Problem saving workflow locally after it's been saved to gallery

[AkisM]

So, I am slightly editing existing workflows that I have locally, by copy pasting a workflow, then opening the copy, editing it locally, and saving it as a new separate workflow in the gallery. The problem is, as soon as I do that, the workflow stops being read as "edited". So when I close the workflow that I'd been working on, I'm not prompted to save the edited local copy again on my machine. And while it's been saved to the server fine, the changes weren't saved on my machine locally.

Do I have to manually click "save as" again and replace the local file after I've already saved it to the gallery? Why won't the changes be saved to my local file as well as soon as I upload to gallery? The reason I'm asking is because I've done a number of workflows already, and I just realized they were never saved locally, I just have a bunch of copies of the same workflow that I was copying. Which means I have to re-download all of them from the gallery to have local copies.

[chrisha · Accepted solution]

Hi @AkisM ,

when you save a local workflow to the gallery the version from the Gallery is open in your design. I'm using the Gallery similar to you and have made the mistake of not having a local copy anymore countless times...

But, actually, the behavior is similar to what happens when you "save as" to another local file: After "saving as" you will have the new file open in your Designer. The same thing happens if you save a file to the Gallery.

Hope that clarifies it 🙂

Best

Christopher

[danilang]

Hi @AkisM 

Alteryx is like any other application. When you perform a save as...,  the new location, whether, local network, SharePoint.etc.  is where all the subsequent changes are saved.  The file in the previous location is not updated with new changes.  As far as file storage goes, you can think of the Alteryx server as a network drive that has built-in versioning.  

You can use the server as the main repository for all your workflows.   There is no need to keep a local copy of the workflows unless you regularly work disconnected.  Just make sure you have a backup strategy for your server.

Dan

[chrisha]

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You can use the server as the main repository for all your workflows.   There is no need to keep a local copy of the workflows unless you regularly work disconnected.  Just make sure you have a backup strategy for your server.

Or you are collaborating with colleagues in a larger project. Since our projects use different software tools (e.g. Alteryx, Tableau, R, Python, ...) we keep everything in Git repositories. Alteryx server's collaboration and versioning features leave a lot to be desired if you are using Alteryx as part of a larger project.

In short: There are many cases where it makes sense to have a local copy of your workflow.