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Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

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We will not be enabling DCM for the time being (see https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Desktop-Ideas/Enable-auto-complete-predictive-typi...).  

 

But, when you do not enable DCM, you get an annoying pop up every time you open Designer that says "DCM toggle is not enabled". 

 

Please give us the ability to turn this pop up off.

Many users will probably follow best practice style guides with Alteryx to use comment boxes under tools to describe in detail what is happening with these tools - such as this one shared by @BenMoss.

 

However a limitation of this is the comment boxes do not move with the tools, so if you have a well documented workflow but then need to add a new tool, you need to adjust all the spacing and re-align the tools, which with a large workflow can be time consuming. 

 

Alteryx Community Idea.gif

 

Therefore the improvement would be to have an ability to lock comment boxes to individual tools (similar to a group function in Office).

 

I'm not sure if this will ever be possible, but I know that it would greatly benefit me and I'm sure thousands of other users. In my work place I am constantly working in a conference room and at my desk. At my desk I am wired into an Ethernet connection while in the conference room I am wireless. When I start my workflows after working with my team in the conference room, I can't go back to my desk until the workflow is finished running because I am changing internet connections and I lose connection to the databases. With the pause button it would become possible to run a workflow and then change my internet without losing connection to the databases.

 

Another use for this would be while testing a workflow with a new tool. There are times I run a workflow that can take a few hours, but then I realize there is a mistake somewhere in my workflow, where the data hasn't reached yet. I think it would be very helpful to be able to pause the workflow and add the new tool in, while seeing results from tools it has already passed through.

 

But yet again this is just an idea that relates to me, I wonder what the rest of the community thinks.

It would be useful to be able to select a single container (containing a data input) or multiple containers using Shift, and run those and only those.

 

When building a new element to a larger workflow, I often enter a new Input in a new container, the ability to run just that container without having to turn off all my other containers would be really useful in speeding up the start of joining things together.

 

Hope that makes sense.

 

Thanks,

 

Doug 

I personally think it would work better to tab from 'Select Column' to 'Enter Expression Here' and not the 'Functions' List as probably people who are tabbing would immediately like to start typing the formula rather than going through functions, fields, etc.

 

joe_lipski_1-1589790965393.png

 

 

I'd like to see Alteryx allow a second install of your license on a second, personal machine.  Tableau allows this and IMO is why there is such a robust online / blog community around that product.

 

For those of us that work at mid-size to large organizations, there are often strict rules governing internal data and use of cloud-based data sources.  If I discover some new trick I'd like the share with my fellow Alteryx analysts outside of my company, I have no clear way to do that the same way I can with Tableau where I can do it at home not using my company's data.

 

Being able to learn new features and test things out on commonly available public data (ever notice that Superstore data set everyone who gets Tableau has?) would accelerate what we're able to do with the community site here and the larger analytics blogging community.

 

 

When I use the Comment Tool its difficult to select the tools inside it, but when I use the Container Tool the Container Text doesn't support Font Sizes, and doesn't support multiple lines of text so I end up moving the Comment into the Container, but still have problems selecting a group of tools.

 

So a combined Comment and Container Tools would be wonderful!

 

Bonus: If the Comment Tool could support Multiple Font Sizes.

 

Combined Tools.png

Working in the accounting department, this has come up too many times now to ignore! 

 

Would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see a new formula available in the DateTime formula suite that mimics the function of the EOMONTH() formula when working with dates in Excel. 


The beauty of the EOMONTH() formula in Excel is that I can just give it a date, and then tell it how many months in the future or past I would like it to add/subtract... Alternatively, in Alteryx, this can require 2 or 3 nested DateTime functions to arrive at the same answer. 


Example: To find the end of the month 2 months in the future from today's date, I would use the following formula...

Excel = EOMONTH(Today(),2)

Alteryx = DateTimeAdd(DateTimeAdd(DateTimeTrim(DateTimeToday(),"month"),3,"months"),-1,"days")

 

Seems much more complicated than it needs to be in Alteryx, and easy to get lost in the nested formulas & non-intuitive adding/subtracting of months/days! I can see a new formula (something like DateTimeEOMonth?) being structured as follows in Alteryx: DateTimeEOMonth([Field],increment)

 

Please consider! Our accounting department thanks you heartily in advance... 🙂

 

Cheers,

NJ

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.

 

 

At present, Alteryx allows for users to run 2 versions of Alteryx at once - one installed using the "Admin Installer" and one via the "non-admin installer"

 

However, in corporate environments, only the Admin Installer can be used (all installers are repackaged for corporate environment / endpoint management)

 

This leads to a situation were we cannot run two or more different versions of Alteryx on one machine (like you can with Visual Studio or other platforms).   This also prevents us from participating in the BETA program because the BETA version would overwrite the users's current version.    Finally - this also makes version upgrades more risky since we cannot run the new version in parallel for a period to evaluate and identify any issues.

 

Request: Please can you change the installer for Alteryx to default to parallel install per version - so that a user can run 2019.1; 2019.2; and 2019.2 BETA on one machine in a way that is fully isolated (i.e. no shared components - have to be able to uninstall one instance cleanly and leave the others in a fully functional state).

 

Many thanks

Sean

 

 

When you use Create Points tool - you then almost always need to use a Select tool to rename that point.

Can we please add a single text field to the Create Points tool - which would then allow us to create and name a point in one step?

 

Annotation 2020-07-04 103732.png

At the moment containers either expand and overlap other tools, or you have to leave space for them (defeating the original purpose of using them). Is there a way we can have the containers expansion shift the workflow so the others tools shift down / right to account for this expanision?

The drop down\list box have numerous ways to list values. One of them that I like is connecting to an external source. You simply have an external source file with a Name column and a Value column. It will display the data in the Name column and pass the data in the Value column. Now suppose instead of connecting to an external source I wanted to use connected tools. Currently, I would have to crosstab this data and the drop down\list box would display and pass the column names.

 

What if the drop down\list box could have an additional option added where you could connect tools and it would act identically as an external source (display the data in the Name column and pass the data in the Value column). This would be much easier and more functional!

We have 'CountDistinct' and 'Concatenate' options within Summarize tool. 

But 'Concatenate' displays all the instances of value for a Grouped field, this might include lot of duplicates.

It would be great to have an option like 'ConcatDistinct'.

 

For example - 

Concat.PNG

 

Group by 'Branch' and 'ConcatDistinct' Customer should result as Figure 1 instead of Figure 2 - 

Figure 1-

Concat1.PNG

 

Figure 2-

Concat2.PNG

 

While this is achievable in different ways currently with a set of tools, but it gets tedious when number of fields is large from which distinct values are to be captured. 

 

Thank you,

Rohan.

Due to different file formats whether it is .xlsb or any other formats, sometimes it requires end user to install additional drivers/engine.

 

Some of these driver installations require installations of outdated software e.g. Microsoft Access 2013 (Microsoft Access Database Engine 2013), which poses unnecessary security risk.

 

Therefore we recommend that in the future version should take note and incorporate such drivers into the installation package so that there is no need to install them separately.

When writing an expression in a Formula tool, I love that you can just type an open bracket and suggestions pop up that allow you to auto-fill the rest of the variable name. What I find frustrating, however, is that once you type the open bracket, the highlighted field automatically moves to the one where your mouse is pointing, regardless of if you have moved your mouse or not. I think it makes more sense to always highlight the first field in the list and only take mouse position into account once it has actually moved.

 

It is hard to describe in just a picture as opposed to a video but essentially I had my mouse below where I was typing in the screenshot below then when I typed the open bracket, the 3rd field listed automatically got selected even though I never moved my mouse.

Kenda_0-1589975960106.png

 

 

Cc: @Hollingsworth 

Could we please have a Type field added to the "Select Fields to Cleanse" configuration window for the Data Cleansing Tool? This small feature would save a lot of time (saving the time needed to check the Metadata for every field every time I use the Data Cleansing Tool). Similar functionality to the way the Summarize Tool displays both Field and Type (just one additional field).

 

Today:

Data_is_mymiddlename_1-1596494044492.png

 

Future Version:

Data_is_mymiddlename_4-1596494405502.png

 

Pardon my sad photoshopping 🙂

Note: I realize the Data Cleansing is a macro and this functionality is not currently available with the "Check Box" interface tool.

 

Thank you!

 

I noticed through the ODBC driver log that Alteryx doesn't care about the kind of base I precise. It tests every single kind of base to find the good one and THEN applies the queries to get the metadata info.

 

Here an example. I have chosen an Hive in db connection. If  I read the simba logs, i can find those lines :

Mar 01 11:37:21.318 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select USER(), APPLICATION_ID() from system.iota

Mar 01 11:37:22.863 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select USER as USER_NAME from SYSIBM.SYSDUMMY1

Mar 01 11:37:23.454 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select * from rdb$relations

Mar 01 11:37:23.546 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select first 1 dbinfo('version', 'full') from systables

Mar 01 11:37:23.707 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select #01/01/01# as AccessDate

Mar 01 11:37:23.868 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: exec sp_server_info 1

Mar 01 11:37:24.093 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select top (0) * from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.INDEXES

Mar 01 11:37:24.219 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: SELECT  SERVERPROPERTY('edition')

Mar 01 11:37:24.423 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select DATABASE() as `database`, VERSION() as `version`

Mar 01 11:37:24.635 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select * from sys.V_$VERSION at where RowNum<2

Mar 01 11:37:25.230 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select cast(version() as char(10)), (select 1 from pg_catalog.pg_class) as t

Mar 01 11:37:25.415 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select NAME from sqlite_master

Mar 01 11:37:25.756 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select xp_msver('CompanyName')

Mar 01 11:37:26.156 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select @@version

Mar 01 11:37:26.376 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: select * from dbc.dbcinfo

Mar 01 11:37:26.522 INFO  5264 HardyDataEngine::Prepare: Incoming SQL: SELECT @@VERSION;

 

 

 

 

I can understand that when Alteryx doesn't know the kind of base he tries everything.. (eg : in memory visual query builder) but here, I have selected the Hive database and I have to loose more than 5 seconds for nothing.

Alteryx has the ability to connect to data sources using fat clients and ODBC but not JDBC.  If the ability to use JDBC could be added to the product it could remove the need to install fat clients.

Sometimes formulas get pretty long. There are cases of deeply nested conditionals, concatenation of long strings, cases where multiple casts and parses are used, etc. where formulas get pretty large and unwieldy. The current system of wrapping lines and managing the size of the properties pane can be a hassle, especially if you are trying to use any sort of whitespace formatting to make the formulas more readable.

 

My solution is this is pretty simple, add a pop-out window for formulas. It could be a context menu option from right-clicking the formula box itself, a button on the bar at the top of each formula, or any number of other things.

 

A really good example of this is MS Access. You can right-click any text box that takes an expression and open it in the expression editor pop-up window. The current system is more like excel where you're stuck with whatever box size you're given.

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