Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

I constantly find my using pre and post SQL Commands in the Output tool to run SQL when I don't actually have any data to output.

One example is when I load data into S3 and want to load it into Redshift. I have SQL code to run but no data to Output - I end up running a dummy row into a temp table.

So can we have an SQL tool that simply acts the same as a Pre-SQL command without the associated data output. Once the command is run we should be able to continue the workflow, so the tool should have an option input and output, like the Run Command tool.

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.

Assuming some source control or versioning is in place, a formal compare tool would be a nice addition. This would be useful for determining what is different between two versions of a workflow, and that knowledge is very useful when modifying a production process: when formally moving a new (modified) process into production, part of the checks and balances would be to run a formal comparison against the workflow being replaces, and ensure that all differences are accounted for.

This sort of audit is notoriously difficult when the differences are buried deep in the configuration settings of various tools within Alteryx.  I do see that the .yxmd files are XML based, so perhaps we could create our own compare tool based thereon, but it would be better (more trustworthy) to have one formally provided by Alteryx.  Thanks!

Hi there,

Adam ( @AdamR_AYX ), Mark ( @MarqueeCrew) and many others have done a great job in putting together super helpful add-in macros in the CREW pack - and James ( @jdunkerley79 ) has really done an incredible job of filling in some gaps in a very useful way in the formula tools.

Would be possible to include a subset of these in the core product as part of the next release?

I'm thinking of (but others will chime in here to vote for their favourite):

- Unique only tool (CReW)

- Field Sort (CReW)

- Wildcard XLSX input (CReW) - this would eliminate a whole category of user queries on the discussion boards

- Runner (CReW - although this may have issues with licensing since many people don't have command line permission - Alteryx does really need the ability to do chained dependancy flows in a more smooth way.

- Date Utils (JDunkerly) - all of James's Date utils - again, these would immediately solve many of the support questions asked on the discussion forum

I think that these would really add richness & functionality to the core product, and at the same time get ahead of many of the more common queries raised by users.   I guess the only question is whether the authors would have any objection?

Thank you

Sean

There's often a need to do a cascade of filters which would normally be handled in a programming language by a Case or a Switch statement.

For example:

- if it's a cat then go left, otherwise go right 

      - if it's a dog then go left otherwise carry on right

             if it's a fish then go left otherwise carry on right

                   otherwise do xxxx

This could be handled more elegantly by a conditional split tool that allowed you to specify multiple conditions like a case statement, and which then generated multiple output nodes; with the last one for any leftovers.

Visio is our organization's most common method of communicating business processes and workflows. Being able to export an Alteryx workflow to Visio would help us communicate the tool's functionality to process owners.

I suggest that it would be beneficial to add in a column filter that can automatically remove columns based on a condition, such as removing columns where all values are NULL or if they contain something in the values.

Should have a True and False output, like the normal Filter tool, so you can check what is being removed.

e.g. Would help with when you get poorly formatted excel sheets that add in hundreds of redundant columns, or if your workflow has generated NULL columns that should be removed, without having to Transpose, Filter, Cross tab etc to clear them out.

Thanks,

Doug

Alteryx does not currently have to email tool that is configurable to use SMTP Authentication for Microsoft Office 365 or any server requiring authentication.  Our office printer can authenticate over SMTP and with TLS enabled why not my Alteryx mail tool - 'mic drop!'. 

Further explained, Alteryx is a tool that needs to live within abide by the policies and security standards in the organization not vice versa.  Therefore, it shouldn't be a big surprise, or a big ask for that matter, that a mail client should have the ability to authenticate prior to sending email of SMTP.   I'm very surprised this tool is so arcane.  Please implement quickly.  Thank you

It would be nice to have the ability to have a workflow wait/pause tool that would pause the workflow for a given amount of time before proceeding to the next step (i.e. wait 300 seconds). 

I have a workflow that uses the Run Command to run a batch file that kicks of a terminal emulator that cycles through steps the ultimately result in an exported text file that I use in an Alteryx workflow for further processing. The generation of the text file can take a few minutes. A delay could be placed in the batch file or terminal emulator script, but I think having a tool in the Alteryx workflow might be useful for other processes as well.

It seems that version 10.6 (still in beta) will have easy to use linear programming tool... We'll be able to allocate assets optimally, optimize our marketing decisions by inputting the predictions we had with predictive tools etc.

But when it comes to Non-linear models what happens? The idea is to add Alteryx designer an evolutionary optimization capability as well...

I've used a similar tool in excel which was very useful called Evolver; http://www.palisade.com/evolver/ It will be awesome to see that in the coming versions...

To note that one optimisation method does not rule them all and evolutionary algorithms are the slowest probably,

But I believe it will enable us to optimize hyperparameters of our models and greatly get better results...

Create a tool that allows user to create calculated fields for Tableau to output along with a .tde so they are available when openning the tde.  

There are several situations where precalculated materialized data will visualize inaccurately in Tableau and calcualted fields need to be used.

• 1:* measures - Fixed Lod expersions for selected measures
• Count Distinct
• Percentages and Ratios

Problem.

My Workflow poll incoming data directory for new files. When there are no files, I want Workflow processing to be stop without any error.

1. Workflow has an email event - send email on error. This is to notify owner that workflow has failed.

2. If I fail workflow on my given condition using Message Tool - error and stop further processing, then event in step 1 triggers and send email which is undesirable.

I want event in step 1 triggers on workflow errors excluding user initiated error as in step 2.

Proposal:

1. Can have a tool or config for controlling Events dynamically? Say, on a given condition I want to disable a Workflow Event?

2. Message Tool : Can have another Message Type options like:

          - Stop Workflow Processing without Error

          - Stop Workflow Processing with Warning

A very simple idea, the same principle as the existing filter but there is only one output (true) and there is an on / off button. This could gives users the opportunity to put in a "what-if" gateway into their workflow. 

For example, your stakeholder has asked you to use 'all the data'. Whilst building the workflow, you notice that excluding 2016 data gives you a more accurate / representative end result. However, it is not necessarily your decision to exclude the 2016 data. You put in the Valve Filter tool:

Valve Filter On = Excludes the 2016 data.

Valve Filter Off = Allows all data to go through.

You are able to turn the filter on and off, run the workflow and see / demo different end results (instead of using a traditional filter and creating a separate workflow or a duplicated arm of a workflow).

Until your workflow is complete, you do not always know the full impact of the parameters / decisions you make along the way. The Valve Filter could give users more flexibility.

Hi there, 

In working through the Udacity assignment on AB testing (again, thank you @PatrickN ), it seems that there's no obvious way to use location directly as a distance factor for selecting control units.

Additionally - the identifier field for a unit has to be a character field.

It seems that here would be a lot of value in making 2 changes to this tool:

a) allowing for integer unit identifiers (like store ID - not sure why a character is required)

b) using an actual point (location) to determine closest potential control unit.     

- This is particularly important in the US where two towns may be very close to each other although they are in different states

- So the actual distance on the earth's surface would be a better indicator of closeness between test & control units than state or county.

As more vendors start selling directly to Amazon, the need to use Amazon Retail Analytics specific to your products is increasing. Currently, the only way to do this is manually downloading data from the Amazon Vendor Central platform every week to make sure data is saved and then further prepared in excel or Alteryx. The Download Tool does not work in this situation because of the various login credentials and page navigation that is associated with the platform. It would be great if there was a Connector Tool that integrated the Amazon Retail Analytics data from Vendor Central directly into Alteryx.

Hi, I'm new to Alteryx; we've had for just about a month. We started publishing our workflows to Tableau and it's working great.

One issue I foresee:

User credentials to the Tableau server are updated occasionally. When this occurs, I will have to update the credentials manually in each workflow. 

The number of workflows we are publishing is growing. Is there a way to automate this process? 

I see a huge potential for an IFTTT or Microsoft Flow Connector or Trigger.

Trigger: I have been part of a company that runs a great amount of Microsoft Flows to automate business processes. It would have been a nice addition, if we could start a Alteryx process when a certain event happens.

Output: On the other side, it would also be good to start a flow automatically when an Alteryx workflow is finished. E.g. it would be possible to create an analysis and automatically push it to several media / internal channels. It's also possible to bring twitter/facebook/etc output connectors to Alteryx, but it's definitely easier to build an IFTTT connector, that enable a huge amount of other tools.

Disabled Containers throw errors if it contains any interface tools. It should not throw any error as the user is intentionally disabling the container.