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Designer Usage Data

kat
12 - Quasar

Hi there

 

I wanted to enable Designer usage tracking at my company. I had a look at this: https://help.alteryx.com/server/11.0/admin/index.htm#Configuration/SaveDesignerUsageData.htm%3FTocPa...

 

From this it’s not clear to me where I can find the usage statistics?

 

Also, on the non-admin install there is no RuntimeSettings file in the specified location. Can I create it there and will it still work?

 

Thanks

Katrin

10 REPLIES 10
MarqueeCrew
20 - Arcturus
20 - Arcturus

Hi @kat ,

 

capture.jpg

 

Is a picture worth a thousand words?  At least this is where you must configure EACH designer to address your local gallery.  From your designer you won't have access to the MongoDB.  You can either run a job on the server itself, if you have permission to do that, or you can create a job to read the mongodb.  Alteryx downloads provides a workflow to create either a tableau or pdf report of usage (must configure job to ask for usage data as it is not the default).  I modify the delivered workflow to create a yxdb of the detailed usage information from Mongo (before parsing it) and output that data.  I now have control over all of the detail.

 

If you don't have it, try creating it as:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<SystemSettings>
	<Designer>
		<PhoneHomeUrl>http://localhost/gallery/</PhoneHomeUrl>
	</Designer>
</SystemSettings>

You'll need to substitute your URL for http://localhost/gallery/

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

 

Alteryx ACE & Top Community Contributor

Chaos reigns within. Repent, reflect and restart. Order shall return.
Please Subscribe to my youTube channel.
kat
12 - Quasar

Hi @MarqueeCrew 

 

Thanks, that's been helpful. Didn't realize they were referring to the MongoDB.

 

Now I have a new issue though - when I try to run the usage report I don't get any results. I looked into the macro and saw that it's filtering the data by type 0. Mine is coming through as 10 though. I looked through the data and it seems correct. Would you know anything about this?

 

Thanks!

Kat

kat
12 - Quasar

Also, another problem I have is that I can only see my own stats... I've edited a few other people's settings file (they all already had it. I added the code where you described it with the same gallery that I have) and run their Alteryx, but no luck. Are there any requirements with regards to version number, rights on the server, etc?

MarqueeCrew
20 - Arcturus
20 - Arcturus

@kat ,

 

My guess is that the URL is suspect in your XML.  Once entered (maybe they need to restart Alteryx), any execution should show up.

 

Cheers,

Mark

Alteryx ACE & Top Community Contributor

Chaos reigns within. Repent, reflect and restart. Order shall return.
Please Subscribe to my youTube channel.
atChrisLee
5 - Atom

Hey @kat - did you ever figure out a solution for this? I am in a similar spot - trying to collect usage data from multiple users computers - but not sure how to get the additional xml on everyone's or get it to write the data to the same location. 

kat
12 - Quasar

Hi @atChrisLee 

 

I solved this my having IT create a packaged install for Alteryx. This means, that when they install it, they simultaneously update the runtime settings, macros, etc.

 

Everything writes to a central location - the server - automatically, by using the same address in everyone's runtime settings. Mine initially didn't work because the users didn't have the necessary permissions on the server to write to the log files.

 

Hope this helps!

Kat

kbs2018
7 - Meteor

@kat 

We are working on similar approach to create a package with runtime settings file. In this approach every installation will have same Runtimesettings.xml file. Did you face any issues installing Alteryx designer on all machines with same Runtimesettings.xml file? Just wanted to make sure that there are no machine specific details in Runtimesettings.xml. 

kat
12 - Quasar

Hi @kbs2018 

 

No, it didn't cause any issues. The only thing we added to the Runtimesettings was logging to the server.

 

Good luck! 🙂

Katrin

cgoodman3
14 - Magnetar
14 - Magnetar

Hi @kat i spoke about the usage reports at the London User Group earlier this year https://community.alteryx.com/t5/London-UK/Recap-20-London-Alteryx-User-Group-01-05-2019/gpm-p/42296... 

 

Here’s the slides from it which I don’t think were published in the recap. 

Chris
Check out my collaboration with fellow ACE Joshua Burkhow at AlterTricks.com
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