Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

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!

Please provide the ability to toggle on a dark mode for the Designer. The new version of Alteryx has changed the UI from a blue to a white. Its straining on the eyes with the lack of any contrast in the toolbar. I know about the ability to change the canvas colors, but it would be nice to toggle the entire UI from a white to a grey.

If the workflow configuration had a run for 'x' number of iterations option it would make debugging macros a lot easier. My current method consists of copying results, changing inputs and repeat until I find my problem which feels very manual. 

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)?

Dear UX Usual Suspects,

I've created a video for you to observe the idea:

With 400+ fields available, I find it challenging when I am validating my formula output to look at the "Referenced" fields of data plus the new data fields.  It would be oh-so-nice to press a button and look only at the "valuable" data.

How about you?  Do you want a little of this idea @Hollingsworth @T_Willins  @Aguisande @NicoleJ 

Cheers,

Mark

Hello,

Please add UI-related Themes to choose from such as a Dark Theme, so that all aspects of the UI changes accordingly.

Without a Dark Theme, it is very difficult to work in Designer for a long time.

Add these themes under User Settings --> Themes tab

Thanks!

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

The Problem: Sometimes we are developing workflows where we use a data connection that the developer has access to but not necessarily the people running the workflow do.

For example,

• A workflow is pulling from one database to another, with some specific transformations. 
  • This workflow is used by many people, some have Designer for other purposes.
  • The workflow also writes to a log table, documenting different parts of the workflow for auditing purposes.
    • This log table is not something that the people running the workflow should have access to write to other than when running this workflow
    • This log table outputs using a data connection so that it is not embedding passwords (a company-wide best practice)
    • For someone to run this workflow with this set up, they would need access to this log table's data connection
  • If the log table data connection is shared to that group of users, now any of the users with Designer can go write whatever they would like to that table since that data connection has access to. 
  • This also makes the log table unsecure for auditing purposes.

The Solution: We are looking for a way to have a data connection in a workflow without giving all of the running users full access to use that connection in their workflows. Almost a proposal of two tiers of permissions:

• Access to use a data connection in a workflow you are running
• Access to use a data connection in a workflow you are building

Hi there,

When creating a database connection - Alteryx's default behaviour is to create an ODBC DSN-linked connection.

However DSN-linked connections do not work on a large server env - because this would require administrators to create these DSNs on every worker node and on every disaster recovery node, and update them all every time a canvas changes.

they are also not fully safe becuase part of the configuration of your canvas is held in the DSN - and so you cannot just rely on the code that's under version control.

So:

Could we add a feature to Alteryx Designer that allows a user to expand a DSN into a fully-declared conneciton string?

In other words - if the connection string is listed as 

- odbc:DSN=DSNSnowFlakeTest;UID=Username;PWD=__EncPwd1__|||NEWTESTDB.PUBLIC.MYTESTTABLE

Then offer the user the ability to expand this out by interrogating the ODBC Connection manager to instead have the fully described connection string like this:
odbc:DRIVER={SnowflakeDSIIDriver};UID=Username;pwd=__EncPwd1__;authenticator=Snowflake;WAREHOUSE=compute_wh;SERVER=xnb27844.us-east-1.snowflakecomputing.com;SCHEMA=PUBLIC;DATABASE=NewTestDB;Staging=local;Method=user

NOTE: This is exactly what users need to do manually today anyway to get to a DSN-less conneciton string - they have to craete a file DSN to figure out all the attributes (by opening it up in Notepad) and then paste these into the connection string manually.

Thanks all 

Sean

Working with larger and larger workflows becomes difficult to navigate. I have been using the Right Click on Blank Canvas>Zoom to container recently, but the order in which the containers show doesn't seem to be intuitive. (Not by tool ID, rather the order they are in the XML.)

This has been asked in the past but I couldn't find an idea post: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Can-I-set-the-order-in-which-container...

It would be useful to have the ability to change the list to be in alphabetical or tool ID order please.

Admittedly I haven't used the Compare Workflows functionality too often in the past. In using it today, however, right away I found that navigating the workflows being compared wasn't the easiest thing to do. I'm open to ideas on how this could best be accomplished, but it would be nice to be able to navigate around each workflow simultaneously (currently you must move around in one canvas then click to the other then move around in that one separately). Maybe this would best be accomplished by one of the following ways:

 - Allowing scrolling in both tab groups at the same time ( i.e. if I scroll in one tab group, that same movement occurs in the canvas of the other tab group)

 - Allowing movement in both workflows simultaneously from the Overview window

 - Connecting the results windows for the two workflows being compared so that you can easily click to navigate to the tool/part of each workflow with changes with just one click

Presumably, if you're comparing two workflows, they should roughly have the same general layout so hopefully this sort of dual-tab navigation would be plausible (and could be turned off in settings if it is unwanted). I believe this would make it much easier to find and navigate to the places on both canvas where changes have occurred. 

User settings currently only allow for setting a default fill color for containers. Would like to be able to set default text and border colors as well. Thanks!

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] 

hello!
Currently when using any spatial data or tool, by default, i have to select a reference base map each time:

This can be confusing for new users - as they may not realise within the browse tool (and other spatial tools) that you have to select this, especially with it being such a small setting at the top of the browse tool.

Now this can be solved by going into the User Settings, and changing this in the default settings:

However as mentioned, for new users this really isn't clear, and can be a roadblock in development. It would be fantastic if Alteryx defaulted the reference base map to Alteryx Light (or, any of them, other than [None]) to make these tools useable out of the box.

Thanks,
TheOC

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

@NicoleJ recently asked a question about what default save options that we might want to apply to when we save to SERVER.  I'll answer for both SERVER and to DESIGNER here as ideas.

SERVER:  When I save a workflow to the server, I'd like to have Alteryx automagically do the following:

1.  Respect my CANCEL RUNNING WORKFLOW on ERROR default setting.
2. Respect my SHOW MACRO MESSAGES default setting.
3. Respect my Enable Performace Profiling default setting (OFF should be recommended).
4. Respect my AMP Engine Compatibility Mode setting (if AMP is turned on).
5. Modify any non-relative path dependencies to UNC.
6. Respect my DISABLE All TOOLS that WRITE Output default setting.
7. USE GLOBAL Default for Temporary Files

If any settings or rules (e.g. dependencies) don't match default, please WARN me or give option to reset automagically.

For DESIGNER saves, please do the same as SERVER plus:

1.  Respect my DISABLE ALL BROWSE TOOLS setting.

If anyone wants to chime in with more settings, please do so.

Cheers,

Mark

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.

My testing has shown that when a datetime field is input from a Snowflake table, the Input tool will convert the data to reflect the datetime as local time to the machine the workflow is run on. 

For example, this is a data set from a direct query to Snowflake...

This is what is coming out of the Input tool with the machine set to Pacific time...

However when setting the machine to Central time, the results from the Input tool are...

This obviously can wreck havoc with inconsistencies of subsequent reporting off of this data. 

Since Snowflake carries the UTC offset as part of the data, it would be nice to have the ability to disable this "assumption" by Alteryx that the results should convert the datetime to the machine datetime. This way the data could pass through with the datetime values that are held in the database.

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