Alteryx Server Ideas

Good Day.

We would like a built-in process that would search or, and resolve, workflows that are stuck in the "initializing" state. These seem to happen for various reasons but communication problems between the controller and workers .. usually a socket timeout.. which appears  to be most problematic. It seems  that these type of errors should be expected in all but the most stable environments,

Currently, the only tool that we have to solve this problem is to restart the Alteryx Service on the controller and while this works there tendency to cause some collateral damage in workflows ...erroring or restarting from their beginning.

There may be a way to solve this without restarting the service by editing Mongo using a tool like Robo 3T but that is unproven and has its own risk.

After dealing with this issue and struggling for quiet some time we think that the best option is to implement a "clean up" DB process that will run every 5 min or so, capture a list of workflows in the "initializing" state , then compare that list to one in the next 5 min cycle and fix any workflows that appear in both lists. We think that returning  any stuck workflows to the queued state would be the best Fix  option.

We just don't want to continue to use Restart the Service process to solve this issue and accept the collateral damage.

Thank you for your consideration

Tom D  

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.

It might be helpful to be able to use an API to call and pass parameters to/from an Alteryx App or Workflow on an Alteryx Server.  Then a user could use a  browser or another application to call an Alteryx app/workflow.

A better process Needed for Alteryx Backup and restore.

1. Why do we have to stop the service to do a backup,? We cannot stop a service in Enterprise platform just to do a backup.  we are not able to take backups because our jobs will be running 24X7 We Run jobs on Alteryx Server,
2. All of a Sudden our Windows server crashed and we lost all the data, The backup we have of Mongo DB was not perfectly restored on the new server which breaks the workflow, connections etc  due to encryption....
3. what is the purpose of backup if we cannot restore on a new server in case of DR

Please fix it ASAP,

Our team is still fairly new to the Gallery, so if there's something existing that I'm missing, I'd be glad to hear it.

I recently found the following thread : http://community.alteryx.com/t5/Publishing-Gallery/Get-App-User-name-at-Run-TIme/m-p/775/highlight/t...

Which included a text box input with a title of "_cloud:UserID".  I was able to use this to pull in things such as the users login information, email address, etc.

I would like to be able to use a function similar to this in order to generate user-specific usage reports, or dynamically update a "Send Email" tool with the email of the running user.

However, when I inquired about this "_cloud:UserID" API call, I was told that it is an undocumented and unsupported call.

Ideally, I'd like an application/macro tool that does something similar - which takes the user's credentials automatically from the gallery and runs the Application based on those credentials.  This could modify Emails or filter the output of the Workflow.  I'm sure there are other use cases as well.  I think having an officially supported tool to manage this would allow for a wide variety of dynamic applications on the gallery.

after run workflow in server, it has to download output files one by one. it very annoying when the number is huge.

please change like other platform like SharePoint etc. enable select all options and/or download all options.

Alteryx has its own version control built in - however in large Enterprise environments there is a requirement to be able to use the version control platform that already exists.

In other words - when you install the server - you are asked:

Do you want to use Alteryx for version control, or your own SVN; GIT or a 4th custom option based on API integration (i.e. build this yourself based on a defined API).

This is very important to ensure that enterprise assets are maintained under the regimen of control that our Infosec & Auditors need, and the investment in making sure that Version Control contains all the right discipline; governance; etc - is all done in the enterprise Version Control platform.

Can we please extend Alteryx to have this flexibility so that we can cater to large Enterprise customers, and also anyone else who has a strict governance & change control requirement with existing infrastructure already in place?

If this is built as an independant layer and separated out from the core server slightly - it will be possibly to flexibly add other VC systems later (or provide companies with the ability to build their own).

Thank you

Sean

+ @Deeksha @BenBu @avinashbonu @revathi

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.

Currently, only users themselves are able to setup the default worker tag in their My Profile page. To ensure efficient management of worker nodes, Server Admins or Curators should be allowed to set the default worker tags of gallery users, preferably in bulk. This will help avoid workflows to be executed using the wrong worker node.

Hi,

The schedules page on server needs an overhaul.  Sorry to be so blunt but it is awful.  It is by far the worst aspect of Alteryx and one of the most important at the same time.

Here are a few points about it...

1.) Sorting needs to be fixed as it doesn't work correctly (sorting on the first column, "Workflow", returns items that start with 'L', 'S' and a zero as the first three on the list), so looking for 1 scheduled item across 10+ pages of schedules becomes a "needle in a haystack" endeavor.

2.) There are no search and/or filter capabilities which would help alleviate the pain-point mentioned above.

3.) [Missing] items automatically removed from schedule when the workflow is removed from the server.  It just jumbles up the screen with useless information.

4.) The 'Schedule' column doesn't need to reflect the name again like the 'Workflow' column. is a hyperlink and the other isnt.  I cant tell you how many times I have clicked on the wrong hyperlink only to have to go back and deal with point #1 all over again.  Can't it just be a simple calendar icon or something like that next to the Workflow name?

5.) While not as critical, but more of a 'nice to have' function.  An ability to export the list of schedules would be helpful.  If we ever need to divy up work for an employee that leaves the company it would be a good way to see all of the work they have out there and mark up the list to distribute info for reassignment purposes, etc. 

I am sure there are other aspects I am missing, but here are the most important ones to me as an end-user (Not an Admin)

Thanks for listening.  🙂

Allow LDAP COnfiguration on Alteryx Server ,Right now its only AD ,but LDAP will be for for SSO ,SAML . 

The default view at gallery home page time will not support long titles for your workflows.  I have several that get cut off with . . . . . and you need to hover over in order to get the full title.  You can select a list view, which helps, and gives you more metadata, but you have no mechanism to save your table / list view as a default.  Administrators should have the option to define a default view (tabular / list) and have it default that way for everyone who gets there, authenticated or not. 

If you goto a private studio, you get the list view option.  If you go to a collection, you get the list view option. If you goto a district, you don't get a list / table option set, just table set.  Why? 

There does not seem to be a way to set a (list of) favorite(s), even as an administrator.  There should be a quick-hit button option to get you there, add it to a favorites collection, something.  It seems like we went a long way to generate three different builds of ways to organize workflows, but left out the one that is most universal in similar tools.  'My favorites'.  

The search criteria for adding a workflow to a collection *mandates* that you have a space, but doesn't tell you that is why you are not getting any hits; i.e., 'Water' and 'Water ' will give you 'no results found', or anything with water in the title respectively.  Ugh.  

We have a lot of Alteryx users that generate their workflows in Private Studios and set them up as scheduled Workflows, but the assigned Workers/job tags in Private Studio aren't carrying over to the scheduled workflow, which has to be updated by someone with higher access.  This is creating a time consuming task for our administrator who have to update these scheduled workflows to make sure our unassigned Worker node isn't overloaded.