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Alteryx Server Ideas

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I would like to be able to view all schedule results from all users in my Gallery.  Currently, I can see the "Workflow Results" for any schedules I create.  But I cannot see them for users unless they share them.  As admin, I want an option on the Gallery Admin screen just like there is on the Gallery user screen to see "Workflow Results" for every schedule that is in the Scheduler Database, regardless of who the user shared it with.

 

Currently, the only way to accomplish this is to go to Designer, View Schedules, connect to the Controller, and go to the Results tab.  This should be built into the Admin screen in the Gallery.

Situation:

As your analytics work grows - you find yourself using the power of Alteryx to create shared macros.    These act as an accelerator for a team because one team member can us a reusable solution created by another team member.   For example - many teams need to get data out of JIRA (or some other system) so you create a connector that everyone can use.

 

That's going well - and now you have 20 teams all publishing canvasses to your server (possibly 100s of canvasses running in production) which make use of your JIRA connector - all good so-far!

 

Problem:

BUT THEN - you discover an issue with the JIRA connector and you need to fix it and publish a new version!

 

It's at this point that you realise that the canvasses on your server which use your JIRA connector are NOT pointing to it, but they have made a copy and included this inside their canvas.   So when you fix the problem with the JIRA connector - no-one gets the fix!

 

This is because every application uploaded to the server is a yxzp file, which zips up a COPY of all the shared macros and uses this in an isolated way.

So - in order to get the new JIRA connector (with the defect repaired) used instead of the old one you now need to:

- Download EVERY canvas on your server

- Unpack them all to expose the sub-macros being used

- Inspect them to see if they are actually an instance of the JIRA Macro

- Make a list of the owner and application IDs

- reach out by e-mail or phone to every one of these folk to ask them to republish their Alteryx workflow with your new version of the JIRA connector.

 

 

Proposal:

Please can we revisit this - we really do need the power of shared macros - and we also need the ability to fix and manage these like a product over time.   This will have an impact on the engine (hence copying @AdamR_AYX ) 

 

Desired end-state:

- When you build a canvas using a shared macro - it doesn't store the macro itself, but rather a reference to the version on the server - unless you explicitly decide to break the connection and take a copy.

- When you check this canvas into the server - your application / yxzp does NOT include a copy of the shared macro - instead it has a reference link

- this means that Alteryx Server can now track which canvasses use this shared macro very simply

- When I fix this shared macro - I can then do an in-place update; or if the interface is not the same (i.e. different inputs or outputs) then this has to be a new version and the users will stay pointing to version 1.

 

This is how shared assets are managed in a micro-service world, which is the way that all of our architecture is going - and it seems important that we build this thinking into the Alteryx infrastructure too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

@AdamR_AYX ; @Treyson ; @SteveA @DerekK ; @BlytheE 

This idea has been touted in different flavours over the years (but not implemented), but I'd like to push it a little further:

 

1. Create the ability to collaboratively edit an Alteryx workflow - e.g. like you can edit Microsoft documents collaboratively. If the front-end is primarily an XML interface, this should in theory be possible?

2. Version control (not version tracking) - i.e. automatically state the differences in scripts between versions and allow for checking in and checking out of code

3. Power BI & Tableau Prep have the ability to see exactly what changes were made and to reverse steps to get back to a specific stage of development: it would be great to have a panel that tracks all the edits you've made since you started editing the workflow

 

In simple terms, a modern, interactive way for multiple developers to work together, but also to encourage the use of Server to "check in" your application and to avoid developers saving the same file over & over again locally.

There is no good way to get server user credentials into a workflow without asking them for it in an App interface.  It would be great if we could have a built in Constant that could be used to silently pass user credentials into a workflow for things like API's or logging user information.

We noticed that the Alteryx sessions are tab oriented and not browser oriented. When opening a new tab the user is compeled to sign in again.
We would like to have an option to make the sessions more browser oriented like a "keep me signed".
Ex:
- Opening a new tab
- Going to the gallery through a published app link

It would be good to have a new field with the owner of the data connection, when users asks to be part of a data connection, we should know who is the identified owner to contact and ask for approval.

Thanks.

 

Regards

Joana Santos

We have several clients that operate in a Multi-Forest environment due to mergers and acquisitions.  Currently with Alteryx Server the only option we can offer them is to use Built-In authentication.  A lot of corporate and particularly finance institutions prefer a single sign on approach and utilise Windows authentication to do this.

 

Would it be possible to add support for Multi-Forest organisations into Server to support organisations going through mergers and acquisitions?

 

This would really benefit us in selling Server in to organisations with complex structures and reduce friction in publishing or preparing workflows.

A nice to have is a connector for Microsoft Flow to trigger workflows.  With Microsoft Flow, users can automate processes, or set conditions that can trigger services across many different providers.  

 

Having the ability to use a Microsoft Flow can enable alteryx users to run workflows and feed in data that could be used by Microsoft Flow to feed into other processes. 

 

This would be a game changer for many users.

 

 

If two users sit in the same studio and have multiple scheduled workflows in that studio, both users can see the results of those schedules under "Workflow Results" -> "My Jobs"/"Jobs Shared with Me" 

 

It gives both users in the studio good visibility of all the workflow results they have access to.

 

Now if we move to a 1 studio-1 user environment and share workflows and schedules via collections, this "Workflow Results" -> "Jobs Shared with Me" functionality is empty. Instead users have to go to each schedule individually to see the results from them there. 

 

So if you're in a 1 studio-many users environment, there is a single place to go to see all workflow results. But if you're in a 1 studio-1 user environment and sharing via collections, you have to go to infinitely many places to see the results of all the schedules shared with you.

 

So my idea is to have results from schedules shared via collections appear in Workflow Results.

Hello,

 

The Analytics team for our company services 9 different lines of business, and it would be helpful to create sub folders within each line of business. It would be helpful to be able to restrict the access for each individual sub folder also. Our team deals with different teams within each line of business, and they may need to have different access due to sensitive content. 

 

Thanks,

 

Erik M

Currently when scheduling workflows, there is an option to schedule based on the calendar day but not on business day. For example, if I want to run a workflow on Business Day 1 of every month, it is not necessarily the first day of every Month. For the month of June 2019, Business Day 1 is June 3rd, since the 1st and 2nd fall on the weekend. Many departments run their processes on Business Days rather than Calendar days. Also factoring Holidays into consideration would be a plus since January 1st for example is a Holiday, Business Day 1 would fall on the 2nd.

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. 

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...

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

Currently the server diagnostics (http://localhost/gallery/admin/#!diagnosticscovers a narrow time window (from what I can see - only the last few hours)

 

Current Server Window.jpg

 

.... and if you attempt to zoom out or pan to see a broader time window - the graph gets smaller, but the data does not grow to fill the remaining space

 

zoomAndPan.jpg

 

Please could we request 2 changes:

a) add a time axis on the bottom of this chart so that the user can understand the time dimension 

b) Increase the time available for analytics to an arbitrarily broad set of data (which the admin can configure as a server setup parameter - retention period).   For us - we'd want to keep at least 3 months of data, and be able to view this analytically.

 

Thank you 

Sean

 

 

Alteryx Designer is an amazing data tool but it’s partner, "the Scheduler" needs some much needed upgrades. The Scheduler interface that pops up from Alteryx Designer does need a complete make over. I’m not going to address this but rather focus on the functionality that if delivered makes the Scheduler much more useful. 

 

Today I’m reading our Mongo db scheduler data using an Alteryx workflow and Tableau to show what’s happening on the Scheduler. This dashboard is what we refer to frequently to see the health of our companies data pipeline.  I’ll share both files soon. 

 

Here are the top 5 features for the Scheduler.

 

  1. Workflow priority ranking. When two or more workflows are scheduled to run at the same time, ‘priority’ sets the order of execution. Priority is set at the time of scheduling the workflow. Values range from 1 to 100. If a priority is not set the default is 50. The ‘priority’ field can be read from Mongo db. 

 

Why: At midnight we set off several workflows. We want to centrally manage which runs first based on a common ‘priority’ field. 

 

  1. Restrict which controller and workers a specific workflow can run on. Default is to run on all servers. At the time of scheduling a workflow can designated to restrict which server to execute on. This creates a field called ‘restrict’ which server it cannot execute on. 

 

Why: Some workflows only run on the main controller due to file system references. Also a worker can be tuned for CPU or Disk I/O and workflows that can benefit from this tuning.  Selecting a disk I/O intensive workflow to run on a server tuned for Disk I/O would speed up our workflows. 

 

  1. Set sequence of successfully completed workflows. 

FYI: We used the Runner tool for a short time to resolve this issue but learned quickly that the Runner tool is like a bull in a china shop and brought our server down. The runner tool as it is today is not an option for production work.

 

Why: This would allow you to run several workflows one after another. For example the first would read from a data source, the second would do calculations on the data and the third workflow would publish the data. All workflows are given a ‘workflow-number’ which can be seen in the scheduler list and read from Mongo db. 

 

  1. If a workflow fails you can set the number of attempts to run successfully. Report attempts greater than 1 in a new field called ‘attempts’ that can be read from the Mongo db. 

 

Why: Some workflows fail and if attempted to run again may work. This includes issues with locked files and workflows dependent on processes outside of Alteryx. 

 

  1. If a workflow runs more than X minutes the scheduler kills the workflow and reports a workflow error with a unique code called ‘execution-limit’.  This code can be read in the mongo db. The defaut is 90 minutes and can be set to any number of minutes. Each workflow can have it’s own limit. 

 

Why: Some workflows start to hog resources and need to be killed. If a new workflow is added this is a good way to protect the overall scheduled workflows. 

I would like to collaborate with my team, but also maintain my own personal private studio.

 

Is that on the road map?

 

-Dan

 

 

If a job fails it would be perfect if we could set something in the workflow settings so that the job would retry again in X number of minutes for the next Y number of times. We have jobs that connect to external resources and sometimes the network will reset and will cause the connections to all drop. An example would be I want a workflow to try again in 10 minutes for a maximum of 5 times so over the next 50 mins it will retry every 10 mins if it fails

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.

Hi,

 

We have more than 100 workflows scheduled in different intervals for a day. Inorder to monitor this we have to manually check in the workflow results if the workflow ran successfully or not. 

 

Say a workflow is scheduled every 30mins then we have to check this 48times in a day manually in the Gallery results if it ran successfully or not.

Similarly we will have N number of workflows scheduled with different intervals.

 

We feel its too time consuming to manually verify this.

It will be good if there is a notification when there is a failure in the run, so we can check it only then rather than checking it every 30mins.

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