Alteryx Server Ideas

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.

each canvas in our environment goes through initial dev; then a testing phase; then into production usage after completing testing & peer review.

Currently the server environment has no concept of progression or promotion so we have to set up our own Dev; UAT; and Prod gallery & server - this really is very clunky because assets have to be manually copied across.

What would be more effective is:

- Allow a single asset to have a lifecycle (like you do in GIT) - so that it can go through dev and testing as a branch of the main code

- Once ready - user then changes the lifecycle type to "testing" or "UAT" and pushes it to users

- Once signed off, the user then promotes this to a production flow, and it replaces the current production version

There are a few areas where we'd need to do some thinking (dependancy tracking; branching; changing connection details as you promote so that you can hit the prod data stores etc) - but fundamentally this would go a VERY long way towards eliminating much of the admin involved in running the gallery.

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 

Hi there,

Currently, when we download a version of Alteryx - we need to download a very large number of binaries across many different download locations.    Once we get these in, they need to go through InfoSec audits; then be packed for deployment etc.     this creates a very large admin overhead in that folk need to check for updates across multiple binaries and also create a significant number of different installs which then need to be rolled out across hundreds of workstations.

The request would be to change the approach to downloads for enterprise customers:

- Admin logs into the download portal

- They then select the components which they need (Designer; predictive; CREW macros; Microsoft starter pack; Tableau starter pack; JIRA connector from the gallery; additional predictive tools from the gallery)

- this then becomes the defined selection set.

- When any of these items are updated - the admin is notified

- When they download - these are then all built into a single installer binary which we can then download and roll out to all our workstations.

Many thanks

Sean

cc: @dataMack @adrianloong

In order for us to manage the large number of canvasses on our server - we need to add the ability for Admin teams to require additional attributes on every canvas:

For us, these mandatory attributes would be:

- Which team do you belong to (dropdown)

- What business process does this serve (dropdown - multiselect)

- Primary & secondary canvas owner (validated kerberos)

For the ones that have dropdown lists - we can provide the master data into a drop location or into a manually configured list on the server.

Hello all,

Right now, we can choose either MongoDb or Microsoft SQL Server as a backend. I would suggest to add Postgresql. Why ?

-it's open-source
-it's reliable
-it's free
-it works well on many environments
-it's popular
-it's already used as backend for Tableau or Qlik and many others
-it respects SQL norm and doesn't have a lot of specificity

Best regards,

Simon

Given some jobs are scheduled / can take a while to run it would be useful if Server provided the option to notify the submitting user when it has been completed, which a link to the results.

If you look at post: Re: How do I extract Server Job Run ID at runtime - Alteryx Community amongs others you can see there have been various attempts to create workarounds for this using a combination of API's & Mongo DB calls to build up the information to provide a URL in an email at the end of the flow. However, it feels like this should be an out of the box notification that can be enabled/disabled at the flow level with Alteryx Server.

Improve Gallery scheduling to allow the end user to specify company denoted Holidays when scheduling a workflow. If the workflow is scheduled on a Holiday the schedule would not run. This should be configurable per workflow schedule. Example: A daily report Monday through Friday would be able to skip Holidays based off a Holiday exclusion list. 

Hi Server users,

It is amazing to know the permissions we have when accessing our own profile, but sometimes that is not enough. Knowing your server role is needed to perform a few tasks and it would be fantastic to have something simple like the example below.

Hi,

 We need a way to figure out at which tool alteryx workflow is currently at (i.e., workflow execution progress log) when the workflow is running on the alteryx server scheduler.

This is very useful especially if you have analytical workflows that take long time to run (say 4-6 hours) and at the moment there is NO WAY to figure out at which stage the execution is at from the scheduler.

We can't open the log file on the server as the workflow is IN PROGRESS (we get the standard The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process) . We can't see the underlying progress log under Scheduler Queue tab either.

It will be useful to capture that information in MongoDB or somewhere so that we can read the In progress log in the real time..

 Thanks,

Sandeep.

Alteryx Server Security is So Complex and it's not easy to understand, Our IT/ Information Security feel that the security is not up to the standard and it's confusing. Also as an Alteryx Gallery Administrator, it's not easy to add users or delete users, Manage Groups and Studios.

The Security structure for any tool is like User-->group--Capability/Functionality. 

All we are requesting is keep up to enterprise standards.

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.  

Hi

It will be great to make visibility of workflow execution results to other users in same subscription.

As of now, only schedules are visible to all users in a subscription, but not the workflow execution results executed by a user to other users in same subscription. 

This will avoid duplicate execution of same workflow by multiple user in a team as it will provide option to cross check the execution results by other users, if executed already, before execution of same workflow.

Regards

Haribabu Muppaneni

Hey there,

Below you can see few of my suggestion to improve Alteryx Server. 

Idea for Alteryx Server monitoring:

• Increase data what could be seen on workflow results.
• Possibly create a report with filter option (to filter by user, gallery, workflow and etc.), which would at least contain data like:
  • Successfully ran workflows, count, percentage.
  • Failure rates, counts and etc.
  • Live data for monitoring purposes.
  • etc.
• Possibility to connect to workflow results data (live data) with other tools like Tableau or Power BI to create dashboards and etc. to monitor and act on the error as soon as possible.
• Give a chance for other users to check on the workflow statuses and etc same like workflow owner.

Give server more functionality with:

• Ability for server automatically retry workflow based on configurations: in example:
  • retry flow in specific time (for example in 30 minutes)
  • number of possible retries
  • based on specific workflow (other) results ability to trigger to run another workflow
  • (Maybe there is a better way) ability to run macros which would for example open MS Excel, and run macro inside it. I have some of the workflows where workflow opens excel, runs macro inside, that macro triggers special Add In which connects to Essbase, it pulls the data, saves excel file, and then alteryx continues working with the file. So if such or similar workflows could be run on Server that would be awesome.
  • This is extremely exiting one: possibility to create environment for self-service users, which it would not be something like gallery (because gallery is more suitable for Alteryx Designers/users).
    • in that one environment admin could grant access for user and tick what specific user could see and run.
    • so for admin it would be one environment, and user would see only what is needed for him/her.
    • in that environment user would also be able to schedule self-service workflows to be received in example by email, or BOX drive or any other way. Scheduled workflow would have to be approved by an admin before it would be actually scheduled. 
  • I have not tried this one myself, but that would also be great if all alteryx server environment could be accessed by mobile devices (of course, some features would be limited).

 Hopefully you will find these suggestions interesting and useful. 

Regards,

Aurimas

As a Server 2018.4 admin, I need granular control of Server/Gallery defaults including:

1.) Pre-allocate AD users and groups (under Permissions) to specific Studios

2.) Control defaults for scheduling/priority/worker settings on Users

3.) Control defaults for workflow download/no-download at Gallery or Studio level

4.) Control defaults for notifications. Currently I have to check each notification template individually to disable it. Change template tile colors (or whatever) to provide visual queue as to which are enabled or disabled.

Above all, the tiled approach to displaying users, groups, studios simply isn't scalable. A simple data grid type display will allow higher information density allowing settings like: sharing, download ability, scheduling, credential type settings (studio default, artisan specified, runtime entered etc) to be easily reviewed. Basic server governance relies on easy visibility (reporting) of settings to ensure consistency...

Alteryx has the power (no pun intended), and Power BI has the visualizations.

But, why use two interfaces when you could use one?

A concept we started kicking around was embedding a PowerBI.com visualization into the Alteryx Gallery.

In theory this should work, but we're interested to hear if anyone else has tried it or has a best practice for embedding links into Gallery reports.

It should be possible to take the dashboard link:

Then, drop that into a text input tool to have it embedded in the output.

The idea is that certain dashboards would be linked to certain report results to allow an end user to drill into the output of the Gallery report specific to each result output, thus creating an interactive drill down in one interface.

Thoughts?  Ideas?

When sending an app to the Gallery, in the Asset Management window, it would be nice to have a "check all" and "check none" box.  

Hi there,

we are in a dynamic team where people move from 1 project to the other that implies moving series of workflows from private studio to collections prior to sharing. I have not found other ways but to do that 1 by 1 with very limited ways to filter the flows.

Could there be, from the collection, a way to 

 - increase number of possibilities to filters to find the proper flows (or maybe just simply allow folders in the Private studio)

 - be able to multi select the one to add / delete from / to the collection

thanks,

As Alteryx makes more and more use of the Public gallery - it would be valuable for Alteryx to explicitly have a section devoted to items that are certified by Alteryx so that we can be safe bringing them into our corporate env.

The assets created by Alteryx are currently listed with Alteryx as the author, however it would be useful to have a completely separate section with Alteryx assets only, and with these broken down by type.