Alteryx Server Ideas

Many people maintain valuable information in Excel files, and many organizations, like ours, also use SharePoint to store and share structured and unstructured information. We see most user-generated and maintained data in Excel files in SharePoint document libraries, and one of the great benefits of Alteryx is the ability to join that Excel data with other data sources.  Unfortunately, the v11.0 Scheduler cannot resolve the UNC-style ( \\server@ssl\DavWWWRoot\site-name\document-library\filename ) addresses, so workflows that access this valuable SharePoint Excel data must be run manually. The SharePoint List Input tool can read the list-style metadata for Document Library files, but does not access the file content.

The Scheduler should be enhanced so that scheduled workflows can read Excel data stored in SharePoint Document Libraries. 

Add Admin ability to place the Alteryx Service (Engine) into Maintenance mode allowing current workflows to complete, but all new workflow processing moved into Queue to allow for server configuration and/or maintenance.

Currently, if I want to make a small configuration change (like a memory setting in the Runtime settings) I have to hunt for a quiet window or the lowest level of activity to kill the service (and the running jobs).

It would be helpful to flip a 'switch' and have all new jobs go into 'Queue' allowing for the change and service stop/restart ... then pick right back up with the queue in configured order. (execution time, priority level, etc...)

It would be a very pleasing user experience if we could enjoy the Server usage with a true dark mode. The customization in the Theme-Panel isn't advanced enough to do it ourselves - unless we deep dive into the css-files. The CSS already has a good structure and the dark mode could be enable with just a few changes. 

Here is a comparison of my server in light and dark mode.

It's probably noticeable that I haven't studied Design, but it should give a rough suggestion how it could look.

Obviously not everyone wants a dark mode, therefore every user should have toggle in the user settings to switch between light and dark mode.

When restoring an Alteryx Gallery instance to a second box for test & dev it's highly likely that you don't want all your workflows scheduled from your production instance to run in your secondary instance.

However there doesn't currently seem to be a kill switch that you can implement up front to stop your scheduled workflows from running. The only way to disable scheduled workflows in your test gallery is to manually delete them all, which is annoying when you have hundreds.

It would be great to have a config flag to disable scheduled workflows before the service is started.

Submitting this idea based on the Case #00361430.
 

We are trying to do alteryx workflow chaining based on workflows available in alteryx gallery, but this option is not currently available in alteryx right now and we are raising this idea to enable this feature in upcoming release or existing version patches.

Currently couple of methods available; saving the workflow in network share drive and chain the alteryx workflow based on events or run another analytical app on success.

The disadvantage of these methods are,

1. We cannot have version history maintained for the workflows in network share drive.

2. We cannot able to run a specific workflow in chaining as the workflows are packaged together.

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

For whatever reason a schedule is disabled, whether a Studio expires, or for any other legitimate reason, a notification email should be sent to the Admin and the one that created the schedule in advance of it being disabled. When a scheduled workflow is not executed, it leaves us scrambling for answers. A sudden disablement of the schedule is disappointing to discover after all other stones have been turned. Notify us in advance of a schedule being disabled. 

Along with setting a schedule for an app in the gallery, the user should also be able to set the different interface values for each schedule he/she makes.

My main use case is regarding having generic templates for ETL processes, that have multiple different types of runs based on configuration values, but I'm sure there are plenty others.

Best,

dK

Hi, 

I think it would be extremely useful to be able to trigger an Alteryx workflow using Power Automate. 

The main benefit I see at the moment is automatically triggering an Alteryx workflow when the input data has been refreshed.

This would also enable a Power App to be added directly to Power Bi which can simply be clicked to re-run an Alteryx workflow then refresh the Power Bi dataset. 

It would be useful if the Admin of a Private Gallery (in house server) could delete studios and/or members.  Also, it's confusing that a member who's added also gets a Studio automatically set up.  Members (for my purposes) are only supposed to be able to run apps in collections that I grant them access to.  They should not get their own studio.  Even if they can't use the studio (or even know that they have a studio), it's not very efficient to have all these studios show up on the subscriptions screen.

Currently the e-mail settings for the server are set up using a wizard and are not available within the admin UI.

Please could you add an explicit section to the Admin UI to allow the admin team to set up approved SMTP settings, allowing this all to be managed in one admin console.

Further: Can you allow the admins to push these settings down to the desktop users.   This would allow the admin team to control the SMTP usage and prevent data leakage.   It would also reduce complexity for the user since the SMTP settings are all pre-set making eMail tools; and Events easier to set up.

As a server administrator, I would like to have more control over collections.  I have a user who is in charge of a collection out of office, and we have some users who need to get to be added to the collection to run workflows.  As admin of the server, I would like to be able to add users to this collection, modify permissions, modify workflows, etc.  This would be necessary both for when users are temporarily out of the office as well as if someone were to leave the company.

I was reading a post on the Community (http://community.alteryx.com/t5/Publishing-Gallery/Macro-sharing-Best-practice/m-p/38330) which reminded me of an idea that I had.

It would be really nice if a Gallery location could be used as a "Macro Search Path" so that macros don't need to be downloaded from the Gallery and saved locally to be used in a workflow.

So in addition to going to Options>User Settings>Edit User Settings>Macros and adding a local/network path, you could add your internal gallery information...

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.

Admin settings for the Alteryx server are currently split between the Admin GUI in the gallery (screenshot 1 below) and a tool called "Alteryx System Settings" (screenshot 2 below).

Please could you move all of the system settings into the Admin section of the GUI.   Not only will this allow an admin to administer the settings remotely (rather than having to be logged into the actual server with an interactive login which is needed now) - it will also consolidate them into one place which makes things easier for admins to ensure that all settings are set up correctly.

This could be done progressively - a little bit in every release - over the next couple of releases, it does not need to be done in a big reengineering or a massive big-bang release (in fact - progressive release is much more favourable since you learn along the way and big-bang releases are well known to be failure prone).

cc: @TanyaS 

The shared data connections from the Gallery have been very helpful in centralizing data connection information between desktop users and their workflows when saved to the Gallery. The In-DB tools currently cannot take advantage of the Gallery Data Connections and require a completely separate setup that is both confusing and adds additional connection management work for creation/password changes. 

It would be a great enhancement to Alteryx if all connections for the different types of tools could be centrally managed from the shared Data Connections manager found in the Gallery.

Best regards,

Ryan

This idea covers 2 things:

- Disabling certain tools for users

- Pushing out other tools

Disabling;

- If we want to disable a particular tool for everyone or for specific users - then we need to go to every single deployed machine and adjust settings or delete some DLLs.

- What we would need is to be able to take a user / group of users - and de-select certain tools or apply limits

- In our corporate environment - every designer needs to check in with the server before fully starting up.   If it cannot connect to the server, it needs to terminate gracefully

- As the designer logs in - the first negotiated conversation is "What tools and capabilities and standard default settings should I have"

Pushing Out:

- If a useful tool is brought into our environment (like the JIRA connector here: https://gallery.alteryx.com/#!app/JIRA-Connector/58d87c2feffc2a0dd0b5ed8f or the CREW macros) - we want to be able to push these out to all the users

- Again - every designer checks in with the server first

- Then negotiates tools

- then downloads any missing tools or updates new versions of existing tools.

This kind of central server capability is essential in any enterprise deployment of several hundred seats.

In the Alteryx Gallery Collections the Workflow Upload Date doesn't sort properly. Instead of sorting chronologically (ex: Jan first Dec last) it sorts by number (Dec goes before April because Dec starts with a 1 while April starts with a 4), see attached for an example. 

 it flips back and forth between 2022 and 2021

In the example November and December are first because the month starts with a 1. Then April follows because it starts with a 4.  Then it starts to get messy because it does this:

• 12/16/2021
• 4/04/2022
• 4/26/2021
• 5/02/2021

That 2022 is in the middle purely because 4 < 5, that's not right.

I tried exploring the settings to see if I could change this but I didn't find an option to do so.

Two potential solutions:

• Change the format of the date to YYYYMMDD, then if it sorts numerically it will still work
• Don't sort numerically and instead sort chronologically, ex: April goes before December

As collections get big sorting for the most recent workflow becomes a nightmare with the current improper sorting mechanism.

If I'm mistaken and this option already exists please let me know.

Thanks!

Chris

Hello, I would like improved user management features and/or training

• Display 100 does not seem to work consistently
• Click /navigate from user to user – once I select a user would like to go to next user
• Changes I make with filters refresh every time I go back – which means I have to constantly reset my view in between each user
• Modify user settings in collections – would like to modify user settings instead of delete and re add user