What is a 'Workflow Group' and what are 'Workflow Dependancies'

Nicola1

Hi,

I am starting to explore the more advanced additive areas of Alteryx such as Workflows Groups, Workflow dependencies and scheduling workflows. I haven't got an example or question relating to specific data or a problem because I don't know what is possible yet but please could someone explain and give a basic situational example of:

1. What a Workflow Group is and when you would use/create one?

2. What are Workflow Dependencies (Advanced Options menu) and is this related to Workflow Groups?

3. How does scheduling fit with Workflow Groups and Dependencies if at all?

I'm trying to contextualise how these all fit/work together and if they actually do but I can't see the big picture in this area yet.

Many thanks in advance for any help with 1, 2 or 3!

CharlieS

Hi @Nicola1 

1. Workflow Groups are basically a collection of workflows you prefer to have open at the same time. So if you have 3 separate workflows you built for a project, and you want to open all 3 at once when you begin working, you can save those three as a workflow group so there's only 1 file to open. It's purely for organizing the workflows you interact with in Designer. I personally don't use this feature.

2. Workflow Dependencies are any file, data base, macro, or other external reference that the current workflow depends on to run. If you build a workflow that has a database query, and uses a macro, the Workflow Dependencies window would list those two items (with links to the tools that use those sources in case there are multiple references to the same source). Workflow dependencies are very important to verify the source of data and accuracy of your process, especially when workflows get larger with lots of external references. 

3. I don't believe workflow groups are supported for scheduling, but I may be mistaken. Dependencies are crucial to understand before scheduling because all those dependencies will be necessary for the schedule to run successfully. What trips many new schedulers up is that when the schedule runs a workflow, the "Alteryx Service" is the user running the workflow and if it requires a query to a database with user authentication, that must be addressed. 

Hope this helps!