Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Unless I'm missing the basics, I'm unable to scroll and pan during module runs.  I can zoom in and out, but not scroll or pan.
On large modules, I would love to be able to scroll to different areas to see progress/status of different key points in the process.
Guidance from the experts would be much appreciated!  Thanks!

When starting workflow from scratch I often build functionality in disjoint containers but would like away to indicate the order of running for containers (possibly by connecting with optional arrows to indicate order of precedence).

When I currently hit F1 when function is highlighted within properties window it brings me to tool help - it would be helpful if it brought you to help on the function.  Or if I hover over a key word function it brings up info on it.

We need the ability to pre-populate App questions with a default value. This not only gives the user an example of what type of data string the App is looking for, but also may avoid the user from having to do anything if the default folder or file is already correct.

This would also allow for quick App testing since we can just accept the defaults and not have to load up a yxwv file every single time.

ArcPy/Python, ESRI Modelbuilder, PyQGIS can all do this (heck, even MapBasic can do it!) - there's no doubt it's more convenient for the designer and end user.

Constantly using rand() function but also need;

 

• Normal distribution function like we have in Excel and
• Triangular distribution function too...

Idea: can we please add normdist() and triang(min,mode,max) functions...

 

Best

 

Edit: for normal dist. attached a discretized example...

In my environment, creating tables with fields in a particular order is a requirement.

The Select tool (and others) let me manually change sort orders. The Select tool will also allow me to sort on Field Name in Ascending or Descending order.

I can add a sort order prefix to my input data with the Dynamic Rename tool, connect a Select tool and then go into the Select tool properties to sort by Field Name. But this requires that I first run the module so that the Select tool knows what the incoming fields are called, then set up the Select tool properties, and then rerun the module. If I change the prefixes or the list of incoming variables, the Select tool has to be reconfigured.

It would be really nice if there was a Field Sort tool that only had Ascending or Descending as properties that would 'dynamically' do what the Sort on Field Name option in the Select tool does.

Our team works with a lot of in-house transaction data sets that have been put into a calgary database.  It would be much easier to build apps that use the calgary input tool without having to configure html code.

For example, in the Properties tool (I say that generally because it could be in more than one place in that tool) all the user to enable to visibly see the path of the variable in the flow on the canvas.  As shown in the mock-up image below (as crude as it is, I think you get the idea).  This would allow you to trace the path forward and backwards in the flow, seeing where the variable entered and when it exited.  This could be something you can turn on and off like the grid option.

Improve Help Documentation or in-tool options for handling null values in statistical tools like Weighted Average or Linear Regression. For instance, checkbox to remove null value records, or at least warn users.

 

In the processing of learning to perform linear regression in RStudio and Alteryx, I came across differing outputs depending on how null values were addressed. Take the Weighted Average tool for example.

 

In R, the weighted.mean function treats null values in the variable of interest as if they were not there. If the user does not specify that null values exist, the result is NA. If any null values exist in the weight field, the result is NA.

 

Since I am more familiar with Alteryx, I originally did the data preparation—including calculating the weighted means—in Alteryx. When comparing these weighted means with those generated in R, I found that Alteryx treats the null values as zeros (i.e. includes them in the calculation). The user would have to know this is incorrect and first filter out the null values. See screenshot examples.

 

 

 

This is also the case within the Linear Regression tool. If null values are not omitted prior to regression, the results are wildly different. Perhaps this is known by more experienced users/statisticians, but this incorrect usage would have gone on unbeknownst to be had I not cross-checked with RStudio.

 

Weighted Average in AlteryxWeighted Mean in R

Option to select start and end time per day

 

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

A client has requested that we provide the ability to have the two digit year begin a date string.  Currently, we have the following:

yyyy-MM-dd
yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss
yyyy*MM*dd
yyyyMMdd

In addition, they have requested that we have the ability to convert from a date field to another date field.  Currently, we can only convert to/from a string to date and vice versa, but not date to date (which would be helpful in a date format).

It seems Alteryx does not have option to add metadata while adding the S3 object using S3 data connector. It has to be done using REST API calls via download tool or via javascript tool. As S3 is widely used now to store large files it would be handy to be add the functionality to add or extract metadata via S3 connectors.

It will also be useful if S3 connectors accept a field name in the object name instead of hardcoding the name or path.

You should at least have the option to output datetime in a datetime datatype from the DateTimeNow component.  Currently it outputs a string so you have to use another component to parse the datetime to datetime datatype.

Would it be possible to have Calgary index files saved to a sub folder so they don't reside in the same folder where the cydb is located? All these indices just clutter up the folder. Thanks,

Simon

Can you add .tsv files as a file format in input/output tools in Alteryx? Can it also be recognized as an 'All Data Files' format?
Thanks!

I have records of with several address fields per store: address 1, address 2, address 3.(e.g. po box 123, 456 main st, suite 600).
I geocode each address field in different iterations, but I want my final input to contain the best geocoding level. e.g. Actual before Zip9. 
Can we rank the geocoding levels like this below? Then it will be easier to filter out the best geocoding level.

I can see that the Venn diagram is very nice for a new user to understand the Join tool (which is a super-great tool by the way).  But I would like to be able to close up the Venn diagram to give more room to see the variables listed below.

Thanks!
Susan