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Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

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Featured Ideas

In the Browse window:

  1. Can we add a Find function like in excel? (e.g. find record_ID==4 or name =='foobar')
  2. Can we click the column name so it sorts on that field?
  3. In 9.0 when I click 'Cell Viewer' in Browse window,  'Show Whitespace' seems to be turn on by default. Can we turn it off like in 8.6?
  4. When I click the 'Fields' button to toggle fields on/off, it would be great to add a Sort function here too, so fields can be sorted a-z by fieldname (like in the Select tool).

Thanks!

At the moment, we use ODBC driver to connect with Dremio.  However, we have experienced that this connection fail when connect with Tableau until a native connector has been built.  

 

Do you think Alteryx can work with Dremio on building a connector for stable connection?  Thank you.

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!

To keep from being too specific, the "Idea" is that Alteryx Designer should do better at recognizing and handling Date/Times on input. Thoughts include:
 
1) Offer more choices in the Parse: DateTime tool, including am/pm.
2) Allow users to add new formats to the Parse: DateTime lists.
3) Include user-added formats in the Preparation: Auto Field tool's library.
4) Don't require zero-padding of days and hours in the DateTimeParse() function.  (1/1/2014 1:23:45 AM looks enough like a date that DateTimeParse() should be able to figure it out, but it stumbles on day and hour.)
 
My particular difficulty is that I have incoming date/times with AM/PM components.  I've gone ahead and created a macro to take care of that for now, but it certainly seems like that sort of thing would be handled automatically.
 
Thanks!

As a best practice, I label a Control Parameter with the exact field name that I want to map to in the workflow. This takes any guesswork out of maintenance down the road. I want the macro questions to automap the labels to field names, just like a Join tool automaps the right side to the left when a field name is chosen from the left side drop down.

As @Jonathan-Sherman pointed out in his blog post we love that the toolbar is back in version 2020.2!

 

One way that this toolbar could be enhanced, however, is to allow the use of the save button while a workflow is running. The user can still click File->Save while the workflow is running, but it would be quicker to be able to use the button on the toolbar.

 

 
 

Capture.PNG

Business problem

Alteryx's block until done tool is a terrific way to sort which records go to which stream first.  However, during the last couple of years my team has experienced several times where there are gaps in functionality.  For example, we output data into a relational database (SQL Server) with foreign key constraints.  In this manner, one output tool must be completed (the dimension tables) before the others (fact tables) to properly load data.  Block until done doesn't always work in these cases, and our team has frequently relied on using chained apps or other clunky workarounds.  This creates unnecessary complexity for a simple problem.

 

A potential solution

Allow an optional setting in the output tool that waits for another tool in the same workflow to complete first.

Our company requires a password change every 3 months, which wreaks havoc bc i have to manually change each workflows input data connection configuration every time this happens to put in my latest credentials. Not the most efficient process for all the automated workflows I have on the gallery.

 

Instead, it would be great if alteryx could load in usernames and passwords via a field from the workflow. This way, I could just update the one excel file with two fields for username and password and every workflow referencing it with an input data connection would automatically pass on the new credentials every 3 months, not disturbing any of my autoscheduled workflows.

 

 

Please add XBRL - eXtensible Business Reporting Language (https://www.xbrl.org/Wikipediahttp://www.xbrleurope.org/ ) as output file format.

 

XBRL is based on XML and is used in financial word, for example all public companies in USA send their financial reports to Stock Exchange Commison in XBRL format. (http://xbrl.sec.gov/)

In Japan  Central Bank and Financial Services Agency (FSA) are collecting financial data for banks and financial companies using XBRL format.

 

Thank you.

 

Regards,

Cristian

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,

 

In Alteryx Designer application, in User Settings, please add an option for us to check/uncheck whether we would like to show/hide the Splash Screen upon app launch.

 

Thanks!

How about giving an auto-layout button to help easily layout the canvas even if the user has not neatly created the workflow?

Hey @A11yKyle and Alteryx Accessibility Team! It would be great if we could add alt text (dynamic based on input data would be even better!) and set the tab order of rendered PDFs so we could create reporting outputs that are digitally accessible.

It would be great if you could select multiple Data Fields in a single Crosstab

For example. I would like to SUM (Methodology) Pet Food Sales (Data Field 1) & Baby Food Sales (Data Field 2) By Store (Grouping Field) By Day of Week (Header field).
 

Products Team: Could you tell me if this is on the future road map or not?

 

It's something that other software does utilize, and I've seen similar requests on this message board.

 

Many companies use per period, quarter, year, etc. that aren't equal lengths or same days each month.

By saying every 364 days, you can schedule a yearly report. If your 4 quarters are unequal length, you can schedule 4 times (1st day of each quarter) at 364 days, recurring.

We have lengths of every 28 days for monthly reports (not 30/31). Or every 90 days. Or 180 days. Or every 14 days.

 

Being able to Schedule Every N Days moves you from owning a scheduler, to a providing a Competitive Scheduler.

Can we get the input tool to automatically convert long filenames to the 8.3 convention inside of a macro?

 

I've written a batch macro that individually opens files in order to trap files that fail to open. However, when I pass in really long file names it bombs because beyond some length the Input tool converts the path to 8.3 but that logic doesn't fire inside of my macro.

 

Example of filename:
\\ccogisgc1sat\d$\Dropbox (Clear Channel Outdoor)\Mapping\BWI MapInfo\Workspaces\Local\AEs\Archives\Cara\Sunrise Senior Living\Washington+DC_Adults+55++With+HHI+Of+$75,000++Who+Are+Caregiver+Of+Aging+Parent_Relative+Or+Planning+To+Shop+For+Nursing+Care_Assisted+Living_Retirem.TAB

Only csv is provided (and json etc) but not .xlsx

Let us know when this can be added to Alteryx

Thanks

 

Often we run into two pretty common situations:

  • You want to move a Select, Formula, or Filter to a different point in your workflow
  • You want to remove a tool entirely, without affecting the workflow in any other way.

In both cases, I would prefer that I can set the default behaviour of ctrl-x or delete like the way 'Delete and connect around' behaves.

 

Thanks,

Ruud

The Python tool has been a tremendous boon in being able to add capability that is not yet available in the Alteryx platform.

 

It would make the Python Tool much more usable and useful if you can define the inputs explicitly rather than just relying on the good behaviour of both the user; and also the python code that reads the inbound data (Alteryx.Read('#1'))

 

This is not something that the Jupyter notebook code-interface may handle directly (because the Jupyter notebook has no priveledged knowledge of the workflow outside it); so this may be best handled by the container itself.

 

The key here is that if my python app requires 2 inputs - it should be possible to define these explicitly so that we can test; and also so that we can prevent errors and make this more bullet-proof.

 

The same would apply on the outbound nodes for the Python tool.

 

For people recently met with RegEx, you are lucky if the expression is short and understandable or "human readable".

But there are extreme cases too where it's really a pain to solve the puzzle.

 

if you'd like to catch e-mail addresses from masses of unstructured data this will work;

 

/^([a-z0-9_\.-]+)@([\da-z\.-]+)\.([a-z\.]{2,6})$/

 

and here is the elaboration;

when colorful it's fun but barely readable still... Here is a Regexper version

 

image.png

 

This visualizer I came across at https://regexper.com/ is awesome.

 

  1. Can you please integrate this into Designer for ease of reading and understanding existing RegEx...
  2. Can it be possible to develop an interactive tool to prepare;
    • The graphical representation of our regular expression first
    • And then writing it in the same old fashion...

Please support the idea if you like...

 

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