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Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

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Hello,

 

My issue is very easy to solve. I want to use the generic ODBC In database for a specific base (monetdb here but it isn't important).

 

alteryx_monetdb1_.png

 

The connexion works just fine. However, I cannot create table because the data types are changed and does not even exist. Here is my data with some Date type :

 

alteryx_monetdb2_.png

 

 

And here the error in my data stream in give me this very interesting message  :

 

Error: Entrée du flux de données (2): Erreur lors de la création de la table "formation.temp1" : [MonetDB][ODBC Driver 11.31.11]Type (datetime) unknown in: "create  table "formation"."temp1" ("AccountNumber" varchar(255),"BillToAddressID"
syntax error, unexpected IDENT in: ""Freight""

CREATE  TABLE "formation"."temp1" ("AccountNumber" varchar(255),"BillToAddressID" float,"BusinessEntityID" float,"Comment
" float,"CreditCardApprovalCode" varchar(255),"CreditCardID" float,"CurrencyRateID" float,"CustomerID" float,"DueDate" datetime,"Freight" real,"OnlineOrderFlag" float,"OrderDate" datetime,"OrderDate_Month" varchar(255),"OrderDate_Year" float,"PurchaseOrderNumber" varchar(255),"RevisionNumber" float,"SalesOrderID" float,"SalesOrderNumber" varchar(255),"ShipDate" datetime,"ShipMethodID" float,"ShipToAddressID" float,"Status" float,"SubTotal" float,"TaxAmt" float,"TotalDue" float)

 

 

1/ My field is a date, why do you want to convert it in Datetime??

2/ Datetime is not even a usual field type in sql database (at least not supported by monetdb, vertica, postgresql, oracle, etc, etc...)... it should obviously be timestamp

 

Currently, this non-specific in database ODBC connexion cannot be used at all!

 

Unsupervised learning method to detect topics in a text document.

 

Helpful for users interested in text mining.

I usually don't mind the bell sound at the completion of workflow run.  But when wearing earphones the ding can be a bit jarring.

There is a "fix" as evidenced here: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Remove-Workflow-Completion-Sound/td-p/...

Another option is to use the Sound Mixer to mute system sounds

 

However, we could enjoy more granular control if we could mute the sound within Designer.  An option to choose our own Alteryx-specific sound would be gravy.

 

 

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

David

 

 

Hey everyone,

 

I'd like to suggest making use of Windows Taskbar progress feature to highlight running workflow status, it would be helpful for when you start a workflow and continue working on another application.

 

I made a workaround tool I append at the end of my workflows alongside with output tools to do the same thing, having the feature natively in the designer would be better.

 

the tool doesn't take care of other running workflows or different alteryx windows, it can't detect warnings and errors from other tools, although Alteryx Engine API might be better for this implementation, a quick python one is done for demo purposes.

 

Attached are the tool and a test workflow to demonstrate the feature, all the best.

 

 

I made a search on LDA - Linear Discriminant Analysis on Alteryx Help and it returned "0" Results.

 

Altryx LDA.jpg

 

Idea: LDA - Linear Discriminant Analysis tool

to be added on the predictive tool box.

 

 

 

Rationale: We have PCA and MDS as tools which help a lot on "unsupervised" dimentionality reduction in predictive modelling.

Bu if we need a method that takes target values into considerations we need a "supervised" tool instead...

 

Altryx LDA2.jpg

 

 

"LDA is also closely related to principal component analysis (PCA) and factor analysis in that they both look for linear combinations of variables which best explain the data.[4] LDA explicitly attempts to model the difference between the classes of data. PCA on the other hand does not take into account any difference in class, and factor analysis builds the feature combinations based on differences rather than similarities. Discriminant analysis is also different from factor analysis in that it is not an interdependence technique: a distinction between independent variables and dependent variables (also called criterion variables) must be made."

In order to fully take advantage of Alteryx spatial features it would be great to have the ability of using Openstreetmap extract files natively.

While there are some sources available in SHP format they tend to be heavily cut down in detail, while the native OSM and PBF have the full feature set.

 

As it's an open format licensing shouldn't be an issue and it may pave the way to new features.

 

What do you think?

A functionality that my team really needs is the ability to use update and delete statements through in database tools. We use Teradata on my team and I'm sure many other platforms also need this functionality. I am really shocked and disappointed that in the update to 2018.4 Alteryx decided that it would add this new functionality to it's Write In DB tool, but only added it for SQL server. Moreover, this functionality is a hole that has been missing in these tools for a long time. Patches in functionality like that need to be added to all platforms, not just one. So please add update functionality to the Write In DB tool for Teradata and other platforms. The original post where Alteryx decided to make only this small change is here: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Ideas/In-Database-Update-and-or-Delete/idi-p/13153...

I would like to share some feedback regarding the Principal Component tool.

I've selected the option "Scale each field to have unit variance" and 1 of the 4 PCA tools was displaying errors. However, the error message is not very intuitive and I couldn't use it to debug my workflow. The problem was that for my type of data, scaling could not be applied since it had a lot of 0 values.

Couldn't find anything related to this, so hope my feedback helps others.

 

Thanks!

PCA Error.png

With the release of 2018.3, cache has become an adhoc task. With complex workflow and multiple inputs we need a method to cache and save the cache selection by tool. Once the workflow runs after opening, the cache would be saved at the latest tool downstream.


This way we don't have to create adhoc cache steps and run the workflow 2X before realizing the time saving features of cache.

 

This would work similar to the cache feature in 11.0 but with enhanced functionality...the best of the old cache with the new cache intent.

 

Embed the cache option into tools.

 

Thanks!

Add application certificate to PINGID request from Alteryx as part of a mutual app authentication process for SAML 2.0. At the moment when enabling SAML 2.0 for Alteryx there is not application certificate being sent with the authorisation request. Request is to add this. The risk that request without certificate will be abused is very low but still we would like mitigate this small risk by adding an application certificate.

Hi there,

 

I noticed that here: https://help.alteryx.com/current/DataRobotAutomodelTool.htm it is mentioned that the number of workers can be set, and that the default is 2. However, this option seems to be removed, and the default seems to be max.

In a short workflow, this might not be necessary as the information related to each tool is spelled out in the progress windows.  However, in a complicated and lengthy workflow, tracing such msg can be a tedious task. In addition, using a tool with multiple outputs and only one output is selected while the residual outputs may be used to validate the result in the selected output; for example, joint tool where left or right output should be zero, a visual queue could be a quick way to alert operator on any potential problem.  Certainly, a browse tool can be added but in a big workflow, couple with a large data set, it might be a drain to the system resource. What if there is a tool that would activate a visual alert, like a light bulb, based on a preset condition to tell user that something is wrong and perhaps additional work needs to be done to either remedy or to account for the residual data. As in the case of a joint where 100% match is desired, any unmatched row would require an update to the reference list which maybe an additional adhoc process outside the current process. Certainly, an additional steps can be added to first explore the possibility of unmatched data and to update the reference list accordingly.  The workflow would in hold until 100% match is achieve. This would require additional system resource in order to hold; especially with large set of data and lengthy workflow.  If the unmatched situation rarely occurs, just a lightweight visual queue that 'pop' while allow the process either to break or to go through might be a sensible solution.  Just a thought.

Who needs a 1073741823 sized string anyways?  No one, or close enough to no one.  But, if you are creating some fancy new properties in the formula tool and just cranking along and then you see that your **bleep** data stream is 9G for nine rows of data you find yourself wondering what the hell is going on.  And then, you walk your way way down the workflow for a while finding slots where the default 1073741823 value got set, changing them to non-insane sized strings, and the your data flow is more like 64kb and your workflow runs in 3 seconds instead of 30 seconds.  

 

Please set the default value for formula tools to a non-insane value that won't be changed by default by 99.99999% of use cases.  Thank you.

 

 

In some of our larger workflows it's sometime tedious to run a workflow in order to see some data, when adding something in the beginning of the workflow. Running und stopping it as soon as the tools gets a green border is sometimes an option.

 

It would be convenient to have an option in the context menu to run a workflow only until a specific tool.

In effect, only this specific tool has an output visible for inspection and only the streams necessary for this tool have been run - everything else is ignored and I'm fine to not see data for the other tools.

 

This would speed up the development of small parts in a larger workflow much more convenient.

 

Regards

Christopher

 

PS: Yes, I can put everything else in a container and deactivate it. But a straight forward way without turning containers on and off would be preferable in my opinion. (I think KNIME as something similar.)

Bring back the Cache checkbox for Input tools. It's cool that we can cache individual tools in 2018.4. 

 

The catch is that for every cache point I have to run the entire workflow. With large workflows that can take a considerable amount of time and hinders development. Because I have to run the workflow over and over just to cache all my data.

 

Add the cache checkbox back for input tools to make the software more user friendly.

Team,

 

It would be very useful if we could import Excel graphs as images. I've created graphs, tables, and charts using Alteryx tools from raw data (sql queries, etc.), but Excel offers more options. Generating customized emails with Excel graph images in the body instead of Alteryx charts would make this tool all the more powerful.

 

Idea is to pull in raw data through SQL queries, export data simultaneously to Tableau and Excel, pull back in the Excel graphs that are generated from that data, and create customized emails with links to Tableau workbooks, Excel file attachments, snapshots (graph images), and customized commentary. The Visual Layout tool is very handy for combining different types of data and images for email distribution, and importing Excel graphs as images would make this even better.

Hi Everyone,

 

Many workflows I work with along with those of my colleagues, use big databases in order to get some data. After a few steps down stream and testing, we normally just add an output and then open up that data in a new workflow to save time running the original workflow. Not that this is much of a burden, but I am used to copying and pasting tools from workflow A to workflow B, but you can't do that with the output, because in workflow B the output needs to be converted to an input. I just think it would be a cool added feature if possible. Anyone else agree?

 

Thank you,

Justin

 

 

Hi there,

 

Would it be possible to use the ISO week date system, which everybody uses?

 

In numerous workflows, I used to define the week number of a date with the formula DateTimeFormat(d, "%W") and it was perfectly working till the 1st January, 2019.

But from this date, the week numbers defined by Alteryx are not the same than the ones in the calendar we all use!

 

Alteryx says that from the 1st to the 6th January, 2019, the week number is "00" instead of "01"!!! And so on until the week 52 which, for Alteryx, goes from the 30th to 31st or December, 2019: the week 52 has only 2 days!!

 

As the year 2018 begins with a Monday, there is no problem but for 2019 it is completely weird! And it will repeat in 2020...

 

The rule from the ISO week date system is pretty simple: "The ISO 8601 definition for week 01 is the week with the Gregorian year's first Thursday in it."

 

Please correct that

Simon

This one may be a slightly niche request, but it has popped up a couple of times in my work so I thought I would submit.  When importing multiple sheets from an Excel workbook using either the Dynamic Input or wildcard in the Input Data tool, I sometimes get an error that the schemas don't match.  While this initially seems like the headers may be different, it can often occur because Alteryx is casting the columns as different data types (as I understand it, based on a sample of the incoming data).  While this is often helpful, in this case it becomes problematic.  

 

This has been asked several times on the discussion board including here and here. To workaround this issue, I have gone the batch macro route, but this could be solved more simply for the end user by adding an additional checkbox to the Input Data configuration when an Excel file is selected that imports all fields as strings (similar to the standard CSV input).  Then the schema could be specified using a Select tool by the user once all of data is brought in.

 

I'm not sure if this would be valuable for other input data types where a schema is more explicitly specified, but for any where Alteryx is guessing the schema, I feel like it could be helpful to give the user a bit more control.

 

 

Hello,

 

the randomforest package implementation in Alteryx works fine for smaller datasets but becomes very slow for large datasets with many features.

There is the opensource Ranger package https://arxiv.org/pdf/1508.04409.pdf that could help on this.

 

Along with XGBoost/LightGMB/Catboost it would be an extremely welcome addition to the predictive package!

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