Collaborative workflow editing, tracking and version control

[TomWelgemoed]

This idea has been touted in different flavours over the years (but not implemented), but I'd like to push it a little further:

1. Create the ability to collaboratively edit an Alteryx workflow - e.g. like you can edit Microsoft documents collaboratively. If the front-end is primarily an XML interface, this should in theory be possible?

2. Version control (not version tracking) - i.e. automatically state the differences in scripts between versions and allow for checking in and checking out of code

3. Power BI & Tableau Prep have the ability to see exactly what changes were made and to reverse steps to get back to a specific stage of development: it would be great to have a panel that tracks all the edits you've made since you started editing the workflow

In simple terms, a modern, interactive way for multiple developers to work together, but also to encourage the use of Server to "check in" your application and to avoid developers saving the same file over & over again locally.

[KylieF]

Thank you for your feedback and idea!

While there are a few versions of this idea floating around, we appreciate all the feedback and new additions we get and this idea is different enough to not be considered a duplicate. Be sure to share this idea as well with any other users you think would benefit as we always appreciate seeing just how much impact an idea may have on users.

[TomWelgemoed]

Thanks for the feedback @KylieF . That's great to hear. Any tips for the best way to get the community to vote for this?

[KylieF]

Hi @TomWelgemoed !

The best way to get votes would be to share this with other users that might be interested. There also will be users who find their way here either through our search or by looking to submit a similar idea who can then share with those they know. 

[steven4320555]

This is a very useful feature, and will be good to see. As many workflows are developed iteratively and may be co-created by a small team. 

The modern track-change features in PowerBI and Tableau Prep are strongly desired in Alteryx! Hope Alteryx can make collaborating and sharing more effective, and more functional. 

I feel Alteryx has some debt to pay in this area 😉

[TomWelgemoed]

Thanks for the support @steven4320555 ! I agree that collaboration & sharing needs to be much more effective in the future. A bit of debt to pay indeed 😉 .

[Joe_Lipski]

Completely agree on all of this Tom! 

There's the hidden/not-very-well-known workflow comparison feature in Designer, so like you say should be possible with Server

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Knowledge-Base/Visually-Compare-Workflow-Versions/...

[TomWelgemoed]

Many thanks @Joe_Lipski ! Didn't know about this - comparison feature, so it's a handy tip indeed. Ideally it will of course just be baked into the tool/server as per this idea with more controls etc., but great to be aware of this.

[cgoodman3]

Great idea.

I have been thinking about having an ability to commit code to a git repo and load that into designer, as that would give you the ability to document changes.

Live collaboration in Designer I think would be currently difficult as it sits on local machines, so you would likely need a SaaS solution to get edit like in google docs. But I think proper versioning and change logs would be really helpful, especially those who work in roles where sox compliance is important.

[JohnPelletier]

Folks, thanks for the feedback. Server doesn't really have much awareness right now of the XML of any workflow, but Designer does. Would this be requested as a Designer feature to be able to diff versions?

Would a git integration, where you get the power of git's version control be the right direction? If not, why not?

[TomWelgemoed]

Thanks @JohnPelletier for the feedback/comment. 

I think the key emphasis should be the ability to collaboratively work on an Alteryx workflow. GIT integration-like functionality would be more than fine as long as other designers could pick up the latest checked-in version etc. Think to get Alteryx to be "enterprise-ready", this is a must-have. 

The question I would have is how this GIT-integration feature would be accessed and then how you would manage deployment to the server. Questions for the dev team no doubt!

Best,

Tom