Options for removing metadata Source information

[cam_w]

The Source field of the field metadata is very useful, but has some problems.

• It is repetitious. A long connection string repeated for many fields from the same source can bloat the size of the workflow above 10 MB, and when removed is around 0.5 MB.
• It exposes sensitive information about a company's infrastructure, such as server names, ports, user ids, and proprietary data structures.

I first started paying attention when we found a user's password in the metadata because they had passed it as a string to the Dynamic Input Tool (separate Idea submitted for that - LINK). Then when I had to share an App with the Alteryx Support team for support with an issue, I thought to check the metadata, and I noticed that the file was too big and was exposing information that I would not normally share with another company.

I'm not sure how you want to handle this, but here's some thoughts:

• Default the Source field to 'off' and provide users the option to turn it 'on' in the workflow/app settings.
• Provide a mechanism to strip the 'Source' field at time of saving or exporting the workflow.
• If nothing else, provide education to users on the implications of including this information in the file.

Thanks for listening!

Cameron

[paulreading]

+1

but I have a bit of a work around.

I've used a multi-field tool to apply to all fields and simply assign [_Currentfield_]. Doesn't stop the Source text, but makes it a bit smaller. i.e. a few chars instead of the whole SQL statement!

My source file was 110MB, got it down to 14Mb, Still quite large but hey.