Collections Administration

[mcarrico]

As a server administrator, I would like to have more control over collections.  I have a user who is in charge of a collection out of office, and we have some users who need to get to be added to the collection to run workflows.  As admin of the server, I would like to be able to add users to this collection, modify permissions, modify workflows, etc.  This would be necessary both for when users are temporarily out of the office as well as if someone were to leave the company.

[rdoptis]

I support this! 

Additionally, a change ownership feature for collections and workflows would also be very helpful for system admins.

Best regards,

Ryan 

[patrick_digan]

+1

[FFFool]

+1

[FFFool]

@KoryC, While I have you here... If I give someone else access to my collection, is there any way to allow them to publish to it? If not, I want to tack that on to this. Thanks.

[KoryC]

Hey @FFFool - we do have that functionality available today, so long as the other user is in the same studio as you are. If you share a collection with another artisan in your studio, you'll see that there will be a checkbox next to their name in the list of users. Checking this box will make that user a "collection admin". Doing this provides that user the ability to manage both workflows in the collection, as well as users that it is shared with.

[FFFool]

@KoryC

When you say the user is in the same studio as I am, do you mean my private studio? We just got the gallery set up and each of the 4 of our team members has their own Private Studio. I see the check box you are referring to, but it is grayed out. Both me and the othre individual are listed as Curators. I do see in the settings where I can add my co-worker as a "Member" of my Private Studio, but that still did not unlock the grayed out check box, so I'm not sure I understand what you mean by the "same studio as you are". 

Our whole goal is to keep master copies of our workflows scheduled on our server in the gallery so that we have automated version history for when we make changes. I created a collection for our Invoicing Workflows of which I took care of most of the workflows. However, my coworker did one of them and saved the one he did to the gallery, but does not have my collections in his drop down when trying to add the workflow to collections. Hope that makes sense. Thanks for the help. 

[mcarrico]

@FFFool - We have run into these same issues on our end with Collections.  My understanding is that you have to share the same Private Studio with the collection admin in order to contribute to the same collection.  We have decided that this does not fit our needs as we have multiple collections with multiple potential contributors.  Furthermore, we want each of our users to have their own Private Studio for developing user-specific workflows.  

@KoryC - If I am mistaken on any of the above, please let me know.  I have discussed this with some of our Alteryx representatives, but I would really love to see an environment where each user can maintain their own Private Studio, and the collection admin has the ability to add other admins, artisans, etc. to a collection without shifting Private Studios.  I think that this would really open up the potential for sharing and collaboration.  In our company, we have a large number of analysts who flow between teams and contribute to multiple areas of the business, and the ability to allow them to seamlessly upload to a number of collections would be huge.  I realize this is easier said than done, but I really think it would elevate the Gallery functionality.  

[KoryC]

Hey @mcarrico & @FFFool - correct for both - there is a requirement that in order to make another artisan an admin of a collection, that artisan must be in the same private studio as you are.

This is also something we want to improve in the future (though not currently in development) - the ability to more easily share, collaborate, and perhaps most importantly, administrate workflows and access to those workflows.

[patrick_mcauliffe]

@KoryC I understand the requirement that the admin and artisan be in the same private studio; but that's a very impractical approach to administration.

The use case here is that I have several different teams made up of between two and eight designers.  Each designer team is together responsible for reporting and data to five or more different groups of field teams.  Each field team cannot have access to one anothers reporting collection.

Within each of those field teams, there may be one or two supervisors that need a confidential app specific to their role.

Occasionally, a designer may need to create a one-off collection or single workflow that is private from their own team and shared with one or two field personnel.

So, under the current process I would have to keep at least one part time staff member available around the clock to swap out private studio keys constantly as apps are published, updated, or modified and as designers need to switch back and forth from one of many private collections or their own personal collection.

Allowing fast and easy administration for an organizational structure like this would really grow the use of Alteryx for us.  Right now its holding us back from setting up more users with access.  None of us have time to be a full time admin just to keep users permissions in movement.

One potential solution to explore would be a hierarchy of admins.

For example: I am the admin for the overall Gallery.  I set up the managers of each team of designers as an admin of their own group.  They can add and remove permissions as it relates only to their teams.  Their team can also modify permissions as it relates to the field personnel they provide data to.

Right now, we would all have to be admins for the entire Gallery, leaving no oversight at all.  Or, it would all have to fall on one person.