Using command line to run a workflow on a different machine

jgolden

Hi folks,

We're just getting our feet wet over here, and recently brought alteryx into the fold.  We have been regular Tableau users for years, and currently we excute some extract jobs on one machine from batch scripts, which then login and run tabcmd on the tableau server.

We are looking to do something similar with Alteryx workflows.  I have been looking for a good example.

For instance, say we have a workflow called "travel.yxmd", and we want to run this workflow from a command line on a machine other than the alteryx server.

Does anyone have any examples of how this looks on windows 2008 R2 servers?

Logging in, and then executing the command?

When I say we are new to this, I mean liek weeks old.

Is this the satandard command from the directory on the alteryx server:  AlteryxEngineCmd.exe MyWorkflow.yxmd

I truly appreciate the help.

Thanks,

Jamie

stevea

Hi @jgolden,

I've had great luck with Microsoft's Sysinternals suite of tools in the past for jobs such as this (specifically a tool called "psexec") and it works well here as well.

First, download the Sysinternals tools from Microsoft's TechNet.  I recommend unpacking the tools to a simple location such as "c:\sysinternals" because these are command-line tools and simple paths make things easier.

After downloading and unpacking, open a command shell, navigate to the "c:\sysinternals" directory, and enter "psexec /?".  After accepting the EULA you will see the command line options as shown here:

Now, build up your command to run the AlteryxEngineCmd.exe on the remote machine. There are a number of options that can be passed to the AlteryxEngineCmd.exe, but this example assumes there's a module to run in a particular directory (c:\temp\MortgageCalculator.yxwz) and that no parameters are being passed to the module.  The results of the module run will be shown on the machine from which you're running the remote job:

Note that you must have a valid user on the target machine and the firewall on the target machine may need to be opened to allow for remote access.  I would encourage caution before dropping a firewall completely.

Hopefully this works for you... please let us know if you have success or run into problems.

Best,

Steve A.