Server API to extract / submit workflows

[SeanAdams]

In order to migrate workflows from our UAT environment to a Production server environment, we are looking for an API capability to work with the server:

- Query canvasses by name or ID (to get a list of canvasses)

- Extract Canvas to a particular location (by ID)

- Upload canvas including dependancies (with parameters for team; collection; etc)

This would assist with automating the UAT to Prod process until Alteryx Promote can step into this gap.

CC: @rijuthav @jithinmony @HengHe @RajK @ydmuley @revathi @Deeksha @MPistone @Ari_Fuller @Arianna_Fuller @JoshKushner @samnelson @avinashbonu @Sunder_Sriram @Rahul_Thakur @Rahul_Singh 

[MattB]

Hi @SeanAdams , thanks for the idea!

When querying workflows by name or ID, are you referring to locally created Designer workflows that may reside on a number of PCs?

When extracting the workflow to a location, can you share a couple examples of location?

Thanks Sean for the continued feedback and sharing of ideas!

[SeanAdams]

Hi @MattB

The central theme here is that we're trying to reduce or automate much of the load on the server admin team during standard processes.

To your question - we have another idea out there which asks about further granularity in logging Designer workflows in the central server (e.g. adding the canvas name; username) - however this is specifically around how we can manage in the server env.

So - a few scenarios:

- Admin wants to see which canvasses on our server (which is configured to be our UAT box) are aged and need to either be promoted to prod or dumped from UAT env.   The simplest API query here would be to ask the UAT server to list all canvasses with a unique ID; with all the details like owner; date added; date last run etc.   More complex would be "please give me all these details for Canvas xxx" where xxx is the canvas ID

- User has confirmed that a particular canvas ID in UAT is good to promote to prod.   Our end desire would be to have an API call to "Promote canvas XXX to production", however we realise that this is still a while away on the roadmap.   First step would be "Extract canvas XX to \\severpath\ReadyToPromote\CanvasXX" folder, which will extract the full canvas plus dependancies

- Then the admin user would need to add this to the prod server - so the API call would be "Add canvas at \\serverpath\readyToPromote\CanvasXX to collection A; District B; with owner Kerberos C."

Hope this makes sense Matt - it may be that the Promote product gets to this point first, so we may not need to build out the API with this kind of capability - but that's the context.

CC:  @rijuthav; @jithinmony; @HengHe; @RajK; @ydmuley; @revathi; @Deeksha; @MPistone; @Ari_Fuller; @Arianna_Fuller; @JoshKushner; @samnelson; @samN; @avinashbonu; @Sunder_Sriram; @Rahul_Thakur; @Rahul_Singh

[revathi]

APIs to auto publish the canvases from dev to Prod environment is very much needed in an environment where the publication process is handled by an administrators team. 

This will also address a major risk highlighted by lot of users. 

As administrators, publication process from desktop application can be done by opening the canvas from Dev and then save as in prod gallery or by downloading the canvas from Dev, open canvas in desktop application and save as in prod gallery. 

In both the instances, administrators are able to view the credentials embedded within the canvas. Even if they are encrypted, as an admin with the access to the canvas one can reuse the canvas with the encrypted credentials for various purposes. 

With the APIs, above mentioned manual process of publication can be avoided and canvases can be migrated to production without any security concerns. 

API will also enable the firms to achieve SDLC compliance within their firm and help combine various aspects of governance process like ticketing, versioning, review, canvas comparison, approval, publication -all on one platform. 

[Loic]

it looks to me that some of the features requested in this thread are implemented here: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Server-Knowledge-Base/Migrating-Workflows/ta-p/335774

[SeanAdams]

Hey @Loic ,

Yes - some are available, and we're working through some challenges with the Publish API to get this working.  

One of the keys here is to make the publish process completely hands-free; so some areas that we're still talking through are:

• allow this publish to reversion the existing version rather than replacing it;
• able to do permissioning and scheduling by API

definitely some progress on this with some way still to go.

[KylieF]

Updating this idea's status back to Comments Requested, to be in line with past product updates.

[niravparikh]

We need to be able to automate Workflow/App migration where we want to migrate workflow from a specific server and a collection on that server to higher environment server under the corresponding collection. We need API to migrate workflows directly to a specific collection on the target server.

[CristonS]

This community post has evolved over time and has several different threads in it, however, we believe that with the creation of the promotion APIs back in early 2020 and the ability for the admin to assign the owner on the new environment and with the new APIs available in 21.4, we can say that this community idea is complete. If any other needs surface around promotion, a new post can be opened. We are planning other improvements to the promotion process in the future.