Input File used in the Alteryx App on Gallery

Hi,

I have an alteryx app that I uploaded onto my company's alteryx analytics gallery dev site (/enterprisealteryxdev.). The input file which I am asking the app to reference is saved on my local drive. I shared the app with my coworker on by pushing the app to Collections in the gallery. And my coworker is able to run the app.

How is the app on the gallery able to access the input file saved in my hard drive? I noticed that the pathway to the input file in the workflow changes to _externals\1\"filename". Does the gallery have a copy of the input file cached somewhere? Also, if I change the input file of the app, do I have to upload an entirely new app with a new input file?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Christine

Developer

Gallery

Developer Tools

Apps

Database Connection

Accepted answers

patrick_digan

The server is indeed using a cached version. You would need to republish the app if the input file changes. When you save the workflow to the gallery, you can click on workflow options and then manage workflow assets. Anything that is checked will be "packaged"/cached with the workflow and save to an externals folder if need be. If you were to leave your local file unchecked, the server would error because it wouldn't be able to find the file on your machine. See this post for more info under the gallery section:
https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Server-Knowledge-Base/Assets-and-Packaging-Workflows/ta-p/42232

Alternatively, you could 1)reference a network file that you and the server both have access to. You need to use UNC which can be done easily through the options>>>advanced>>>workflow dependencies. 2) depending on your use case, you could have the end user upload the file at run time using a file browse tool connected to an input tool.

patrick_digan

@cwoo Great questions! For context, I consider a private Alteryx Server to have 3 components/uses: Gallery, Scheduler, and API.

1) it is saved in the MongoDB files on the server (machine) that your company's private alteryx gallery is on.

2) Server would reference your private alteryx server/gallery. I'm not sure how your Alteryx server is setup, but ours is setup to run as a specified service account. So when I reference a file (P:\folder\file.csv) and I need the private gallery to reference it, I need to do 2 things: 1) I need to ensure that the service account has access to the file location (P:\folder) and 2) change the path to Universal Naming Convention (\\servername\folder\file.csv). A service account on a server doesn't\can't map a drive, so you have to reference it differently.

patrick_digan

@cwoo

1) that's correct, changing it to UNC will then have the app on the gallery referencing the actual file. The 1 thing you have to be careful of is making sure it doesn't get packaged. When you save the workflow to the gallery, I would suggest you click workflow options and then manage workflow assets. Even if you UNC the file, the box on the manage workflow assets screen may be checked by default. That would create a cached version. Sometimes this happens unintentionally, so I always check to make sure what files are/aren't being packaged whenever I save a file to the gallery.

2) That is correct, you wouldn't have to upload a new app every time the input file is edited, assuming the metadata doesn't change (ie if you add a new column and your app wasn't prepared for that, you would then need to upload a new app to handle the new columns).

patrick_digan

@cwoo Keep the questions coming! You can you use an output tool to write it to a shared drive. It's configured very similarly to the input tool. You would have to check similar things to the input tool like folder permissions for the account running your jobs in the gallery and UNC pathing. Note that when you save a file to a network path that the gallery will no longer display that file to the end user. It will just produce a standard message about no output upon completion.

gajendertrivedi

Appreciate your help in solving this.

I have access to one share drive and I kept my input files on that. When I run the workflow from my local machine it takes the input from the share drive and give the results as expected, however when I publish the workflow on the Alteryx Gallery (I made sure my files are/aren't being packaged whenever I save a file to the gallery), it resulted in "File not found" error.

On the whole, my question is my Alteryx Workflow when published on the Alteryx Gallery should always take the input from Share Drive or Share Point so that my workflow works without installing Alteryx on another machine and takes the most recent file(s) from the Share Drive or Share Point.

All comments

patrick_digan

cwoo

@patrick_digan Thank you for the thorough response!

I have a few quick questions.

1) Where is cached version saved? Is it saved on my company's Alteryx gallery or on Alteryx server?

2) In the last section of your answer that I copied below, you referred to "server". Are you referring to the Alteryx server ? Also, what does UNC stand for?

Alternatively, you could 1)reference a network file that you and the server both have access to. You need to use UNC which can be done easily through the options>>>advanced>>>workflow dependencies. 2) depending on your use case, you could have the end user upload the file at run time using a file browse tool connected to an input tool.

sguindi

@patrick_digan

I have an error i was wondering if you could help!

I Have an App, that takes an input file (chosen by the user) and runs the workflow and sends an email. Whenever i run it locally as an App, i don't have a problem, but whenever i try to run it on the gallery or another user tries to run it, we have the below error.

I tried to check and uncheck the 'validate assets' Inputs and ouputs but nothing 😞

Any help would be appreciated !

The job InsuranceV2 did not complete successfully and resulted in the following errors:

File not found "C:\ProgramData\Alteryx\Service\Staging\1756_40f8707a89984e7f3b1j11f364db\In_5da732e2306dc00chf0\Insurance 10-16-19.xlsx|`Sheet1$`" (Tool Id: 14)

Quick Links

This months top contributors

atcodedog05 19458

Qiu 15866

binu_acs 15708

MarqueeCrew 13708

apathetichell 13703