Alteryx Server Ideas

As Alteryx leans more into the Data Science space - it becomes more important to be able to keep rich documentation of the project along with the Alteryx Asset.    This does also require the concept of a "project" on the alteryx server, which would allow for meta-tags; and various different documents to be added with the project.

This would include things like Requirement documents; test evidence; test data sets etc.

This would extend Alteryx from a data prep engine to more of a data-science workbench as different user groups can participate in a specific project.

Please Enable OAuth 2.0/OpenID Support for Alteryx Server  & Connect. Currently, it supports only AD , SAML . 

Current SAML has limitations, Unable to import Security groups from LDAP/AD if SAML is enabled.  

When opening a canvas - it is possible to open from the gallery, which is important in a team environment.

However - as you work on this canvas - if you hit save, it does not save a new version to the server and increment the original (as would happen on sharepoint) - instead it asks you to create a new file.    

Please can you change this behaviour as follows:

- If I open from the gallery then when I save I'm updating the same Gallery asset and incrementing the version ID by 1.

- The only time I would save in a new file is if I use Save As; and explicitly pick a new file.

 cc: @jalvarezv

Today in managing Alteryx server, we manually configure new connections using the front end.  However, this has some potential drawbacks as it makes it hard to easily track change history, or make bulk updates to multiple strings, and it also leaves room for user error on configuration.

In this case I'm pretty specifically looking to modify aliases on the server itself.  I'm not particularly concerned with distribution to a wider audience, and the usernames/passwords associated in this case should not be available for use locally by users.  As a part of this, I am trying to identify a method to reduce or eliminate the need for anyone (including the data connection manager) to need to know the password for the specified accounts.  As some of these accounts may be used by multiple systems, it would be significantly simpler to integrate this maintenance into existing automated processes, rather than have a manual step to update the Alteryx connection values on the Gallery.

This is specifically a challenge today with regards to specific usernames or passwords which need to be stored.  Alteryx saves these values using machine-level encryption, but that is difficult to generate automatically.  Having a supported method that would easily allow creation of this file with password-level information would greatly improve maintenance of the Alteryx Server, particularly from an IT automation perspective.

We've confirmed with @KevinP that the Alteryx Gallery / Server API does not currently support downloading canvasses in unzipped data-stream format. (https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Server-Discussions/Server-API-Download-packages-for-surveil...)

Please can we add an API end-point that allows the following:

• Connect to the gallery and download a canvas; along with all of its sub-canvasses and helper macros. 
• Format required:
  • Plain XML (not zipped)
  • Provided in a data stream so that we can perform analytics and surveillance on this data
  • Fields required
    
    • Canvas filename
    • Application ID
    • Some unique ID per macro / sub-macro
    • XML for the canvas
    • Last run date
    • Last changed date
    • Environment (this is important once Server actually allows a Dev; UAT; Prod progression cycle - so we can see which environment people are in)
    • User details who uploaded
    • User details who are marked as the owners
    • Any other meta-tags on the canvas (important once server allows for meta-tagging of canvasses for categorisation)

Current API only allows this to be downloaded to a zipped file; which then needs to be unzipped; and then loaded back into a data stream.

Thank you

S

CC: @revathi @AshwiniChezhiyan @LizaNemchynova 

Hello,

This issue relates to an inability to input data from a database where access to only certain columns is permitted. This is due to PII data being present in the data.

I am trying to pull data from one table at a time using the standard ‘Input Data’ tool. 

As I do not have table level access I am explicitly specifying the column names and not using a wildcard. Please see the example below, query highlighted in yellow and the returned error in red. You will see the error message returned from Alteryx suggests a * wildcard has been used despite specifying the exact fields to pull.

Several of the Ford GDIA team and Ford HPC team have reviewed this with me and cannot assist. The HPC team believe it is a bug in Alteryx which has been reported by other users internally, that is ‘Select *’ commands being sent from Alteryx despite specific columns being outlined in the query to the data lake. As we only have access to specific fields within Ranger (due to PII data) the select * fails and returns an error.

I can confirm my ODBC connections are all set correctly as I can pull from certain tables where I have full table level access but not others. Access rights are all in place as I can use the same query on Ambari without issue.

Thank you for any assistance you can provide,

Michael Higgins

Example Query

Select STATION_ID, STATION_DESC from dsc60082_qlscm_tz_db.qlsc_station limit 10

Info: Input Data (3): ODBC Driver version: 03.80

Error: Input Data (3): Error SQLPrepare: [Hortonworks][Hardy] (97) Error occurred while trying to get table schema from server. Error: [Hortonworks][Hardy] (80) Syntax or semantic analysis error thrown in server while executing query. Error message from server: Error while compiling statement: FAILED: HiveAccessControlException Permission denied: user [mhiggi37] does not have [SELECT] privilege on [dsc60082_qlscm_tz_db/qlsc_station/*]

---

Hi Michael,

I believe it would require turning off the queries we currently run to retrieve metadata and retrieving metadata only for the columns selected in the query.

Please submit to our Idea Center for consideration.  Thanks!

--
Angela Ogle | Customer Support Engineer

One of our biggest areas of confusion for new users of our Gallery is the Download button. They often click it thinking that will give them their information right away. It would be great if the person didn't see that or the scheduler option if they were not an Artisan, since they can't use the workflow anyway. It would be even better if selecting the workflow took them straight into the question portion.

Hello,

Currently a workflow sends notifications when is configured to do so (by adding an event in Designer).

I think that there should be an option to add a notification event for a schedule. It makes more sense because:

- I don't need notifications when I run a workflow by myself. I need it for schedules

- Turning on/off a notification is technically a development - it should be a configuration.

Thanks,

Piotr

When building a complicated or resource heavy workflow, it would really useful to be able to have menu option upon right-clicking a tool output to add all the downstream steps to a container.  With that one option, a user could then

• Pause all the down line tools while troubleshooting or adding and testing an upstream set of tools without having to wait for the remainder of the workflow to play out.
• Move the entire set of down line tools to make room for more tools upstream.

Currently 'Schedules' are a separate category in the navigation bar on the left, and while it is nice to have an overview of all my workflows/apps, most of the time I need that information in the Private Studio screen where I'm checking in on the run status and getting ready to schedule the job again.

Additionally, Designer disables the schedule whenever it saves the workflow/app back to the Server. This is not always the desired intent when we make a small change to the workflow/app. Having an option to disable a current schedule would be better, with the default to keep the current schedule. Also, the abilty to manage the schedule from the Private Studio to say 'Activate' a disabled schedule, or schedule the workflow/app multiple times with different inputs would all be good.