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Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

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Statistics are tools used by a lot of DB to improve speed of queries (Hive, Vertica, etc...). It may be interesting to have an option on the write in db or data stream in to calculate the statistics. (something like a check box for )

 

Example on Hive : analyse {table} comute statistics; analyse {table} compute statistics for columns;

Hi there,

 

When you connect to a DB using a connection string or an alias - this shows up in the Workflow Dependancies in a way that is very useful to allow you to identify impacts if a DB is moved or migrated.

 

However - in 2023.1, if you use DCM then the database dependancies just show up as .\ which makes dependancy management much more difficult.

 

 
 

screenshot1.png

 

Please could you add the capability to view the DCM dependancies correctly in the dependancy window?

 

BTW - this workflow Dependancy Window would be a great place to build a simple process to move existing DB connections to a DCM connection!

 

CC: @wesley-siu @_PavelP 

Would be nice to have a way to cache-uncache all inputs or a selected group of tools.  Caching and Uncaching workflows with many input tools or slow data-read tools gets to be a bit cumbersome.  Would be a nice QoL improvement :)

 

I looked around for something like this but didn't see a solution, so thought I'd recommend.  Please let me know if something like this exists already natively in designer desktop.

Tools within a workflow needs to be able to run in parallel whereever applicable.

 

For example: Extracting 10 million rows from one source, 12 million rows from a different source to perform blending.

currently the order of execution is the order in which tools are dragged into the canvas. Hence Source1 first, Source2 second and then the JOIN.

 

Here Source1 & Source2 are completely independent, hence can be run in parallel. Thus saving the workflow execution time.

 

Execution time is quite crucial when you have tight data loading window.

 

Hopefully alteryx considers this in the next release!

I love Workflow Meta info, especially the ability to put the Author, the search tags,the version, the description, etc...

workflow meta info.png

But why can't we use it as Engine Constant? It doesn't seem very hard to implement and it would change life for development.

 

engine_constant.png

Similar to the thoughts in this idea, it would be great if the parenthesis matching functionality could be added to the formula tool as well.

Hi there,

 

My idea comes when I've built an application, where user select filter from drop-down list. However it contains thousands of records, so it takes lot's of time to find desired record.

In Excel and MS Access when you use filter you can put many letter and filter shows rows that match the input. In Alteryx user can only put first letter, which is huge drawback to my users.

 

This is how it works in Excel:

werwe.jpg

 

Hope you like it!

At the moment, in order for users in our organisation to run apps, they need to be added to permissions for the data connection for the server/DB the app uses (as we use Gallery connections for ease of collaboration within the Analytics team).

 

This is fine provided users running the apps do not have Alteryx Designer, however, we have users across the business who do use Designer - we don't always want these users having direct access to query the server/DB through designer just because they have the connection in order to run workflows on the Gallery. It's my understanding that at the moment this is necessarily the case, which is not ideal.

 

Would be great if we could grant permissions for users to use the connection to run apps in the Gallery without that enabling them to use that connection in Designer to query the DB however they want.

 

It would be nice to have a tool that automatically normalized data, or calculated percentages.  This could be overall or in groups. 

 

For example, maybe I have a dataset with 2 columns: US State and Number of amusement parks.  So I know the count of amusement parks by state.  But maybe I want a distribution so I can see which percentage are in what state.  What I want is (# of parks in a state) / (total across all states).  Currently you need at least 3 tools to do this calculation (summarize, then join or append fields, then formula).  This is a very common operation, and often I want counts and percentages next to each other in a table.

 

Such a tool could be called "normalize" or "rescale" or "scale".  It could be more general - maybe not just normalizing so values add to 1 (or 100%), but to other magnitudes, recentering the data, or doing a "standard normal" (z score) transormation as suggested here:
https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/How-to-do-Feature-Normalization-in-Alt...

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

Hi all,

 

I think it would be great if Alteryx could send calendar invites in Outlook (and perhaps other calendaring systems) like it sends emails.

 

Currently the only way to accomplish this is to send it as an attached ICS file on a regular email.  

 

In my use case, rather than auto-populating a Shared Mailbox/calendar, someone has to go into the inbox, the email has to be opened then the ICS has to be clicked on to interact with.  

 

There are ways in Outlook to send an item like this but have it appear automatically without the end user ever seeing the actual invite.  (Our Company adds holidays and other important dates in this manner)

 

So basically I want this functionality available in Alteryx to do the same.  I have posted about it before in the discussions threads, but basically right now we enter our time in HR system, then have to manually enter the same info on our personal calendar in Outlook and any team calendar whether it be a SharePoint calendar, a group calendar in Outlook etc.

 

If Alteryx had the ability to send these types of invites, employees could enter the info in our HR system then Alteryx can get the data feed and automatically populate the other calendar (whichever type it may be).

 

Hopefully this gets some likes.  

 

 

Alteryx should seriously consider incorporating certain Excel features into its Brows tool, as they greatly enhance usability and functionality.

 

Currently, when selecting specific records in the Brows tool, users are unable to obtain important metrics such as sum, average, or count without resorting to additional steps, such as adding a summary tool or filters.

 

However, envisioning the integration of a concise bar below the message result window that provides these essential statistics, which are immensely beneficial to users, would undoubtedly elevate the Brows tool to the next level.

 

By implementing this enhancement, Alteryx would make a significant impact and establish the Brows tool as a must-have resource.

 

 

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SaadNaser_1-1684918880407.png

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can you put a check box on the container title bar to make it easier to enable/disable containers in the process window? And can you make the minimize/maximize option for a conatiner a separate option from enable/disable?

I believe many have voiced out this as their pain point within the Community. Essentially, there is no straightforward method to import multiple Excel files which are password protected.

 

I understand that there is an R solution suggested by several users, however, that is not ideal as it can be difficult to obtain permission from internal Tech team to install the package on the users' computers. 

 

Re-saving them without password is not only a hassle, but also raises concerns for data protection and security.

Currently, when one uses the Google BigQuery Output tool, the only options are to create a table, or append data to an existing table.  It would be more useful if there was a process to replace all data in the table rather than appending. Having the option to overwrite an existing table in Google BigQuery would be optimal.

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 🤔?

If you cancel a workflow while its writing into a file, the file creation will not be rollbacked and hence a partial file would have been created.

This is problematic when working with incremental load relying on file from the past.

 
My proposal is to have an output mode which allow transactionnal writing. If workflow is cancelled nothing is being written. This could be done by writing first in a temporary file before renaming it. 

Hello!

Currently, the Visual Layout tool (as opposed to the Layout tool) is in a Beta version and has been since I have been using Alteryx. 

I think it's a fantastic tool for (as in the name) visually laying out your reporting tools. I find the original layout tool difficult to use without great attention to detail, and it can cost a lot of time when building report-based workflows.

It would be great to get the Visual Layout tool out of Beta, similar to a lot of the other Laboratory tools (https://help.alteryx.com/20221/designer/laboratory), and increase confidence in using the tool. It is currently hard to suggest using the tool to Alteryx users, as 'BETA' creates apprehension of bugs and unstable functionality.

 

Thanks,
TheOC

The expression editor in the RegEx tool is only a single line, which makes it really hard to edit long regular expressions. See attached photo comparing the expression editor in the RegEx tool compared to the formula tool for the same expression. Please make the RegEx editor box either wrap to multiple lines, have a pop-out expression editor, or something so we can see long expressions.

 

regex idea.PNG

I like the new cache option in 2018.3, but I would like it to function a little bit different. Let's say you cache at a certain point and then continue to build after that. If I reach another checkpoint and want to cache, it currently re-runs the entire workflow (ie it ignores my cache upstream and just goes back to the beginning of the workflow); instead, I would rather have it utilize the upstream cache. Personally, caching is usually an iterative effort during development where I keep caching along the way. The current functionality of the cache is not conducive to this. Thanks!

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