Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

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.

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.

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!

Add a button to the zoom tools toolbar that zooms the workspace to all selected tools.

Add a button to the zoom tools toolbar that zooms the workspace to all tools.

I have no idea how many people are using the .Net API to build custom tools, but found an issue with its assembly scanning.

 

It doesnt pick up classes implementing IPlugin in an abstract base class. Can be worked around by moving the interface onto the concrete implementation but think it should pick up any concrete class implementing the IPlugIn regardless of whether on the class itself or a base class.

My client today asked if Alteryx could be configured to build/run horizontally from right to left.  Thought I'd post the idea. 

When a tool's input connector is already attached to a data stream that only accepts a single connection, attempting to attach a 2nd data stream with the same fields should automatically insert a Union tool.  This would be similar to the way an Action tool is automatically added when you connect an Interface tool to another tool.

 

I think there should be a tool that allows you to produce grand totals for any numeric field you want. In the tool, you should be able to check off the fields you wish to be totaled at the bottom. I prefer this over having to use the summary tool and then using the union tool to produce totals at the bottom of my output. 

Can you add some additional options to the running sum tool?  I know this can be done in the Multi-Row formula, but it just takes too long to program and Alteryx is designed for speed and I know it can be done.  Can you add options to average, standard deviation, etc. also with running sum?  And then add a rolling time window on it.  That would be great!

Thanks.

Add some sort of highlight to an input data icon that currently has a record limit set.  Maybe an orange exclamation point on top the icon visually queing the analyst that the setting might need to be adjusted after process is complete.

I will try to make this short but the back story is a bit long.

I was recently tasked with scraping a website requiring repeated call to the URL with about 10,000 different queries. Pushing all 10,000 at the Download tool caused intermittent DownloadData to be returned with HTML from what appeared to be a default fallback help page.  Not what I needed.  I suspected the site may have seen all the calls in rapid succession as a DDoS attack or something, so I put a Throttle tool in line to lessen the burden on their server.  It reduced the failed calls, but there was still more than I found acceptable, requiring pulling out the failed queries and repeating the same throttled processing.  Putting time between each record was what I needed.  And then I found this Wait/Pause Between Processing Records  Just what I needed.

 

Now the constructive criticism.  I hope I don't offend anybody.

The macro does the job using a simple ping statement inside a grouped batch macro, pinging until a selected time interval has passed.  It does this repeated pinging for every record.  That can add up to a lot of pings especially if the time interval is rather large and a lot of records are being processed.  Then DDoS popped into my head.  The same issue that led me to find this very solution.

So, I started thinking how could I accomplish this same wait between records and iterative macro seemed plausible, seeing that loops can be used in code to do this very thing.

 

I have attached the macro I came up with.  Feel free to check it out, critique the hell out of it, and/or used it if it will solve any problem you might have.  I only ask that you keep the macro intact and give credit where credit is deserved.

 

Thanks for your time,

 

Dan Kelly

 

In the question type "DropDown/ListBox", there's an option to use an external file. The file should be able to influence whether the record is selected or not. Maybe there's a reserved column name called "SELECTED" which could contain True/False values which the UI would key off.

It would be very useful to have a new Grid selection question type. This would allow you to see a grid of data that you can sort and pan through and make selections. Similar to a multi select but in grid form with multiple columns.

It would be nice to have the option to overlay multiple addresses to find  marketing opportunities within the heatmap. Currently I have to map the addresses elsewhere and click back and forth between tabs to see where they lay within the chosen variables.

Is it possible to add some color coding to the InDB tool.  I am building out models InDB and I end up with a sea of navy blue icons.  Maybe they could generally correspond to the other tools.   For example the summary would be orange.  Etc  Formula Lime Green.

It would be great to just have a little tool like a comment box that could be based on whatever you want... like if you always want to see the max date at a certain point, or the grand total. It would be similar to how you can put formulas in the titles in Tableau like "Current as of <MAX(Date)>" or something like that. The best way (I think) would be to have it like the Annotations, but make it so you can turn it on or off at any stage in the workflow (right now annotations are only show or hide all) and make it dynamic based on results from the workflow up to that point. Right now I'm accomplishing this just by using a summary and browse tool, and then I put the result in the title of the toolbox manually.

I'd love the ability to Input an already-formatted Print Layout area within an Excel document, or a .PDF document in an effort to standardize reports needed on a regular basis.

Our department doesn't create everything that rolls into these reports, but we'd love the ability to incorporate external documents and save our company hours.

Is it possible to format an input tool to only look at the Print Area? If not, that capability would be wonderful.

Thanks!

I'd like to see some added configuration in the Chart tool to allow more space for the chart legend so that the names of elements don't have to be truncated.  The only way to eliminate truncation right now is to decrease the font size and/or increase the width of the table which also in effect reduces the font size.  This is specifically an issue in "Stacked Column" or similar charts.

Instead of current logic standing behind Round function ([variable1]/[variable2], mult) more intuitive will be approach known for example from SQL where the second operator represents number of decimal places, i.e. [variable]=23,4567 with new logic - Round([variable], 2) = 23,46.