Alteryx Server Ideas

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.

 

 

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

 

I'd like to request the ability for the Curators to change the priority on Apps in the Gallery.

 

Today we have a system where users are not allowed to set the priority on workflows. The Curators change the priority of scheduled workflows based on workflow runtime/ business need by going to Gallery Admin> Jobs> Scheduled Workflows, and then editing the schedule priority.

 

The problem that that we have a numbers of Gallery Members/ Viewers that run Apps through the day that are very fast to run, but depending on how big is the queue they can several minutes/ hour until a spot is free to run.

 

If would be very helpful to get a better UX if the curator can choose which apps should have a higher priority to run.

 

Thanks,

 

Mauricio Estevez

currently, there isn't any way to fully delete (safely) a user from the gallery. So if there is a previous client or previous employee in gallery, we cannot clean up the gallery settings - only "disable". It would be great to have a "trash can" symbol next to the users where we can remove them from the server and keep all of the users clean. 

See following article for background reference: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Server-Discussions/workflow-exceeded-maximum-runtime-of-30-...

 

I have a support case (#00278355) advising unsupported changes to the alteryx.config file, involving an undocumented setting for chainedTimeout, as in:

 

<engine enableAutoLicensing="true" useServiceLayerComposer="true" chainedTimeout="10800"

 

This setting should be documented, supported, and made user-configurable through the System Settings GUI. 

 

 

Given the security requirements of our company collections need to be created centrally, which is fine for sub-organizations that only require one collection. However, the large sub-orgs require more than 1 collection, ideally we would create the top-level collection and give the sub-org the access to create their own sub-collection within that collection, but not the ability to create collections at the top-level.

As the title says: please make the date modified data more granular e.g. yyyy-mm-dd HH:MM:SS and not 6 months ago

 

The current behaviour is the same in designer & browser, but is more important in browser (first screenshot) as there isn't an indicator or method or sorting the order.

 

 

 

 

 

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

I have tables that I need to run ETL jobs on every 5 mins. But, a batch job runs every day for an hour at the same hour. During that time I can't query the source.
With the current scheduler setup; it appears that my only option would be set up multiple schedules. Each running once a day, and a separate schedule for every 5 minute increment of the day with the exception of the one hour my source can't be touched.
Rather than that degree of hassle, doesn't it make more sense to set up a scheduled with and/or/not criteria?
Example:
Run every X minutes on Y days
Except: during %t am - %t am on Z days

I've seen some applications that have a visual scheduler for setting the exception times. That would be pretty cool too.
Bonus points if you can make an admin console for the server which allows the admin to set blackout date/time by table or DSN for all users (override their schedules).

Currently, if you want to change from Built-in to Windows Authentication, you have to:

 

To switch authentication types, you'll need to start from scratch.


1. Stop the AlteryxService
2. Open a Windows Folder Explorer and go to the directory you have MongoDB loaded (System Settings->Controller->Persistence->Data Folder
3. Rename or delete that folder (a simple backup would be to rename the folder, you can move it to another directory as well)
4. Open the Alteryx Server System Settings and click next to Gallery->General.
5. Select the new Authentication process you would like to use.
6. Finish the System Settings and the new database will be created.

 

The Gallery and Scheduler databases are closely tied.  Workflows that are uploaded, results created, and schedules created from the Gallery are stored in the Scheduler database.  So you will need to start from scratch on both the Gallery and in the Scheduler.

 

This is a non-starter for any company that has any amount of time invested in establishing the use of the Gallery.   Starting over is not an option, but improving security, streamlining access protocols as a part of overall data governance is a must.  Please consider fixing the authentication protocol to make it so we don't have to start over.

 

Thank you,

 

 

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.

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Alteryx support team,

 

We would like to use the search functionality available in the schedules tab of Alteryx gallery and when anyone searches the schedule by typing the name in search box on schedules tab, he/she should get list of the results along with the schedule information such as frequency of schedule, times run etc.

 

As of now, when one searches results are displayed as jobs and their run history.

 

Case reference -  Alteryx, Inc Case # 00606791

 

Regards,

milan

Big time user of the Gallery API. In fact, I wrote an R package for it (shameless plug: https://cran.r-project.org/package=alterryx).

 

It is great that you can queue a job for an application using the Gallery API but it would be great if I could also cancel a running job.

In prior versions, Gallery Admins could easily and quickly reactivate users that were deactivated (e.g., and employee leaves the company so we inactivate their Gallery account, but then they come back to the company in a few months with the same name and email).  

 

Now, the only way to do this is to edit the Mongo page.

We need a way via the UI to reactivate users, like we did in the old UI.

I suggest adding an option in the current User List/Grid to be able to filter for Inactive users.

Today, if I want to save a job onto the Alteryx Gallery, I need full permissions to do so and it is a manual process.  For some organizations, this level of access is deemed excessive, which can make properly leveraging the Alteryx Gallery difficult.  Having the ability to write a "deployment" script that could publish a workflow to the Gallery, and potentially add a new workflow to a Collection would be incredibly helpful in these cases.

When you add a workflow you have to add its schedule to share the results in collection menber's.
A workflow can be in several collections and therefore different users can schedule it. (why not)
This results in multiple schedules for the same workflow. There is no reason why a workflow cannot have multiple schedules.(mandatory in some cases)

 

Automatically adding schedules to the collection would allow users to see that there is already a schedule on the workflows in question and not to recreate one!

 

it should also be possible to create a schedule from the collection.

One of our Server customers has a need to disable all schedules temporarily across all worker nodes.  I do not see an easy way to do this unless we go into each worker's settings and disable from there, but this is not ideal.

 

The reason is for scheduled maintenance windows during a large upgrade or migration.  Currently stopping the Alteryx Service on each worker is time consuming.

 

Thank you! 

I really want to see this feature in new versions. Its frustrating the lack of options we have with scheduling workflows on the server. I need to have my process run every 10 mins but only on certain days and in certain time windows. Creating a schedule for this is impossible unless I manually create hundreds of schedules. 

 

I have a few workflows that I have hosted on out Gallery Server and I have them scheduled.

 

Ex: Process A is scheduled to run every 10 mins Mon – Sunday.

Problem: I only need Process A to run Every 10 Mins on Mon – Sat from 2 AM to 6 PM

Currently there is not a scheduling configurations that allow this type of schedule. How can I get my workflow to run every 10 mins but only during certain times and on certain dates?