Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

I was discussing these suggestions with our Account Manager last year and was advised that they would be taken into consideration for the planned 2018 Reporting upgrades.  When I inquired about the status, I was advised to post here.

1. Add “Freeze Panes” option
2. RENDER multiple formatted Tables into 1 Excel file, each on its own NAMED tab (If you use the OUTPUT tool, you cannot format the data.  If you RENDER you cannot name the tabs or export multiple tabs to one file)
3. Changing the column width from “inches” to “number of characters”

 

I know you can add a field for "today" and then use that field to append the filename, so the output ends up as Ouput_Date.xlsx, but it would be great to be able to do that without adding a new field for the current date. If it were simply an option in the filt output settings dialog, that would be great.

The issue : we have to regurlary change our passwords. It implies changing it for all the connections alias (at least for standard connections). 

What I'm looking for :

A commande line to execute like :
alteryxpw.exe -connection {alias name} -connection_type {user/system} -connection_mode {standard/indb} -pw {new password}

This command line could be executed by a powerhsell script.

I have a 3 year license but am required to activate the license key each year. Is it possible to get the activation period matched to the duration of the purchased license? This would not only remove the need to update each year, but would also clarify the actual duration of the licence too.

It would be great if Alteryx developed an option to keep data transformations and additions already ran through the module. After adding new tools to the module, then the module would keep all of the data already transformed or added up to that point and would only spend time running the data through any new tools added after that point.

It would save the analyst a lot of time when developing big and complex modules.

Hi there!~

 

I work as an accountant for one of the nation's largest firms. In my day-to-day work, I utilize alteryx to cleanse and format data provided by our clients in preparation for use in another program that is very specific with its imports.

 

I was recently reviewing an Alteryx workflow prepared by a colleague. Upon attempting to run it again (with new input data) I noted some data fall out and am now reviewing the workflow tool by tool (first to develop understanding of the developer's mind, and second to make changes where needed).

 

During this review, I thought it would be very cool to have a Review/Markup view, where each tool could have a checkbox that could be checked/unchecked if that specific tool was reviewed/unreviewed. There could also be a circle function that could bring attention to specific places that are of concern in a workflow. This might work similar to how when one drags an Interface tool on the canvas, appropriate connections above non-Interface tools appear, only it would be a view that could be turned on/off.

 

In addition, I have a tendency to annotate the heck out of my workflows I create -- however there isn't really a way for reviewers to do this without modifying the workflow annotations nor adding a Comment tool with comments. It's especially difficult to do the later since space might be tight. Having a comment function that only shows up in the Review/Markup view would be amazing and very appreciated as I don't want to visually alter the workflow to accommodate such comments if it can be helped.

 

It would be even more helpful if a review/markup report (maybe a temporary PDF or .yxdb) that would summarized what was summarized as "reviewed, with no comments", "reviewed, with comments', "unreviewed, with comments", "needs attention", etc.

 

Lastly, with regards to fallout data, I would like to tag/trace a record and, after running the workflow, have the last location of that record be circled in red (or some other visual cue) on the canvas. Currently, I just create a "Flag" column (or, if it works, track a specific RecordID in Alteryx and follow my best guess of where the data may have fallen off -- something that can be very time consuming when I'm not familiar with the workflow.

 

The organization I work for has experienced some of the best time savings from Alteryx and currently supplies licenses to our staff members. In particular our Audit function may need to review some client processes, which may be entirely in some part Alteryx. As our managers attain Alteryx familiarity, they may also want to review our workflows for completeness and data integrity purposes. Having these functions above would definitely be something to look into and would further drive the review function further away from other more archaic programs and increase our usage of Alteryx throughout, and I'd be happy to be part of a testing for this if possible!

 

Thanks!~

Jon

This suggestion is particularly relevant for macros and custom tools created with the Python SDK, but I think it can apply to other tools as well.

 

When searching for tools in Alteryx, I can easily find tools I want fairly quickly.  However, I often don't know which tool category it is in, which can sometimes slow me down (it is sometimes faster/easier for me to go to the tool category, rather than search for the tool I want).

As a quick example, I just installed the Word Cloud tool that @NeilR shared here: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Dev-Space/Python-Tool-Challenge-BUILD-a-Python-tool-and-win-a-prize... .  I was able to find the tool really easily using search once it was installed, but in order to find the tool category, I either had to unzip the .yxi file and find out where it was, or click around through the tool categories until I found it (it was in the Reporting tools, which makes a lot of sense).

 

Could we add something either to the search window or to the description/config of tools which calls out where a given tool is in the Tool Palette?

Hello, 

 

It was be nice if we could see the Regex Tool be a little more interactive. I am thinking a little more similar to the Formula tool where you can have expression display. I often use this site first https://regex101.com/  to practice a Regex formula before applying it. I love how this site highlights the data as you build the expression and also provide a comprehensive quick reference. Just an idea to make it easier for those non Regex experts. 

 

Thanks, 

 

Derek 

In recent months a new global app was added to allow the monitor of activity on an application. This is a great start but more details would make tracking a lot easier for our company.  We update the apps on a monthly basis due to the continual change of data, this will only allow us to track activity for the prior month only.  1 month's activity is not a beneficial gage for usage for us. 

What I would like to see is the ability to look at activity based off of a designated time frame of activity.  Since one of our apps can generate up to 5 different reports depending on what is selected, it would be a benefit to us to be able to track which report the user is running vs just running the overall app itself. 
 

If you have either of these situations: 1) a series of dependent database outputs (as in database-supplied auto-incrementing IDs needed for subsequent Inserts/Updates) or 2) writing a file that is used later in a workflow (as in a Run Command call or an R script), you need a way to guarantee tools that don't have outputs themselves (like the Output Tool) are complete. I believe this use case is fairly common.

If the Input tool had an (optional) input stream and the Output tool had an (optional) output stream, you could fully incorporate them into workflows, including use of Block Until Done. I know there are some alternative solutions to make this work, but they are not intuitive.

Besides regular pdf's, can you add geospatial PDF output support to Alteryx? Geospatial pdfs contain maps with layers that can be dynamically toggled on/off inside the pdf document. http://www.gdal.org/frmt_pdf.html

Recently we had a situation where installing the data packages was expected to take over 20 hours!  We do not have the ability to run a machine undisturbed for this length of time at the office, and VPN automatically times out after 12 hours.  Okay, so these items are company-specific, but how nice would it be to be able to download/install the data in smaller portions so you don't have to worry about setting up shop for 8-10 hours?!

 

I was able to copy the DataInstall.ini and name only the portions of the data I wanted to install in each session.  But then I had to separate the installs into different network folders otherwise you end up overwriting the DataInstall.exe file, which users need for each install in order to register from a network location (for each install).

 

Needless to say, it took SEVERAL weekends and quite a few mistakes before I was able to do it this way successfully!

 

Please vote for data installs in smaller portions!

It would be handy to have an increment function similar to SQL's Identity datatype that allows you to specify a seed and increment value.  It would seem like a really simple tool to add.  Ideally the seed value could come from an incoming connection to give the flexibility of retrieving the seed value from a database.

I've found a workaround explained on my blog here, but it would just be handy to have this built in.
 

I love the new 9.5 Filter tool interface.  Very simple to create filters!

A simple addition could be to add an "And" and "Or" button next to the wizard so we can build more complex filters with multiple conditions

In the old charting tool, you could change the order of the series by moving them up or down. This feature has been eliminated from the new charting tool. I want sales percent to be the top bar, but despite which 'series' I put it in, inventory percent is the top bar, as the order appears to be alphabetic. It would be nice to have that option added back in.

 

In the new charting tool, you can adjust the number of decimal places for your series, which is great. Adding '%' as a suffix to the series label would be nice. There is an option to add prefix/suffix to the axis label, but not to the series.

 

Horizontal axis (x-axis) displays at an angle. Having an alignment option (center; vertical; horizontal; etc.) is preferable.

Hello, 

I am not sure if this capability exists but I assume it does not.

We have a need to optimize a Linear Program (LP) model that consists of a system of equations and has both:
An objective function and a series of constraints. One of the software capabilities that SAS offers that currently
Alteryx does not have is this optimization capability. 

I am wondering if the capability is currently not available, is this capability in the Product Roadmap?

Thanks,

Ricardo

Just like the dynamic input tool, a dynamic Output tool would allow us to write to a database, wait until done, and then use the primary keys generated from that output later in the workflow.

Without dynamic output, we are forced to modify our database table structure or "hack" the dynamic input tool as a work-around.

It would be very useful if dynamic output tool had the same options as a regular output tool (e.x. append, update, overwrite, etc.)

Currently, the map input for an application defaults either to a global view of the United States or to a fixed boundary. Usng a chained application, it would be an extremely useful option to be able to specifiy spatial objects (points, lines, polygons) in the first application and then allow the second application to zoom in appropriately to those spatial objects. This could be done by either specifying a custom zoom level and using those spatial objects as a center through a reference layer, or by allowing the zoom's boundary to contain all the spatial objects (similar to the map reporting tools).

Add an option to read directly from a zip file.