Alteryx Server Ideas

The workflow result window shows the Name/workflow, AMP, Priority, Assigned worker, Run as, Completed at, Runlenght, and Runtyp of the workflow. The following feature would also be useful on the page.

1. Showing the creation date of the workflow without taking queue time into consideration
2. The option to change the time zone would make it easier to analyze the logs
3. Detailed insight about the particular workflow results, such as average execution time, failure count, and success count with date filtering. 

From a security standpoint, it is important that all users are authenticated when accesing the Gallery on Alteryx Server and using local accounts.  There shgould be an option available to force user to the login page rather than the public Gallery.  Users going to the Alteryx server URL should be presented with the login page by default before being taken to the Gallery, rather than seeing the public Gallery and needing to click Sign-in in the upper right corner.

Hello!
I found a weird bug in my travels today.

The TL:DR is that when a date input tool within the interface tool is used within a collapsing radio button, it defaults to "dd/mm/yyyy", breaking any app when this is not filled out: 

Both values are default - i have not edited these values. The weirdest part is, this is Server/Private Gallery specific. When this workflow is downloaded and run within Designer:

And the workflow runs fine.

I have not tested this with any of the other interface tools, however I suspect this to not be the only tool this issue resides within.

I have attached the workflow I used (not that it would take long to recreate) for testing.

Hello,

Tableau has a nice Postman Collection available... it's really easy to use since you can download or forkt it on Postman and all you have to do is to write the variable values.

I would like the same thing but for Alteryx.

Best regards,

Simon

It would be nice to have workflow version information on the Workflow Results page for every running status.
The reason for that is after workflow was scheduled and then the published version has been changed, there is no way to follow versions.

We spent almost a full day on Friday internally, and also about 3 or 4 hours of time for 3 Alteryx Server engineers (thank you all - MattH; ZachH; WayeW) and Ben Burkholder trying to get our gallery server to start.

Error message was "

Failed to construct Gallery daemon process, process exited code <9002>

This was all that was provided in the server log files; the gallery log files; and the Windows Event Viewer.

In the end, it turned out that the issue was very simple - the MongoDB had open locks in place that needed to be deleted; and then the service came up immediately.

Several man-days of our effort; as well as the precious time of the Alteryx Engineers who gave up their Friday afternoon to help could have all been avoided if the error-message on the server failure said "Login failure on server due to open locks - please clean out locks on db.locks collection" with a link to the solution or a lookup code that be researched on the Alteryx support site.     

Please could we go through the server service and eliminate all the exit codes and replace with human-friendly error messages - that way we could allow this kind of issue to be self-diagnosed, and allow the Alteryx Engineers to spend their time building the next generation of Alteryx Server rather than diagnosing a table lock.

cc: @avinashbonu @revathi @Deeksha @BenBu @WayneWooldridge @MattH @SteveA @ZachH 

On the workflow results window, I'd like to see a column for "Start Time". If I have a workflow that is running, I'd like to know what time it started running so I have an idea on when it might finish.

I've been writing applications and regularly need to REQUIRE fields for data entry.  When I do, I include ERROR MESSAGES at minimum.  Often I label the field as something like:  Name (Required).  Wouldn't it be nice to have a red star or have the data field in another color for background?  Taking this a step further, the validation rules being activated within the screen (rather than during run) would be awesome.

As long as I'm posting ideas, it would be nice to have an Alteryx supported function to identify the user within the application global variables.  For users, it would make my apps more friendly if they could save their configuration (*.yxwv) in the gallery.  Extending that thought, within my application I would like to be able to have easy access to their responses as well.

My use case for access to the .yxwv file data is that I will repeat some of the fields back to the user within my output.  When needed I will write the responses to a text input tool and format it for display in the output.  That requires an additional action and maintenance within the application.

Just a few application thoughts.

Thanks,

Mark

The job timeout function is a perinate issue on the the Alteryx server because scheduling workflows on the server that overlap with another workflow can cause bottleneck issues. Depending on the number of workers and the other workflows, the workflow in question could fail to run or not complete running at the desired date and time. I recommend a view option of the Schedule Forecast feature for all users, so as to allow all users to effectively schedule workflows on the Alteryx server that do no conflict with other workflows. 

For scheduled jobs, there should be an option to include performance profiling in output logs globally.  Basically we are looking at how we can understand which custom macros are in use, and in which workflows, and one way to do this would be to get the output logs into another tool (i.e., splunk), and then set up some queries there.  It would work, but I would have to tell N developers to go set performance profiling on, re-upload their workflows, ect.  

But why not have a switch on server / gallery that just turns this feature on globally for every scheduled workflow?  

Thank you for attending my TED talk on why performance profiling should have an option to be set globally. 

Please support SAML 2.0 for gallery

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. 

As an enhancement to the gallery, I'd like to be able to save my application parameters in the gallery in a similar fashion to when I run an app locally.  Users can view the results of an application run, but can't save the parameters that created the run.  I'll go a step further than this and ask for another enhancement.  I'd like to be able to access the questions & responses within the execution of the app to display them during reporting.t

Use case:

For a list generation application, I need to present to the user the criteria applied during the selection process.

Input Address: 49015

Type of Vehicle: Chevy

Minimum Year: 2010

Maximum Year: 2015

I've got a working solution that is okay, but not very "Alteryx-easy".  I need to have a second update attached to the interface tool to update the user response.

Thanks for your consideration,

Mark

When rerunning a failed manual job, the same Priority is used, but the Optional Job Name is not and cannot be re-entered on submit.  User has to go to Workflow results page and Edit to add the Optional Job Name for a rerun.

I suggest the Optional Job Name text box be added to the rerun submit page.

Prefill using the original job's value if one exists.

Thanks,

MJ

Hello,

We use external corporate scheduler and we would like to start scheduling Alteryx workflows in this way. However, collections don't have API which would simplify our way of running workflows which we are shared by the users. Are you planning to enable such feature?

Best,

Piotr Zawistowski

It would be really useful to be able to obtain the user name of some one running an app in the Gallery. This could be used for instance in row level security for people running an app that produces a report and that data is considered sensitive

As we look at upgrading Alteryx Server - one of the challenges is that it's an all-or-nothing approach; and there doesn't seem to be a guided wizard approach to upgrading.

The upgrade process would be much less intimidating if we could create a Migration tool which can work across versions - similar to Microsoft SQL Server which has the.    This would allow us to:
- Migrate a subset of assets up or down versions

- Migrate across servers to do consolidation or to split loads into different servers for the purpose of segregation

- Progressively migrate over time to limit the risk.

cc: @JohnPelletier 

Although the connectivity to the eMail infrastructure is set up on the controller and worker nodes - there is no ability to set up automated alerting for errors on workflows from the server.

We would like to be able to set up the gallery as follows:

- Every job is owned by a user or a distribution list

- If that workflow throws an error or warning (this should be configurable on the server, whether warnings are included), then the author should be e-mailed with a link to the specific workflow and the error log.

This can be done in a round-about way, by running an error-reporting alteryx job after the fact - but this kind of alert needs to go out almost immediately given our dependance on Alteryx for specific SLAs.

cc: @avinashbonu ; @Deeksha ; @revathi

Currently the Gallery's Admin API is a bit light on functionality. It only works with data connections & workflows and not regular server admin functions. Endpoints I'd love to see, but not limited to, are:

• Create/modify/diable users
• Create/modify/delete subscriptions (including assigning users to subscriptions)
• Job status
• Add/modify/delete workflow schedules