Alteryx Server Ideas

We get a lot of comparisons with DataStage ETL and what Alteryx can do. DataStage has the capability to partition queries and run on multiple worker nodes to allow the execution to be more efficient and faster than if it ran on one worker. We want similar capability on Alteryx as our case study shows right now that Alteryx is 10X slower than a query ran on DataStage through the GRID.

Dearest colleageues and comrades (Romans, countrymen?):

Have you ever queued up your jobs only to have them block your regularly scheduled programming? Imagine a world where, assuming you had multiple worker nodes, you can direct and prioritise your jobs on your terms.

This is what I am suggesting.

I've recently worked with Alteryx support, and they turned me on to a QoS setting in Alteryx Server settings. Peep this like a marshmallow chick in hot pink: 

After learning from the great Server Master Kevin Powney (blessed be his name), I learnt that there are currently 3 'channels' that this QoS variable governs. 0 is the highest priority used for workflows. 4 is used for chained apps. 6 is used for gallery service requests.

This will not do.

Why? Well, for one: hello arcane/memorisation.

Secondly, where is my control? I'm a millenial dammit! Service me!

So, my idea, that I want you to vote so highly on as to save yourself any myself a lot of hassle, is to allow a custom QoS variable to be a traffic variable. And here's how it works:

• For each workflow/app, you can assign it whatever QoS/traffic variable you choose. 
• This allows the user the power to control which 'lane' is clogged in the queue.

Example time! [cheers, candy thrown]

In my current situation, we have some jobs that are network-intensive (database calls), and jobs that are processing-intensive (CPU hogs doing hard-core maths). 

The network-intensive jobs run on the weekends so that we have the data in the morning on Monday. The processing-intensive jobs need to finish, but suck up all the CPU power. For the last couple of weeks, we've unsuccessfully run these jobs over the weekend. The downside is that since we cannot control how traffic flows (and we only have the 0/4/6 options in QoS, of which these only fit in the 0 lane [breath, sorry]) the CPU-heavy jobs have blocked more critical network jobs.

If we had two paths, we could assign the CPU jobs to lane 1 and the network jobs to lane 0 and they can run in parallel. And then my boss is happy. We like happy bosses, right?

Vote this up! My boss is awesome!

Thanks for your ear,

Hail Caesar or something.

-Cedric

Hello Community:

I was looking in the notifications part of the Gallery Admin and saw a glaring ommission: The validation email was something about a code, but nothing about a workflow. "What?!" I interrogo-banged.Where is "Email when workflow is complete?"

I would like to move that Gallery include an option (at the workflow level and globally within a studio (perhaps beyond, I'm a newb to Gallery)) that a user can subscribe to an email notification if the workflow completes (or errors out). 

Where I'm currently working, we have some workflows that take, literally, in the twenty-plus hour range. Instead of having to check when it is complete, it would be really nice to get an email from Gallery saying: "Hi guys! [Workflow X] is done! YAY!"

I realise there's an email tool in the rendering, but that is... shall we say, complicated. In this case, we're using an R-tool, so all the downstream tools are blind to the metadata. Filtering records down to one so that only one email is sent at the end of the chain is... challenging (remember that 20-hour thing? Try developing on a 20+ hour cycle. It's like 1970 up in here!). And totally counterintuitive. I also feel new users will have issues configuring an email tool; it took me 3 months to get ours to work and it only works from our server. Plus, it's a kludgy workaround. 

I feel that this would probably be easy to implement and fits the sensibilities of Gallery. 

Vote this up, folks!

Cheers,

Cedric

When you create an App/Macro locally and give it a custom icon, that icon should follow the App/Macro when you load it into the Gallery.

It would be nice to have an inbuilt function(s) that return an identifier (NTLogin for instance when the gallery is setup with windows auth) of the user running the app on the gallery.

Functions like - USERNAME(), DOMAINNAME() etc., helps.

I know that it can be achieved via the "__cloud:UserId" call , which is not officially supported by alteryx. It adds value if it is inbuilt within the product itself.

Regards,

Sandeep.

Currently the only filtering available in the Results tab in View Schedules is by Workflow Name. It would be nice to be able to filter by Status, so we can just look for potential problems, like warnings or errors. Currently, I have a job that runs every 5 minutes. That means I have to scroll through hundreds of rows, or about 12 pages using the default 25 rows per page, just to scan for potential problems in the last 24 hours.

How about adding a CAPTCHA option for Alteryx Server?

That will block bruteforce attacks, bruteforce to crack or bruteforce to lock...

One needs to obtain a designer license in order to have a server license.

It may be a good idea to package those two don't you think, and now it's ok to install designer on a Server OS.

It would be awesome if you automatically have a virtual desktop environment to connect to...when you get a server license,

The following is a slide from Inspire 2016 and the client's are already doing this

1. For keeping the running workflows unaffected by docking undocking workstations

2. It also increases the performance by getting the designer closer to the data

3. It would also be safe to share company analytics capabilities with outsider without giving them direct access to downloadable data etc.

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?

It would be nice to be able to toggle between the Admin screens and the Gallery screens.  

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.  

I've created a few apps for our company's private gallery for users. These take a couple of minutes to process. Also, some of them have very long lists to choose from. If the user doesn't make all of the selections because they don't realize there are more questions at the bottom, the app fails--but, only after running through the long process time. It would be nice to have:

1) a pop up message that lets them know they haven't answered all the questions ("STOP! You've a few more questions at the bottom to answer before this app can run.")

2) a customizable pop up message once the app is ready to run. These users don't actually use Alteryx, and aren't necessarily tech savvy or patient. Something along the lines of "OK. Now, stand up, stretch, grab a cup of something warm and come back in a minute or two while your app is processing." would be very nice.

In the Private Server settings, you can "Run As", but it is all or nothing -- anything on Scheduler will "Run As" the user coded (or you can leave it as the default which is the machine).  It would be helpful if functionality existed like the Gallery - where you can dictate "Run As" for each individual module.

In the View Schedules screen, currently one must select the Controller at the beginning of each session before being able to see any workflows, schedules, queue or results. This is especially annoying when a company only has one controller and yet must select it each time. However, I would guess that even when an organization has multiple Controllers, each individual user is likely to spend most of their time in one.

It would help both of these situations if the most recently used controller is automatically selected when launching Alteryx Designer.

For a multi tenant Gallery environment it would be great if one could define a dedicated stylesheet / "them" per tenant. Currently, the Gallery allows for only one theme as to be defined in the general admin section of the gallery.

Idea:

Using a few designers and registering to the Alteryx Gallery are good fits for micro and small enterprises, from investment vs capability stantd point.

Alteryx Server is suitable for medium to large enterprises with at least 45K USD budget yearly and many alteryx users possibly more than 20...

Don't you think there is a need for something in between? I propose Alteryx mini-server (well we can find a better name hopefully :)

Rationale:

Many Alteryx clients seem to utilize Alteryx designer for ETL,

then some of them further enrich data and model forecasting or predictive modelling.

Before even considering a server they output to a BI server like

• Qlik server or
• Tabelau server or
• PowerBI

If there is a need for automation Alteryx designer + Scheduler does all the trick needed.

Once you update everything in a repetitive fachion 100s to 1000s of Qlik or Tableau users can reach to the most uptodate content and discover dashboards...

I believe we can do a similar thing with a mini server...

What to do:

When posting an app to the Gallery, if the app has, say, one PCXML output for the user to see, and one Excel file for the user to download, it would be helpful for to be able to specify which shows first to the user.  For example, I have a PCXML that gives the user summary tables, and instructions on how to go to the drop down above and select the second report, click on the Excel icon, and download it.  But if the Excel report shows up first, then there is no ability to give them instructions and many simply won't be savy enough to go find the PCXML in the drop down.

Currently the Private Gallery product has 2 authentication options - AD and built in. 

If an organization uses AD, this solution is fine, however there are many origanizations who use other standard directory systems. One of the more common directory/authentication systemsis LDAP due to its wide adoption and cross platform compatibility. 

It would be fantastic to have functionality similar to the AD integration, however with LDAP for Gallery authentication and user management. 

Best regards,

Ryan

Currently, many of our most useful apps in the gallery utilises blocked tools (download tool, R tool etc). Every deployment or even minor updates to these apps require emailing the Alteryx Curator account for exception requests. This process is quite cumbersome, although the need for it is understandable. However, given that not a single app from us was ever rejected (and we submitted dozens of requests) , it would be great to have a process in place to apply for a permanent whitelisted status. This would give trusted app authors the ability to deploy apps with blocked tools without emailing the Curator.