Alteryx Server Ideas

One of the issues that we have with Alteryx jobs in prod (and also Tableau, coincidentally) is that often a canvas is built to serve a need at the time, but after a while it's no-longer needed but it continues to run and consume server resources.

Can we add the option to our server environment to request recertification that a particular job is still needed every X months.

This will achieve 2 useful purposes:

- if the job is no-longer needed then the user hits "No thank you" and it's then taken off the scheduler which reduces server loads

- Alternatively - the user may realize that this should have been handed over to a new team or owner, and they can then make this change based on the recertification prompt.

I'm pretty certain that this would help to manage the inevitable build-up that happens on server environments where jobs build up until the server starts thrashing and the admin team then need to go out to all the users to do this recert process manually.

CC:  @rijuthav; @jithinmony; @HengHe; @RajK; @ydmuley; @revathi; @Deeksha; @MPistone; @Ari_Fuller; @Arianna_Fuller; @JoshKushner; @samN; @avinashbonu; @Sunder_Sriram; @Rahul_Thakur; @Rahul_Singh

In regulated environments, like banks, there is a requirement to fully segment Alteryx Jobs so that people on either side of a Regulatory Wall cannot access each other's canvasses or results.

As an example:

- Public vs. private side in Broker/Dealer banks

- Compliance or HR or Finance need to be segmented from all other areas in most banks

What is needed here is for any canvasses belonging to each of these walled-off areas to be controlled so that they cannot be shared across the wall, and results cannot be viewed across these areas.   This also means that the Gallery Environment needs to be capable of being segmented fully within 1 installed environment.

CC: @rijuthav @jithinmony @HengHe @RajK @ydmuley @revathi @Deeksha @MPistone @Ari_Fuller @Arianna_Fuller @JoshKushner @samnelson @avinashbonu @Sunder_Sriram @Rahul_Thakur @Rahul_Singh

It would be helpful to have a central Logging tool for large & complex environments.

This would be useful to allow teams to have a central way of logging data transformation errors by error-type; severity; alteryx Canvas; etc.

Right now, there's a message tool, but this doesn't provide a way to create well structured central logging across a team; especially once deployed to a server environment.

CC: @rijuthav @jithinmony @HengHe @RajK @ydmuley @revathi @Deeksha @MPistone @Ari_Fuller @Arianna_Fuller @JoshKushner @samnelson @avinashbonu @Sunder_Sriram @Rahul_Thakur @Rahul_Singh

In order to migrate workflows from our UAT environment to a Production server environment, we are looking for an API capability to work with the server:

- Query canvasses by name or ID (to get a list of canvasses)

- Extract Canvas to a particular location (by ID)

- Upload canvas including dependancies (with parameters for team; collection; etc)

This would assist with automating the UAT to Prod process until Alteryx Promote can step into this gap.

CC: @rijuthav @jithinmony @HengHe @RajK @ydmuley @revathi @Deeksha @MPistone @Ari_Fuller @Arianna_Fuller @JoshKushner @samnelson @avinashbonu @Sunder_Sriram @Rahul_Thakur @Rahul_Singh 

Hi,

I've got an app in my company's gallery that I've updated 11 times, so in the gallery it says "version 11". I noticed when I click on that area, it brings up a window that shows all 11 of the apps I've uploaded over time, with options to make them the published version & to download. This confused me since each time I update the app I get a warning saying the app will be deleted, which is what I want.

So for this app, I have a 800MB file within it, which would mean that on my gallery server I have 11 versions of an app that each contain at a minimum 800MB of data. I've recently been told by support that this is as it's intended, and if I want to get rid of the all the different versions, I should deleted the app entirely and start anew. This of course would change the URL to the app, requiring the updating of documentation and redistribution of that documentation to over 100 users. And I lose the number of times the app has been run, which doesn't work for me.

My idea is to have another option in the window that shows all the different versions with the options to download, but this option would be to delete previous versions...COMPLETELY, knowing that the owner would no longer have the option to download the version or make it the published version. Having this would allow the owner to maintain the original app with the option of dropping previous versions that are really not wanted anymore.

Hi,

I have described my issue in the Community post here:

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Connect-Gallery/Version-Management-in-Gallery/m-p/120319#M3...

Is there a way to retrieve an exact date when new version of a workflow was uploaded to Gallery? I know it works when it is today, yesterday or couple days ago but after that you can only see "2 months ago" etc. in Creation Date, which is not sufficient for any version management.

Thank you

Alteryx Server does a pretty good job of tracking all the information you need in order to find out who ran a workflow at a given time, even if that workflow has been deleted from the Gallery.

However, if I need to identify what that workflow actually did on a specific date, and that version is no longer available on the Gallery, it gets really hard to track down.

There are some posts throughout the community on leveraging the MongoDB to try and reconstruct this, but in some cases the workflow is "Chunked" and becomes impossible for an end user to reconstruct.

I spoke to support about this recently and they suggested that by using the Scheduler, I could schedule the historical instance of the workflow and then "Really quickly" grab it when it was reconstructed from the temporary staging folder used by our Alteryx Server.  This has a few concerns, among them, finding a way to run this workflow so that the files can be created but it has no impact on tables, for instance if the given workflow drops a table as part of its execution.  Additionally, the only way to schedule with a different set of permissions in a 1-Worker environment is to change the default "Run Workflows As" to a different user, who also needs permission to access all files on the Alteryx Server.  This can also impact any other Scheduled or Gallery job that is executed while this recovery is underway, effectively causing downtime to do file recovery.

These restrictions are specific enough as to be impractical for most organizations using Alteryx Gallery/Server.

I think this could be solved by adding to the Scheduler an option along the lines of "Download a copy of the workflow", available to administrators. Ideally this copy could include some important metadata, like when that version of the workflow was uploaded, who uploaded it, and its ID/Version Number from the Gallery.

This would go a long way towards making it easier to Audit and respond to requests for historical information about Alteryx Workflows on the Server, and since the Alteryx Engine can already recreate these workflows, I think that a basic version of this feature could simply save out that temporary file, rather than executing it.

When saving a workflow to the Gallery, I would like an option on the Save window to save directly to a collection. This can be an existing collection, or would have the ability to create a new collection. The current process requires you to log into the Gallery after saving the workflow and move it to the appropriate collection.

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.

When an artisan moves positions (within or external) away from their current responsibilities, their collections and workflows should be able to be transferred via an administrator to another user.

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 All,

Is there any plan to create an automated way of publishing apps/workflows to the gallery. This has been a common painpoint for me on several different projects when I explain how manual of a process this is.

I'd imagine this could easily be solved by adding an additional API call to their library. Ideally, you'd be able to point the gallery to a shared folder with workflows you want to push (git repo functionality would even be better), and have it just move the .xml scripts to the server/mongoDB.

Best,

dK

So - one of the biggest challenges that we have with the MongoDB used by Alteryx Server is that we continually have issues with locking (where our admins have to go in and undo locks)

Additionally - the current implementation of MongoDB connectivity does not support full Kerberos authentication which means that we're on a non-compliant install (which in a large enterprise is an uncomfortable place).

Given that a very large amount of what the server does is transactional - it would make sense to have an option to use a large-scale SQL server instead of using Mongo.   For large enterprise customers, there must be flexibility to allow the databases that they have large supported instances of (my strong preference would be MS SQL 2016).

MS SQL natively supports XML so all the canvasses can be stored in native format.   Additionally, MS SQL allows very fast query across XML, and given the clustering and reporting capabilities in MS SQL, this would dramatically increase our ability to self-manage our infra.

Given that Alteryx is looking more and more at large Enterprise customers - a move to a large-scale clustered SQL env as the back-end would be a very positive move.

NOTE: as we consider DB options for a SQL backend - please consider your large-scale enterprise customers.   For example - MS SQL or Oracle or DB2 are all much more prevalent in enterprises than databases like Postgres - so it's important to focus on the enterprise support for the DB that you choose.

+ @Deeksha @avinashbonu @revathi @BenBu

Hi,

I have an existing app in my company's gallery. I updated the app in the gallery to not allow others to download. I just made changes to the desktop version of the app and saved it to the gallery, then went thru the steps of replacing my existing gallery app with the new version (this part I like). BUT, after updating the app, when I went back into the app settings, the option for others to download was checked again. To me, the app should inherit anything that was manually done to it in the gallery, like making it not downloadable. Is it possible to have this changed in a future release?

Thanks!

Use Cases:

1. As a server admin, planned PM outages should be scheduled.  These outages should prevent jobs from beginning execution (window of time) prior to the outage.  Jobs running at the time of the cut-off should be system-cancelled.  
2. As a server admin, unplanned outages should cause running jobs to stop.  At the conclusion of an outage, jobs that are system cancelled should be restarted.

Currently, we use Task Manager to control Alteryx Service (or command line).  An administrative function within Alteryx should support graceful stopping and starting of the service as user jobs are interrupted (or can be) by our activities.  While I currently post messages to users alerting them to admin activities, I am asked why Tableau can restart jobs (admin) and we can't.  Other admins have asked what is "hanging" alteryx service up for a STOP command.  I have explained that all jobs must be stopped in order for a quick restart of the service.  

We're using a single server today (this client) and plan to add workers to the configuration.   It would be helpful to know where work is running and be able to use admin functions across the servers.

Cheers,

Mark

Alteryx server should support certificate authentication internally within the app (i.e. to the internal MongoDB) rather than password based authentication? this is not User Authentication for Gallery and workflows but the Alteryx Application itself and how it authenticates against the MongoDB.  this would allow it to be installed in Very Secure environments that insist on stronger authentication methods.

Aliases are a really powerful tool, particularly when you have multiple environments (EG Test, Prod) and need a published workflow to work without any code changes (In particular in an IT or Release/Change Control model).  By configuring a system alias on your Test and Prod servers, code will dynamically point to the correct server.

However, aliases can be somewhat cumbersome if you have a lot of databases on a server, and those database names change by environment.  Effectively, you end up needing an alias for each Database, which runs into naming convention and standardization issues.

Having the ability to configure a "database value" or a "database alias" would do a lot to help this.  This could either be a file that would be attached (allowing for easy config changes without risk of modifying the underlying code structure) or a secondary tier of aliases, so that a connection string might go from:

aka:SQLSERVER (contains sqlserver and database information)

to:

aka:SQLSERVER||aka:database - so that at runtime Alteryx would evaluate the SQLSERVER alias and the database alias to create the correct connection string for that environment.

Why not?

1. How about having Alteryx Designer with Scheduler (may be hard to do on Server OS)
2. Alteryx Server/Gallery Setup for exercising Admin capabilities..
   
3. Having a Demo Alteryx Connect session capable to interact with multiple online users/testers
4. Alteryx Promote on CloudShare to try and test quick deployment before buying?

Alteryx designer has a 3 hour demo session on CloudShare but no Server, no Connect, no Promote!

 Looking forward to try and test before you buy? Than give me a "like" please...

When a user adds a canvas to the gallery - we need to be able to ask for a set of mandatory attributes on every canvas which are tied to meta-data.

So - in our world, these would be:

- Which business line does this belong to (pick from a list)

- What business process does this belong to (multi-select from a tree)

- Which part of the organization does this belong to (multi-select from an org tree).

- Who is the canvas owner as a developer; and as a Line-of-business owner (there are two different versions of the word "Owner" to us)

Every canvas that's booked into the gallery needs to have these fields added to the canvas so that we can inform the right person if a canvas fails, understand which part of our business is impacted, look at velocity & density analytics; etc.

This then requires a few pieces to be set up on the server up-front:

- Define your meta-data elements (tree; drop-down list; etc).   Admin will need to set this up in the beginning

- Define which meta-data elements are mandatory; and which are optional for every canvas.

- When these meta-data structures change - there needs to be a process that forces the owners to update them again.   For example if we change our org structure, that will invalidate some of the meta-data tagging on assets.

- If a user leaves the firm, owner information needs to be forced to be updated

Happy to talk this one through - for any large corporate env, tagging assets like this is super-critical, and this would need to be flexible because every org has a different set of tagging needs.

cc: @Deeksha @avinashbonu @revathi