Alteryx Designer Ideas

I know there have been a few threads about a Dark / Night Theme in the past but I think it is worth looking at this again as a much larger cohort of Alteryx Designer users are now in a work from home environment we aren't all in super well lit offices anymore.

Even with my Windows / Display settings adjusted Designer is just so bright.

This one feels like a quick / easy win.

Here's a reason to get excited about amp!   Create a runtime setting that gets Alteryx working even faster. 

when you configure a file input you see 100 records.  Imagine the delight that after you run your workflows all input tools are automatically cached.  You run so much faster. 

now think of the absolute delight that even before you run the workflows that a configured input tool causes a background read off the input data.  Whether it is a new workflow or an opened existing flow that reading can start ahead of the time button. 

what do you think 🤔?

In order to make it easier to find workflow logs and be able to analyze them we would suggest some changes:

• In the log name instead something like "alteryx_log_1634921961_1.log" the log name should be the queue_id for example: "6164518183170000540ac1c5.log"

This would facilitate when trying to find the job logs.

 To facilitate reading the log we would suggest the following changes: 

1. Add the timestamp 
2. Add error level 

For the example of current and suggested log: 

 Please consult the document in attachment.

In the suggested format the log would be [TIMESTAMP] [ERRORLEVEL] [ELAPSEDTIME] [MESSAGE] 

Hi,

It would be great if users have the option to display the number of records that go in and out of the different tools in your canvas. This allows users to very quickly see how many records are in their datasets, and especially quickly analyze the results of specific actions such as joins, filters etc. without the need to open each individual tool. Especially when performing joins this can be very useful to quickly see how many of your rows have been successfully joined. I think this will give users a feeling that they have more control over their data and a better understanding of what is happening in Alteryx. Also if you quickly want to review a complex workflow (especially when it is not your own) this could be a huge timesaver. Simply run the workflow and follow the numbers to see what is happening and identify tools that might cause issues.

Love to hear what you think!

I totally get that we want to use a local disk drive for TempDirectory.

Let us override Alteryx (currently Alteryx overrides the user override) and choose a network directory.  If the local temp drive is full, let the user choose.

Cheers,

Mark

Can we please have a tickbox (ideally one that remembers your preference to be ticked or unticked) on the Save to Gallery pop up that would allow us to save a (timestamped?) copy of that workflow on a local drive (perhaps one that is preset in the user settings)?

When you download a workflow from the Alteryx Gallery to edit, the first typical step a user will take to debug is to run their workflow. This is potentially dangerous, as your user may not know what input data they are loading into what may be production data tables (as an example, when you are building apps you will typically have placeholder data in your inputs).

It would be great if the default option when editing a workflow stored on the gallery was that the 'Disable Tools that Write Output' button is checked, meaning people do not accidentally post incorrect information.

Ben

We aren't getting a huge amount of help from support on this, so I'm posting this idea to raise awareness for the product teams responsible for the Salesforce connectors and the embedded Python environment.

This post from user Dubya describes the issue in detail:

I have a workflow with several salesforce tools in it, which works fine on my machine. But we need another alteryx user in our office to be able to access, run and maintain the workflow too, via their machine and copy of alteryx designer.

However we're finding that the salesforce inputs and outputs can only be authenticated on one machine at a time.

When the other new user opens the original workflow from the shared network location, the salesforce tools display an error "Salesforce Input (1): {'error': 'invalid_grant', 'error_description': 'authentication failure'}" and the tools fail to load any data. But we can see the full query in the tool and we can even set the custom query option and validate the query successfully, which suggests the source is being correctly connected to and queried, but we just cant run the tool.

The only way to run the tool successfully is to change the credentials and re-authenticate the tool. However this then de-authenticates the original machine, and when we open up the workflow on there and try to run ying the workflow brings back the same error.

We've both tried this authentication back and forth on our own machines and each time one of us re-authenticates, it de-authenticates the other, leading to it triggering the error.

Can someone help explain what's going on and how to fix it, as this doesn't bode well for our collaboration.

We're both running:
The latest build of version of designer 2021.2 (original machine also running desktop automation)
Salesforce Input Tool v4.1.0
Salesforce Output Tool v1.3.0

My response here identifies that this is a problem for our organization as well:

We're experiencing the same issue. It appears to be related to how the tool handles password and security token decryption. I've found that when you modify the related registry entry from "true" to "false", you can see in the tool's xml that the encrypted password and security token are still in there. I'm not sure what else is going on behind the scenes beyond that, but that ought to be addressable by the product teams handling the Salesforce connectors and the Python installation embedded in Designer.

The only differences in our environment compared to u/Dubya's are that we're running on 2020.4 and attempting to use Salesforce Input Tool v4.2.4.

This is a must have for anyone who needs the ability to share workflows among multiple users. This is part of a series of problems that these updated connectors have been plagued with since introducing them years ago, and no one at Alteryx seems to care enough to truly fix the problems. Salesforce is a core system for our organization, so having tools that utilize the latest version of Salesforce's APIs is very important to us. The additional features that the Input tool provides are welcome, but these bugs have to be sorted out in order for us to extract any kind of value out of them. If the "deprecated" Salesforce tools were ever to be removed from Designer while there are issues with the "new" connectors, we would have no choice other than to never upgrade Designer/Server again and be forced to look for another product to serve as our ETL platform.

Please, please, please address this.

When I modify settings, in any software, I like to have an "Apply" button that doesn't close the window but makes the changes effective.

Example : I want to change the color of my canvas.

I open the settings, change the color to one I like, then save (which closes the settings window). Finally, I don't like the color and want to use another one. I open again the settings window, change the color again, then save (which closes the window again) and so on...

It's bothering to have to open the window each time.

So I think, having this kind of button in the user settings window would make the settings modification more comfortable for the user.

Currently the Find Window is the only one not located in the View menu. It would be great to have it located either just under view or under both Edit and View. Most users are aware of the other windows once they discover the View menu, however I feel they are missing a lot of the new features with the new Find Replace functionality available in the Find Window. One looking at it under the Edit window it just looks like a simple Find, not like a whole new window that can be used as part of your Designer experience.

All other window options are located here.

Current Position for Find

I've recently been playing with the 'Encrypt Workflow' capability within the platform, and it's great, apart from the fact that it is not possible to edit an encrypted asset, meaning users will have to store an unecrypted version of the file.

It would be great if the 'Serial Numbers' could be extended to allow certain users to be able to not only run the workflow but also edit the workflow. 

Pretty simple one, but one that would be hugely valuable, preventing the need to maintain an unecrypted version of the workflow on your machine.

Ben

In the Result window, user can expand the Column Width but not the Row Height, and cannot Wrap the text.

It's a kind of necessary user friendly feature to view the entire text easily.

Sometimes, if text is too large in each field, then expanding the column width for all the fields and scrolling left/right is really annoying.

In many cases, I have several formulas in one formula tool. I'd like to be able to have all of these expanded whenever I select the formula tool that's in the workflow. Currently when I select a formula tool, I see "Screenshot Current". I'd like to have a setting available so that anytime I select this formula tool, I see something like "Screenshot Idea".

Every time I open the Visual Query Builder I have to drag the internal table window to the left to make it bigger, in order to see the table names.

I really want to lock and hold the last position of this entire window - also the total window when I expand it.

This is driving my crazy! Please lock the window.

It could be useful to keep track of changes to workflows by adding changelog notes to the Meta Info in workflow configuration

Hello,

Recently after adding 100+ Tags for usage by our end users as they apply to existing or new workflows, we quickly realized that no user was allowed to add more than 5 Tags per workflow.  When attempting to do so, the user will either receive the following error, or they will save their workflow, reopen only to find out that only 5 Tags were saved to it.

After reaching out to the Alteryx Support team our rep mentioned the feature update would need some traction in the 'Ideas' board on this site therefore; I'm posting this suggestion with the hopes that other out their in the Alteryx universe have the same issue and would like to see the update(s) needed ASAP to update or correct the Alteryx system settings to allow a user to apply an unlimited number of Tags to any workflow.  If a specific number is needed (meaning 'unlimited' can't be accomplished), please increase the number from 5 to 100.

If anyone would like to discuss future, please respond via this post and I'll be sure to get back with you.

Sincere thanks,

Johnny Shepphard

Alteryx Admin/Data Analyst

KAISER PERMAMENTE

Please have the option to place Calendar tool side by side in the Interface Designer. Currently they are only allowed to be placed vertically i.e. on top of each other. By placing the calendars side by side, the interface will look more organized and intuitive to the user. This is particularly useful when there is a need for a companion calendar tool. For example, allowing user to pull data between a date range. In this situation, arranging Date1 and Date2 side by side will be intuitive than placing them vertically.

Canvas settings can be used for providing more clarity and clutter-free look of complex workflows. For example, using Auto Route Perpendicular (where connection lines between tools are straight lines and break at 90 degrees and using different colours can really help in understanding workflow faster to someone who is looking at it for the first time. 

I know this is very subjective, but these additional customization settings can increase clarity in complex workflows. Especially when sharing workflow with others. 

Hello!
I am making this idea request in response to this question:
https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Is-it-possible-to-enable-Performance-P...

Currently, one of my favourite settings to enable in Alteryx is the performance profiling, as i get to see exactly how much time is being used at each step, and its a quick reminder to double check those tools that take a while for optimisation. However, i have to enable this on every new workflow that i open as the setting only applies to the current workflow, and it can be frustrating executing a large workflow only to realise after waiting for it to run, that this setting was not enabled.

What i'd like to propose, is an extra set of settings within the User Settings, default tab (which is currently):

To something like:

Which would simply enable these settings as a default, when a new workflow is made. 

Let me know what you think! I think a couple of the other settings in there could see use, especially as the AMP engine develops and those who want to see all macro messages, for example.

Cheers,
TheOC