Alteryx Server Ideas

It seems from my own experiences and other community posts (e.g. https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Server-Discussions/Scheduled-worklfow-not-picking-up-the-qu...) that when scheduling a workflow in the gallery, the gallery will run whatever version was most recently uploaded, regardless of which one has been labeled as "Published". Since naturally the intent is for the Published workflow to be the only version running, it would be nice (adnd would me much more logical and intuitive) for the scheduler to run that version.

It would be nice having the ability to alter the timeout of the file upload on Alteryx Analytic Apps uploading to the Gallery.  Having it restrained by time and not file size makes it so that users with poorer internet speeds will not even be able to upload moderate sized files.  

Is Alteryx looking at implementing some kind of feature to provide a preview of impacted objects (lineage view) & understand dataconnections' changes impact before it's implemented ?

Benefits:

• Help users understand the ramifications of any changes they make on other cards, DataFlows, or DataFusions.
• Search and explore data lineage.
• Easily find broken dataflows.
• Quickly determine the impact of dataconnection changes on the rest of your Site, Collections, Application etc.

DOMO has this well done in their platform, check it out rather than me explaining here..

Search for Data Lineage & Impact Analysis.

https://knowledge.domo.com/Connect/Managing_DataSets/Viewing_the_Impact_of_Changes_to_DataSets_-_BET...

Hi, our analytics team has dozens of workflows saved to Gallery and scheduled to refresh at regular intervals--or at least we did up until this weekend when the scheduled refreshed terminated for some unknown reason.  We currently have a team investigating the cause. 

The last run for the workflows took place between 10 PM on Friday 3/6 until 2 AM Saturday 3/7.  We didn't notice the refreshes getting terminated until start of business Monday morning.  Immediately our internal customers started asking us why things were out of date and we quickly found the issue and we're now going back and refreshing the data and re-initiating the scheduled refreshes.  However, some of our workflows can't be retroactively restated, so we'll just have a gap in the data from this point on. 

Needless to say, this is unfortunate for our org, so I'm trying to think of ways to avoid it in the future.  Having a notification set to send an e-mail when a workflow errs is helpful only if the workflow gets kicked off to run to begin with.  However, this will not help in cases when something has gone wrong to prevent the running of the workflow to begin with.

What I think we need is a system to auto-generate an e-mail to a person/group whenever a schedule is termed for any reason whether if it's by a person actively terming it, or for any other reason.  Just as you get a confirmation e-mail whenever you term an e-mail subscription, getting a confirmation whenever a scheduled refresh is ended, would be extremely useful.  

Thanks, Kurt

Hi Team,

     Just like the workflow upload API, could you please provide an API end-point for deleting the workflow,Job results and it's related information. In a scenario we might use gallery for one time execution of workflow, once the output was generated there is no point to have some workflows in the Gallery hence in this scenario the Delete API helps as a clean up activity on the Gallery to avoid the Junk/Unused information (Workflow/Job/Outputs). 

When looking at a Workflow in the Gallery there is no way to tell if it currently resides in a collection. As a suggestion, a good place to have this information would be in the header block of a workflow where the version information and number of times a workflow was run is stored.

In our private studios and in our home page we see our workflows in grid view by default and can toggle that to list view if we want. 

BUT we can only see our collections and the workflows in them in list view.

Please can you add the ability to view our collections in grid view?

In stead of having to create an event to notify me when workflows are failing, I would like to easily enable that option from gallery after scheduling a workflow.

Currently we have built-in authentication for Alteryx Server.
In that state, the Default user role of Gallery is set to "Artisan",
If you sign up to create a new user and log in,
It will be registered as "Viewer".

I want the default user to be valid even with the built-in authentication.

Situation:

As your analytics work grows - you find yourself using the power of Alteryx to create shared macros.    These act as an accelerator for a team because one team member can us a reusable solution created by another team member.   For example - many teams need to get data out of JIRA (or some other system) so you create a connector that everyone can use.

That's going well - and now you have 20 teams all publishing canvasses to your server (possibly 100s of canvasses running in production) which make use of your JIRA connector - all good so-far!

Problem:

BUT THEN - you discover an issue with the JIRA connector and you need to fix it and publish a new version!

It's at this point that you realise that the canvasses on your server which use your JIRA connector are NOT pointing to it, but they have made a copy and included this inside their canvas.   So when you fix the problem with the JIRA connector - no-one gets the fix!

This is because every application uploaded to the server is a yxzp file, which zips up a COPY of all the shared macros and uses this in an isolated way.

So - in order to get the new JIRA connector (with the defect repaired) used instead of the old one you now need to:

- Download EVERY canvas on your server

- Unpack them all to expose the sub-macros being used

- Inspect them to see if they are actually an instance of the JIRA Macro

- Make a list of the owner and application IDs

- reach out by e-mail or phone to every one of these folk to ask them to republish their Alteryx workflow with your new version of the JIRA connector.

Proposal:

Please can we revisit this - we really do need the power of shared macros - and we also need the ability to fix and manage these like a product over time.   This will have an impact on the engine (hence copying @AdamR_AYX ) 

Desired end-state:

- When you build a canvas using a shared macro - it doesn't store the macro itself, but rather a reference to the version on the server - unless you explicitly decide to break the connection and take a copy.

- When you check this canvas into the server - your application / yxzp does NOT include a copy of the shared macro - instead it has a reference link

- this means that Alteryx Server can now track which canvasses use this shared macro very simply

- When I fix this shared macro - I can then do an in-place update; or if the interface is not the same (i.e. different inputs or outputs) then this has to be a new version and the users will stay pointing to version 1.

This is how shared assets are managed in a micro-service world, which is the way that all of our architecture is going - and it seems important that we build this thinking into the Alteryx infrastructure too.

@AdamR_AYX ; @Treyson ; @SteveA @DerekK ; @BlytheE 

2019.4+ Server now prompts users to select an Encoding Type when downloading a csv on the gallery. Unfortunately there is no way to disable the prompt of which encoding option to utilize or an ability to select a system default. Please provide these server options as this is causing confusion across departments. 

.csv output

.yxdb output, csv format

(many users like the preview provided by yxdb but want excel download)

During development in Designer, when the workflow is configured to output to csv it already has the encoding configured, please provide the option to at least default this at output on the gallery:

.csv config

The only alternative at this time is to republish all workbooks configured to output .csv or .yxdb to be .xlsx. This is not ideal.

Note: Scheduled jobs are not affected - I tested a scheduled run and csv files were successfully written out to a file share on the server. Content format appears to not be impacted. 

Thanks!

It would be good to have these table headers sizable, so that it can be expanded to display complete Name (and other fields).

Hi Alteryx, 

Now, under the Job Tab, it is only show the status of running job.

Suggest to add one new page for showing the run history of each workflow/job.

1. Workflow name

2. Priority 

3. Assigned Worker

4. Start time

5. End time

6. Duration

7. State

8. Job Type (schedule or manual tracker)

9. Owner

10. Message ( e.g. error log)

Best regards,

Samuel

With Alteryx Server 2019.4, new users cannot create Collections by default. 

As Alteryx Server admin this causes much manual effort on my side, because I need to configure new users manually. 

Alteryx claims to be a tool for automatization and I do not see how this new feature fits into Alteryx's vision.

I wish that there were tools, which allow me to automatize the management of users on the Alteryx Server. 

With a growing number of users on the Alteryx Gallery, manual user management is not an option!

I wish there was a way to create custom roles on the Gallery and assign them to AD groups, similar to "Permissions".

Those custom roles could include the privilege to create Collections, schedule Jobs, etc.

I would also love, if there was a way to give granular access to the Data Connection menu to users. 

I have already addressed this topic to the Alteryx product manager in Q1 2019 and I hope this feature will be implemented in the future. 

Hi Alteryx,

The scale of the column width in Alteryx Gallery is fixed.

Sometime may not show the whole word of that column, it is very inconvenience.

Actually, not only in gallery but also in designer. Like the Manage Data Connections pop-up window. 

Even in 2019.4, the display problem hasn't been improved. 

Can Alteryx improve the UI of gallery and designer asap?

Best Regards,

Samuel To

Hi Alteryx,

When a staff leave the company, his/her AD account will be removed from the AD directory,

However, the user record is still exists in the Alteryx gallery. For example, still existing in the user list of data connection and the permission tab.

Can Alteryx provide the following features ?

1. Identify the user that do not exist in the AD directory anymore.

2. one button to remove all of the setting related to that user in the gallery.  

Best Regards,

Samuel

Currently if there is a password change, I have to download my workflows, update the password in the Tableau connector, and reupload the files. 

This would enable groups with a single sign on to ensure scheduled workflows are not interrupted. 

Are there any plans to add support for the Spatial Object, File Browse and Tree questions for the Gallery REST API?

I see via the Interface Viewer in Designer that the "answers"/values to these questions are just (messy) XML I realize the File Browse could be difficult because it would involve accommodating some type of BLOB data but the Spatial Object (one or more lat/lngs describing a point or shape) and the Tree questions seems to be fairly straightforward.

We currently get around the Spatial Object limitation by specifying a latitude and longitude (for a Point) in text boxes. For shapes (polygons) we just stuff the WKT (Well Known Text) representation of the polygon in a text box. This works fine but requires special handling on the workflow side. 

I have a chained app that is running on the gallery/server. When I run it, I see status changing from Processing to Running, but the window doesn't show a meaningful message as to which app is running. Is it possible to show that in the Browser window which reflects what stage is currently running in the Chained App? 

See snapshot of window below.

This would be super useful to monitor the progress of the chained app currently executing on the server.