone to get 'hooked' :-), and this small inconsistency seems to break the flow a bit. Could you make the default setting such that a tool shows the output rather than the input by default? A possible addition would be an option that switches a tool back to input every time a button gets deselected. From a programmers/data science perspective, that would also make a lot of sense.

Regards,

Charles

It would be great if we could change the name of a variable upstream it follows through in formulae etc.

I think the Cache and Run Workflow option is a good addition in Alteryx 2018.3 but I think it needs more work to be useful.

For example I build a simple workflow where each tool is fed in by one tool and is used by one tool. So you have a sequence of tools. A -> B --> C --> D -- > E

Say I build A -> B -> C and I put a Cache and Run Workflow option on C, it will run the workflow and cache the output out of C.

But if I build D and E onto it after that event and put the option Cache and Run Workflow on E, it will run the whole workflow ignoring the cache output from C.

Can it be changed where E's Cache and Run Workflow will respect C's Cache and Run Workflow?

Thanks,

Mathew

The silent install for the census data I not completing successfully.  It appears that it can't create folders.  When attempting to run the command: DataInstallcmd.exe /s /install all /log "C:\temp\logs\alteryx.txt"

I received an error in the log:  Install failed: Directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\Alteryx\DataProducts\ does not exist

I received this error regardless of how I attempted to run this command, as a user with admin permissions, as a user with admin permissions running the command as an administrator, from an elevated command prompt, etc. It was not until I manually created the directory via the following command that the silent install ran successfully. 

mkdir "C:\Program Files (x86)\Alteryx\DataProducts"

There are quite a number of XML configurations available in Alteryx Designer as well as in Alteryx server.  And there are possibly in different locations and each of them them is specifically for different configuration options.

Currently, there it isn't a official list of all these configuration files as well as all the configurable options.  It would be good to have a centralized area to configure and visualize all these.  This not only helps easier to know how to customize the tool but also help easier to maintain the backup/restore of the configuration files.

Moreover, there are possibly some settings go into the registry.  This would be also good to have this centralized as well.

Ideally, a user interface would be good for these configuration with general/advanced tabs to classify the possible configuration.  For server, ideally, it could be comes up the controller to distribute all these settings.  For Designer, once it is configured to the Gallery, it should be able to grab the configuration and apply in the machine.

Hope all these make sense and do-able.

Thanks.

Regards,

Kong

As of today, Alteryx is not compatible with PAC, althouth it is pretty common in companies.

Asking for a few machine to be out of the GPO may be a real struggle with IT security and has only a few chances to succeed. I have a case when we cannot do an upgrade because of that regression (since old licensing seems to be ok).

Please change

Hi Team,

If you can please work on the idea of auto arranging the tools on Alteryx Designer. This would save a lot of tedious efforts, when we create a very big flow then it becomes very tough for us to arrange the tools properly and it becomes confusing sometimes.

Thanks

Hi,

I understand that we can find tools that uses formula by ctrl+F. 

I wish we can find text and replace the formula like excel does.

Sincerely,

knozawa

Option to select start and end time per day

e.g. between 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM every 2 hours

Would be nice to group workflows and their schedules because it gets confusing if you have a lot of schedules/workflows in the schedule view.

Especially if you have more than one schedule for a workflow.

One way could be to create folder system or to manage it through the meta info like macros.

One of the most common causes for Admin trauma for our central Alteryx Gallery team - is dealing with drivers that may not be on the server; or a particular worker; or on a designer.

What we're looking for, is for the Alteryx team to maintain a packaged set of drivers as a single installer - which we can download at the same location as the Alteryx designer / server versions.

This would allow us to have 1 version of all drivers across ALL designer clients; as well as on our workers and servers.

CC: @rijuthav @jithinmony @HengHe @RajK @ydmuley @revathi @Deeksha @MPistone @Ari_Fuller @Arianna_Fuller @JoshKushner @samnelson @avinashbonu @Sunder_Sriram @Rahul_Thakur @Rahul_Singh

 Hi Alteryx Devs - 

Doing a simple, but cumbersome workflow with a lot of database inputs.  It was going slow, and every time I tried to paste something into it from another workflow, I'd get lock ups. Get the 'Workflow must be run for field meta info to be accurate' error. Google tells me that I need to check the 'Disable Auto Configuration' option.  OK.  It is in user settings, but this means for my other workflows that don't have problems like this (i.e., 99% of my workflows), I'll have that functionality applied when it really is only a problem for the minority. 

Should be a relatively simple fix to give this option at workflow properties time instead of user settings time. 

Thanks.

brian

Hello --

I have a process where I send an email to users before updating a spreadsheet that is now produced by an Alteryx workflow. Currently, I do this outside of Alteryx because if I choose to use Events -- it will send an email and immediately continue on with the rest of the workflow.

What would be ideal is to have an option to Wait for 10 minutes (or 600 seconds) before continuing on with the rest of the workflow -- assuming the email is sent before the workflow runs.

Thanks,

Seth

It appears that the Workflow Dependencies window does not report dependencies from all tools. In the example image, you can see that the file input from the Amazon S3 Download tool is not listed. Some tools may have dependencies that do not easily fit the current field structure of the window, but maybe the input/download tools could be listed with an asterisk or partial reference.

Missing Amazon S3 Dependency

I regularly create events to capture messages from workflows or kick off batch scripts for other processes and they are repetitive. Is there a way to template some of these?

This could even be as simple as a saving the .yxft type file, where it is only saving the setting.

Email Event TriggerRun Command Event Trigger

I would like to see documentation around the Wildcard options for the Event Email triggers. Some of the options I would like to see include:

1. FileName (not the directory location, for the Subject Line)

2.Specific Message Type Log (Errors Only, Warning Only, etc)

3. Total Runtime

4. Workflow Version # (From Gallery)

5. Alteryx Created Version

6. Files Created (Full Directory location so it is clickable)

Currently there are the following fields available:

"Alteryx": %AppName%

Full Directory Location: %Module%

User: %User%
Computer Name: %ComputerName%
Working Directory : %WorkingDir%
Error Count: %NumErrors%
Conversion Errors Count : %NumConvErrors%
Warning Count : %Warnings%

Full Log: %OutputLog%

As each version of Alteryx is rolled out, it would be much easier for our users and admin team to validate the new version, if Alteryx allowed parallel installs of many different versions of the software.

So - our team is currently on 11.3 - if we could roll out 11.5 in parallel then we could very easily allow users to revert to 11.3 if there are issues, or else remove 11.3 after 2-3 weeks if no issues.

The same goes for versions which are in BETA.

This would be a huge help!

cc: @avinashbonu ; @Deeksha ; @revathi