Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Hello,

As of now, you can't choose the DCM connections to synchronize. It's either all or none.

However, I have one designer and two servers (Sandbox/Production). Most connections must be common, but not all.

Best regards,

Simon

Hello,

What about a new tool to deal with file actions, such as deleting, renaming, moving, etc ? Today, we do that with cmd, not the easiest way to do. I have developed a tool on Amphi that gives a good idea of what we could have on Alteryx

Here the result :

That can help with temporary, useless files and probably other use cases.

Best regards,

Simon

Hello,

A very simple idea : 
as of today, there are dedicated connectors to Sharepoint, OneDrive and Azure Data Lake.
For all these connectors, the files we can read are limited, very limited : xlsx, csv, yxdb

The location of the storage is not relevant, we should be able to read any already supported file on these locations (like parquet or shp or whatever).

Best regards,

Simon

When the name of a field is changed early in a workflow, all corresponding tools that use the renamed field should have the option to auto update the field name. This way I don't have to manully update the name of each effected field. 

Description:

Currently, when running a workflow in Alteryx that writes output to a file (e.g., Excel), if the target file is already open (such as being open in Excel), the workflow will proceed through all steps and only fail at the very end when it attempts to write to that file.

Problem:

This behavior is inefficient and frustrating, especially with large workflows. You only find out there's a problem after all the upstream processes have already run. It wastes time and compute resources, and it can also be confusing for less experienced users.

Suggested Improvement:

Alteryx Designer should prevalidate output file accessibility at the beginning of workflow execution. Specifically:

Check if the output files are locked or otherwise unavailable before starting the run.

If any output file cannot be written to, immediately halt the workflow with a clear, early warning. 

Optionally, display a prompt listing which outputs are unavailable and why.

Benefit:

This enhancement would save users significant time, reduce confusion, and improve user experience, especially in development or iterative testing workflows. It aligns with good design principles by failing fast and providing immediate feedback.

In 24.1 the email tool was adjusted such that any error in the workflow prevents the email tool from sending any emails. Previously, if AMP was enabled, the email tool could still send emails even if the workflow contained an error, but this is no longer the case. There are many cases where this is not ideal, one example being:

In larger workflows, I have multiple data streams which, after a point, operate independently. Even if one stream errors, I would like emails to be sent from the other streams. I have tried nesting the email tool within multiple layers of macros, but if any of the parent or child workflows/macros contain an error, the email tool will not send any emails. 

I would like a checkbox option in the email tool or workflow configuration that will still allow emails to be sent if the workflow errors. Then, with the use of control containers, I will have full control over email distribution with errors. 

Currently, the Alteryx Designer canvas can only be extended to the right and downward. This restriction makes organizing complex workflows more difficult, especially when trying to insert new logic upstream or manage spatial layout more naturally. It forces users to design in a constrained directional flow, limiting flexibility and sometimes resulting in awkwardly stretched workflows.

Proposed Solution:
Introduce an Infinite Canvas option that allows users to pan and place tools in any direction: left, right, up, or down. This would:

• Enable more natural workflow layout and organization
• Allow insertion of tools before existing logic without major rearrangement
• Improve visibility and navigation for large, complex workflows
• Mirror the functionality of modern visual tools like Figma, Miro, or Lucidchart

Bonus Suggestion:
Include a toggle or setting in Preferences to enable Infinite Canvas mode, so users can choose their preferred design behavior.    

Impact:
Improved usability, better layout control, reduced time spent reformatting workflows, and a more modern, flexible design experience for Alteryx users at all levels.

I was setting up a rather large set of repetitive filters and formulas and when I got done, I wanted to select the output of each tool all at once to drag them in to a Union tool. I think it would be great if you could hold the control key to select multiple outputs to drag to the next tool at a given time. 

In the regex tool, there is a checkbox called "copy unmatched text to output".

Unfortunately, if you are using regex from within the formula tool, this is not an option. It would be helpful if this could be added as an optional parameter in the regex formula i.e: 

REGEX_Replace(String, pattern, replace, icase=1, unmatched=1)

Without this, regex outputs can sometimes be confusing, as string characters not specified by the pattern (unmatched) appear in the output. This confusion would be alleviated with the optional parameter.

For the Output Tool it would be very beneficial to be able to pass a password in order to populate a password protected Excel spreadsheet. It appears there is a decent amount of interest based on the Community feedback pertaining to the subject.

Hi everyone! I have been trying to find a way to do this without creating a new idea, but I have decided to make it an official 'Idea' to see if there is anyone else that might appreciate a feature like this (or has found there own way to do it!)

Do your workflows look like this...

but you wish they could look like this?

Well... they can with your help!

Okay, I might be crazy...but its worth a shot.

While I understand this is an extremely niche issue, in my experience, it can become very difficult to trace the data through unmanaged lines in large workflows. I think it will be great to cable manage canvas lines so workflows are easier to follow. Heck, while I am already at it, I think it we should all start calling these canvas lines cables... They don't carry electricity, but they sure do carry data!

Here is an example I created in Alteryx using select tools and containers:

A client just asked me if there was an easy way to convert regular Containers to Control Containers - unfortunately we have to delete the old container and readd the tools into the new Control Container.

What if we could just right click on the regular Container and say "Convert to Control Container"? Or even vice versa?!

Similar to the setting that you have in many individual tools  (join, append, select, et al) where you can go to options and choose to "forget missing fields" it would be nice where you could go to options for the entire flow and "forget missing fields".

This would remove the headache that you have with large flows where you make a change(s) then have to go back through each and every tool to "forget" within that tool. Yes you could still do it individually, but if you chose, you could also do it universally for the entire flow all at once to all the 'missing fields'. 

Hello,

There are several dozens of data sources... maybe it would be useful to have a search in it?

Best regards,

Simon

Hi there

My idea is to have an option to copy and paste a tools configuration to a different tool of the same type somewhere else on the canvas.

Example:

Say I have four summarise tools dealing with four different data streams, I envision a 'Copy Tool Configuration' option after right clicking on a tool and then a 'Paste Tool Configuration" which can be applied across the multiple instances of the summarise tool by overwriting. This would preserve the tools anchors incoming and outgoing connections.

Benefit:

This would increase the speed of developing workflows. Naturally this would be significantly quicker than copy and pasting tools, and then re-wiring anchors. Additionally, this would potentially reduce human error when iteratively developing workflows.

Regards - Rhys Cooper

Hello,

As of today, there are only few packages that are embedded with Alteryx Python tool. However :
1/Python becomes more and more popular. We will use this tool intensively in the next years
2/Python is based on existing packages. This is the force of the language
3/On Alteryx, adding a package is not that easy : you need to have admin rights and if you want your colleagues to open your workflow, it also means that he has to install it himself. In corporate environments, it means loosing time, several days on a project.

Personnaly, I would Polars, DuckDB.. that are way faster than Panda.

Currently if I have a connection between two tools as per the example below:

I can drag and drop a new tool on the connection between these tools to add it in:

And designer updates the connections nicely, however if I select multiple tools and try and collectively drop them inbetween, on a connection then it won't allow me to do this, and will move the connection out of the way so it doesn't cause an overlap.

Therefore as a QoL improvement it would be great if there was a multi-drop option on connections between tools.

The TO field (and I assume other fields) in the Email tool seem to have a 254 character limit - this should be increased heavily as there are many distribution lists that will go above this character limit!

• Solved: Email tool recipients list truncating emails - Alteryx Community
• Solved: Email Widget: Cut off all the emails in the "To" r... - Alteryx Community
• Re: Email Address Truncated in the "To" Field - Alteryx Community

A distribution list works but is not ideal. Thumbs up if you like this idea!

The idea is quite simple. I am sure a lot of Alteryx enthusiasts use containers frequently. These can also be color coded for better overview and readability of your workflows. However, while connections between tools can be named, they cannot be colored. 

Therefore, this idea is very simple. Adding an option to color these connections. This would allow for even more readability of workflows. Especially if a workflow contains multiple separate streams of data, this could help to navigate and keep track of how and where data is flowing.