Community Spring Cleaning week is here! Join your fellow Maveryx in digging through your old posts and marking comments on them as solved. Learn more here!
The Product Idea boards have gotten an update to better integrate them within our Product team's idea cycle! However this update does have a few unique behaviors, if you have any questions about them check out our FAQ.

Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

Share your Designer Desktop product ideas - we're listening!
Submitting an Idea?

Be sure to review our Idea Submission Guidelines for more information!

Submission Guidelines

Workflow dependencies of multiple levels of nested macros

 

Please extend the Workflow Dependencies functionality to include dependencies of used macros in the worflow too. Currenctly macros are simply marked as dependencies by themselves, but the underlying dependencies (e.g. data sources) of these macros are not included.

 

We have a large ETL process developed with Alteryx that applies several layers of custom and complex macros and several data sources referenced using aliases. Currently the process is deployed locally (non-server) and executed ad-hoc, but will be moved to the server platform at some point. 

 

Recently I had to prep an employee for running the process. This requires creating aliases and associated connections and making sure that access to needed network locations is in place (storing macros, temp files, etc.). Hence I needed to identify all aliases and components/macros used. As everything is wrapped nicely by a single workflow, I hoped that the workflow dependencies functionality would cover dependencies in the macro nodes within, but unfortunately it didn't and I had to look through the dependencies of 10-15 macros.

9 Comments
AndreasRafn
7 - Meteor

Alteryx Nested Dependencies Illustration

SeanAdams
17 - Castor
17 - Castor

Alteryx still misses dependencies more than 2 levels deep when packaging.

This is super-frustrating when moving a flow onto the server.

 

@avinashbonu @Deeksha @revathi

JulieM
Alteryx Alumni (Retired)
Status changed to: Under Review

Thank you for the detailed post @AndreasRafn!  Marking this post as under review as we are evaluating how we can make this process a better experience.  Thanks!

chrisha
11 - Bolide

+1

 

I really hope that Macro and dependency management will be improved for the Designer and the Gallery. The current process can be very frustrating. A related issue is regarding changes in paths: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Ideas/Repair-Macro-Path/idc-p/165322

rdoptis
11 - Bolide

Sharing macros with nested dependencies with colleagues with different file system paths as well as having these macros successfully publish to the gallery is a very frustrating and time consuming experience. It believe Alteryx could do wonders for users by revisiting this process and optimizing it.

KylieF
Alteryx Community Team
Alteryx Community Team
Status changed to: Revisit

Thank you for your idea! Our product team has reviewed this idea and cannot place it on the road map at this time. However they would still like to keep it in mind for future road map decisions. We'll update the status of this idea once we are able to term where or if we can place it on the road map.

AlexBibin
8 - Asteroid

Hi, can we please have it enabled. I'm sure it is not a huge endeavour!

SeanAdams
17 - Castor
17 - Castor

@jpoz was working on this so it may be fixed?

melroseboo
6 - Meteoroid

Still not fixed. 

Alteryx does not auto-detect all assets in the all-encapsulating workflow, that are referenced in each nested/child workflow(s) using a relative path. Even when the workflows are in the 'Supporting_Macros' folder, referenced using the relative path where the all-encasulating workflow is saved, and you can see each 'Supporting_Macros' workflow referenced in the Workflow Dependencies within each sub-workflow, it does not get detected by the main workflow. 

This makes it impossible to create an installer (.yxi) for macros with nested macros, where the save path is dynamic (C:\Users\[DYNAMIC_FILE_PATH]\AppData\Roaming\Alteryx\Tools), and have all nested macros be auto-detected assets and then able to be saved on Alteryx Gallery with the main macro/workflow. The only solutions I keep finding are 1. Use a non-dynamic UNC path that everyone should magically have the same access to OR 2. Install the macros on all Alteryx servers.

Can Alteryx please allow the auto-detection of ALL assets, even if they are nested and referenced via relative path to the main asset? 

Related: 
https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Ideas/Attaching-a-macro-as-a-user-asset-doesn-t-re...

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Workflow-Dependencies-and-how-should-t... <-- this solution is not acceptable as the assets were not auto-detected. The user has to go through layers of settings, and manually force detect the needed assets

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Bundling-nested-macros-in-export-workf... <-- same issue, unresolved

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Unable-to-pass-the-nested-macro-refere... <- shows the issue, and the only ways to resolve are UNC path or install on Alteryx server. No solve for relative path for asset recognition

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Cannot-Publish-Workflow-with-Embedded-... <-same as above

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Server-Discussions/Do-CREW-macros-need-to-be-installed-on-G... <-same issue, recommended solution is to install on server as workaround