Moving workflows between Dev/Test/Prod

Question

I've been searching, with no luck, for a "best practice" to use for moving workflows between environments.  I found a post here that gave a good method for automating file paths, but manually changing all the database connections to point to Prod instead of Test seems really tedious.  Any help would be much appreciated.

dalchand · Answer

Database connections are relatively easy to maintain. You can create ODBC DSN with same name in DEV/TST/PRD and use the DSN in your workflow to connect to the database.

DCPDamon · Answer

Tyler, I can't get this aka ID change to work in our sytem.  From our Dev server I opened a workflow from the Prod gallery.  There should have been two sets of dependencies, one that said aka:eSuite (for inputs) ad one that was just .\ (for outputs).  When I opened Workflow dependencies, every input and output tool was lumped as a dependencey of .\.  Which means first I had to sort out all the inputs fro outputs.  Then, I tried to put in the ID for the data connection in that environment (aka:123123245345).  But when I tested it, it said directory not found.

I've found that when using Workflow dependencies, if the dependency is already a aka, then you can put in a new aka.  But, if it has .\ it thinks it's looking for a file and there's not way to make it understand you want it to use a gallery connection.  So you're left with going into each and every tool and retyping in the aka.

Any thoughts?

benjamesdavis · Answer

I tried using workflow constants to swap out parameters of a DB connection string, using:

oci:username/%User.Password%@(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS_LIST=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(PORT=%User.Port%)(HOST=%User.Host%)))(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVICE_NAME=%User.ServiceName%)))

However...for %User.Password%, it seems Alteryx is encrypting the workflow constant name (i.e. "%User.Password%") before the value (i.e. the actual password) has had a chance to load in. Therefore, I get hit with an invalid username/password error.

Does anybody know a way round this?

Cheers,
Ben