API endpoint for Collections

[JSNelson08]

My team currently uses the API to call a large number of workflows via a Python based scheduler process.  We use this currently by having ~10 users in a single subscription (Private Studio).  

All of the Private Studio sites on the Alteryx help state that they are going away in the near future to be replaced by individual studios and Shared Collections.  

From our testing, this would kill our processing as we cannot have an API for 1 Private Studio call workflows from a different private studio even if they have access through a shared collection.  

Are there plans to adjust the API endpoints in the future to better account for this?

Our IT department is looking to move to the Collections based structure now in preparation for the removal of the current Studio setup, so another question is when the structural update is planned to go into effect (which server version should we expect this?) so that we can get ready to account for this or if we can ask them to back off a little.

Thanks

[KylieF]

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[revathi]

@JSNelson08 Hi , 

I support your idea to provide API to invoke canvases in a collection that a user has access to. To understand why this functionality is useful for you (and understand how Alteryx is used within your organization) Could you please share reasons why you are invoking workflows using Python based scheduler process ?  

Are you using Alteryx canvas as part of a bigger solution with various tools involved? and do you use API to trigger canvas run post successful completion of a previous step in your bigger solution? 

[JSNelson08]

in our implementation of the Alteryx Server environment from 11.5 to 2019.4 (which is our current iteration) we have found some things lacking on the scheduling front, that we have attempted to enhance using Python to schedule.

1.  it looks as though scheduling is based upon time of day and day of week (want a job to run every day at 3am, or every wednesday at 7:35 am, ok) but doesn't support dependency upon the successful completion of 1+ other flows unless you chain workflows together, and using this method, you are limited to sequential execution.  And you can't set dependency based on external database readiness.

2.  We also noticed that scheduled flow executions were only visible to the person who created the schedule (this may be a setting that we don't have available to us as artisans, but could be changed by an administrator) and led to what we referred to as "secret Squirrel" jobs that only a single user could manipulate or fix if they went wrong.

3.  we have a number of jobs that take input parameters that are either security parameters passed at runtime or date or segmentation parameters, and found these to be relatively easily passed via questions rather than scheduled in the server.

so, I built a Python script using a database backend that has more flexibility for executions (we have 3 types of dependency available, time, workflow execution, or server readiness), a number of alteryx flows that check the dependency logic against the server information and execution history to mark jobs as ready or not, and at the moment around 20 computers that kick off the Python script every 10 minutes and run until there are no "ready" jobs left to execute.

all results are written to the database and displayed graphically in Tableau to show what is one the docket to run today, whether it has ran, waiting to run, in process, success/failure, etc.  along with graphs to display the overall process.  this allows a one stop shop to see the full status of everything we have scheduled (which is currently around 600 jobs daily and more to be added).

[revathi]

Interesting !!

1. Totally agree - we cant trigger execution based on data availability

2. In 2020.3 Server, there is an option to share the schedules through collection. https://help.alteryx.com/20203/server/share-schedules-and-results-collections 

Thanks for sharing! 

[JohnPelletier]

@JSNelson08 All of our Private Studio APIs are also accessible with user-based API Access key/secret credentials. We recommend that you use those for this use case. By using a user's private key/secret credentials, you ensure that the user's permissions are properly enforced, and if they belong to more than one collection, you should be able to call any workflows for which they have some permission. 

We have a slide deck available that explains what's planned for the removal of subscriptions and what the timeline is. Your SE should be able to present it to you if they've had it presented to them already. Please reach out to your sales engineer for more info, and have them reach out to product management for more details or to schedule a transfer of knowledge about it.

With regard to sharing "secret squirrel" assets...we have access to workflows, schedules and results shared within a collection. If you can enforce that only assets that are properly shared to collections are allowed to be promoted, you can avoid any single-management issues.

Your python job management script sounds cool. Did you need something from us to help with that?

I hope this helps.

[NicolasSz]

Hi all,

I fully agree with this idea and I am really keen to see it implemented. 

I've noted few ideas going into that direction. If we add up the likes thats 15 likes...

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Server-Ideas/API-for-collections/idi-p/479115

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Server-Ideas/More-Centralized-API-Key-Secret-Structure-For-... 

Thanks,

[CristonS]

Thanks for your idea! Our product team is working on including this feature into the product and you should see this available in an upcoming release! 

[Thableaus]

Upvoted. This is really needed by one of our clients so we can start using collections to move workflows from one place to another.

[Sumpfmaus]

Hi Alteryx Team,

is there any update when this feature will be available?

Regards

Robert

[JohnPelletier]

The Server v3 admin API is ready to go in our next release. There is a full suite of Collections management endpoints in there.