Alteryx Workflow Security Best Practices

[varun511]

HI   Team,

We have recently started to Adopt Alteryx in our environment People started Building workflows now we have a plan to publish workflows in to Alteryx server i am just trying to explore Collections for security and other stuff 

Just want to understand from experts what is the process we need to follow as part of best practice before publishing workflow to alteryx deisgner what things we need to  consider?

and how to secure and organize workflows in alteryx server is collections only the one? or any other better approach for securing and sharing workflows?

Any help would be highly appreciated

Thanks,

Varun

[Luke_C · Accepted solution]

Hi @varun511 

Every organization will want to do things differently, but from what I've seen:

1. Collections are definitely the way to go. You can have multiple collections and control the access for each collection separately. You can also give people 'run only' access so they can't edit the underlying workflow itself.
2. As far as people building and publishing workflows, they will need artisan access to do so. 
   1. One approach is to limit the number of artisans in your organization in order to better control what is uploaded.
   2. Another approach is to develop best practices/standards/rules about what how workflows should be built, what is permissible, and what kind of review is needed prior to it going up on the server and becoming 'live',

[Thableaus · Accepted solution]

Hi @varun511 

I think your question should be moved to the Alteryx Server Forum.

Meanwhile, I might help with some of the experience I had when doing that

Just want to understand from experts what is the process we need to follow as part of best practice before publishing workflow to alteryx deisgner what things we need to  consider?

Some things you should consider (shortly):

- Outputs - if you wanna see the data when you run a workflow on Server, don't forget to use a relative path and output to a .yxdb file, or a .pcxml format (using the Report Tool). In those cases, you can also download the outputs in different formats to a specific folder in your machine.

- Workflow Run Mode - check with the Server Admin what kind of Run Mode you have in the Server (there are three - Unrestricted, Safe and Semi-Safe - https://help.alteryx.com/20212/server/workflow-options-admin)

- Packaging Assets or Sharing Assets - If you package the dependencies with the workflow, you will send a copy of that asset to the Server that can't be modified in the future. If you want to have more flexibility with your assets, place them in a shared location where your Server can see it (network drives, for example).

- Workflow Credentials - do your workflows rely on your user to be properly executed? Do your credentials matter to access specific remote drives or databases? If so, you need to discuss with your Server Admin the need of a service account, or if workflow credentials will need to be created and shared with the users. There are different ways to approach this problem and this depends on the security strategy that your company follows.

- Data Connections - In Alteryx Server, the best way to manage database connections is using the Gallery Data Connections. They need to be created, configured and shared with the users by the Server Admin. More info here - https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Server-Knowledge-Base/Gallery-Data-Connections-FAQ/ta-p/452...

These are some important things to consider, but basicly, think that your Server environment needs to be in sync with what you have locally. That means, macros, 3rd party packages, data access, you need to double check that before uploading a workflow to Server, so it can work as you expect.