Send report on error to dynamic / externally maintained list

[CatheyH]

Hi,

We currently use the Event / After Run With Errors to send notification to whichever unlucky souls were named in the workflow at the time of creation.

Since we manage a large number of workflows it is impractical to keep all the email addresses up to date and we run the risk of:

a) at some point something will fail and none of the recipients will be current team members

b) ex team members who have moved on to bigger and better things will get random warning reports.

Some possible solutions:

1) maintain a single circulation list that can be brought in through "Input data" and somehow fed into the "To:" field

2) create a macro (including the Input Data circulation list) that will send an email if the workflow errors. This macro can then be built into all future workflows.

3) set up a mail group that we maintain completely separately. (probably the most straightforward to set up, but not ness to maintain - I would love to be able to do all this within Alteryx)

Does anyone do this already? Which option works best? Is there one I've missed?

Cathey

[mceleavey · Accepted solution]

Hi @CatheyH ,

In my experience the best and most efficient way of doing this is to maintain group email accounts that are accessed by the appropriate people. These groups can be managed within your email system, your active directory, and this can be brought into Alteryx as a data source. 

This means you won't need to change anything in your workflows to accommodate for leavers and new hires etc. as these people will be added or removed from the AD group.

The group which receives the email can be dynamically determined in Alteryx by any logic you wish to apply. the emails can then be grouped by this email address and so notifications will be sent to an inbox monitored by the appropriate people.

DO NOT use individual email addresses if there is a high churn of employees or if people move around frequently as the maintenance on this is very high.

You can use the maintained circulation list in something like Excel or a Sharepoint list etc. and this can be brought in and used to determine the email addresses. The "To" field in the email can be made dynamic by using the email field in the data retrieved from this list, which will automatically create grouping of the data.

Hope this helps,

M.

[CatheyH]

Thanks for that, I'm not sure exactly how you would bring the email list into the To: field (in Events) though - it doesn't have an input like a tool on the canvas.

And if I was doing it as a macro (where I can bring in a list as normal), how would I get the macro to run always and only on error (ie doesn't fail to run because of the error)?

Maintaining a circulation list (rather than a mailbox) would definitely work, but becomes another tool that someone needs to know how to maintain on top of the list itself. (Which is not a problem - was just looking to see if there are straightforward ways of achieving this in Alteryx first)

[atcodedog05]

Hi @CatheyH 

I agree with you on this issue regrading Recipient (To) email being static especially workflow might be developed by someone and later maintained/run by someone else who doesnt have edit rights (happens with a lot with productionized workflows which are not editable). 

Agreed with @mceleavey suggested workaround where we can have GroupIDs set as Recipient (Group Mailbox or Distribution List) and GroupIDs can be dynamically maintained with individuals required. But again it creates an issue of having multiple GroupIDs and sometimes there is a limitation on number of GroupIDs.

I guess the feature is currently not there, but it would be great if we could pass column as data feed to To field of events email similar to email tool options where fields can be passed from column.

[CatheyH]

Thanks both. Will look to maintain a group email list within Outlook and use that within the Events tool.

[danilang · Accepted solution]

Hi @CatheyH 

The email distribution list needs to set up on your email server.   Personal distribution lists that you set up in Outlook won't be available to use outside of your Outlook email client.

There's no way to do this within a macro embedded in any workflow, since all email tools are deactivated once an error occurs.  

Dan