Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Hi

 

While the download tool, does a great job, there are instances where it fails to connect to a server. In these cases, there is no download header info that we can use to determine if the connection has failed or not. 

 

Currently the tool ouputs a failure message to the results window when such a failure occurs. 

 

Having the 'failed to connect to server' message coming into the workflow in real time would allow for iterative macro to re-try. 

 

Thanks

 

Gavin

 

Using R tool, I created Monetary unit sampling macro. Auditors often use MUS methodology to select samples from population for testing.

Check it out and let me know if you have any suggestions or comments.

It would be very powerful to be able to multi-thread batch macros. Since the data for each batch is known and unrelated between batches, it seems like the processing of each batch could be distibuted to multiple processors without issue. This could dramatically increase performance in certain situations.

Currently when I open and run an app in designer mode im unable to access any other modules while it runs.  It would be nice to be able to work on other modules while an app runs without opening a debug.

You could create an area under the Interface Designer - Properties when editing a macro that allows users to select the order the anchor abreviations will appear on the final macro. This is useful if we want an input or output to be at the top, for example. Currently, the only way is by deleting and adding them again on the corect order. Not user friendly. Thank you!

Sometimes a dependency with a macro breaks, or I am local 'versioning' a macro and want to replace it in another workflow, without losing all of the connections.

If we could replace a tool, or if it is missing upon opening a workflow select a tool to take the missing one's place but keep the same connections, that would be incredibly helpful.

Currently, you can right click on an input file and convert into a Macro input. however, in order for a fellow user to see what file was used as input, one has to click on it output anchor, copy the data and paste it on a new canvas. It would be nice to right click on the input macro tool and be able to bring up the original input or convert it into a regular input in one step. Thanks

My company uses a network drive to store our macros and macro packs (like CReW). This way, all our designers can add the directory to the Macros tab in their User Settings and have the macros available to them instantly. We use macros more than many of the standard tools, so we add them to our Favorites toolbar. However, if we are working in Alteryx offline (not connected to our network), Alteryx can't find the macros. That's expected and totally okay......but when we reconnect to the network, Alteryx doesn't add the macros back to our Favorites. I would appreciate if Alteryx could make the Favorites smart enough to "remember" the file path of the macros that should be there so it can search for them each time Alteryx loads and show them if we are connected to the network.

Have the option of creating and editing global constants within a workflow.

 

Rather than bringing in a text/numeric input and having this appended and connected to various parts of the workflow, a constant could be created and used in each instance for a cleaner, condensed workflow and robust usage of consistent data

 

NM

Would it be possible to change the field size so it’s larger than 1 for Anchor Abbreviations?

Some of my macro’s have multiple input/outputs and having more than 1 letter/number designations would be great! I know it’s probably a limitation because of the icon size, so maybe we could have the choice to use larger icons (especially when it’s a complex macro - it would accentuate it's importance).

 

PS. Wasn't it larger in older version of Alteryx?

 

Have you noticed that when you save a custom image to a macro it multiplies the file size? Below I will outline why I believe this happens and how it could potentially be fixed.

 

Hypothesis:

When a image is saved in the XML of a macro, it is saved in a single line of XML code that is generally quite long. I believe the problem this causes is that this very long image code extends the length of all other lines to this new max length. This increased line length seems to increase the file size and is multiplicative based on how many lines of XML that have been extended in the macro. For example, I added a 5KB image to a 7KB macro and saving the macro resulted in a 29KB file size. I have also experienced saving a 5KB image to a 300KB macro that yielded a 1.4MB macro. 

 

In the (very zoomed out) image below, you can see the single line that contains the image information for this simple macro.

 

 

 

Potential Solution:

Images are saved in the Image tool by splitting the image information into multiple lines. I suggest this same methodology be introduced to custom images loaded to macros. The image below shows the XML of the Image tool that has the same image as the macro stored.

 

 

 

I mentioned this in the Solutions Center at Inspire 2016, but I wanted to follow up here to make sure it wasn't lost in the mix. 

Dear Alteryx,

Alteryx 9 new Macro configuration module, is great
One thing that could be improved :

For Iterative macros, it's very frustrated to set a Maximum of Iterations manually :
when the number is too high it keeps going unnecessarily
when it's too low, we are missing iterations

Ideally this parameters should be calculated automatically by Alteryx
It would just implie to have the possibility to declare the numeric field that must be used for Iteration ... then Alteryx could calculate before launching the job, the Min/Max to set automatically the iteration band.

Is this idea stupid?

Thanks

Arno

In GIS, spatial data is regularly stored/transmitted as text. With this comes metadata, including the projection used.

 

Example Issue: When extracting data from ESRI's ArcGIS REST Directories, the projection can be extracted from the information, but must be manually defined in the Make Points Tool. If you are trying to compile data from several different sources, all using different projections, you cannot automate the process. 

 

Suggested Solution: Add WKT to macro interface configuration options so that an Action Interface Tool can update the Create Points Tool.

 

Attachments:

JSON extract.png - This is a screenshot of the spatial reference metadata in a JSON formatted query from an ArcGIS REST Directory. 

action tool.png - Current configuration options for Create Points Tool in the Action Interface Tool.

Dear Dev Team

 

The ? Help page of macros is by default an Alteryx one (https://help.alteryx.com/11.7/index.htm#cshid=MacroPlugin.htm) : not very informative for a user

 

Why not changing the default Help landing page and applying rather the macro Description written by the macro developper : it would be far more useful for users

 

Thanks for reading this idea

 

Arno

Currently using these macros from Adam Riley: http://www.chaosreignswithin.com/

 

The stuff he has over there is great and makes alteryx much more powerful.  Two tools in particular that I am using from there are Conditional Runners and the Parallel Block Until Done.  These are tools that for us are vital and it would be nice if Alteryx would pick them up and maintain them for stability.  

Hi alteryx can you please create a poll or an forms to fill or approval processes kind of tools . I know we have some analytics app tools but can we create something like google forms where we can easily create forms and get data outputs. Emails notifications for those forms and approvals .. etc ..

Dear Alteryx Team

A nice to have :
Possibility to create output directories automatically using a given fieldname in order to organize properly macros outputs

Thanks a lot

Arno

 

The macros included in the CReW macro pack are excellent. However, having to install them each time and hope that your users have the macros installed can be a pain. 

Suggest adding them as default tools in the next version of alteryx.

Hi,

I have a large dataset (~200k) of routers with the utilisation figures per month over 36 months. What I have been doing till now is using the TS Model Factory to config and TS Forecast Factory to generate the forecast for the next 6 months grouping by router. Great! Except the values returned per device are exactly the same for the next 6 months. Obviously by not using the ETS / ARIMA macros I lose the ability to configure in more detail.

What I would like is be able to set the parameters of the ETS/ARIMA model in advance then run the batch macro for the number of routers and return a 6 month forecast that takes into account all the parameters.

Happy to supply data if required!

Thanks in advance

Mark