Alteryx Server Ideas

Given the need for administrators to be able to perform analysis and monitoring on server performance; user usage etc - it is necessary to provide full documentation for both the API and the database underlying the server so that admins can use this to good effect.

Ref: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Server-Discussions/Server-API-Download-packages-for-surveil...

Although very limited documentation is available on the server API (https://gallery.alteryx.com/api-docs) what we're looking for is a much more fully formed and navigable experience like some of the examples below.

• https://onlinehelp.tableau.com/current/server/en-us/data_dictionary.html
• https://onlinehelp.tableau.com/current/api/rest_api/en-us/help.htm#REST/rest_api.htm%3FTocPath%3D___...
• https://community.lithium.com/t5/Developer-Documentation/bd-p/dev-doc-portal?section=commv2

This will make building helper processes substantially easier; as well as allow admins to fully manage their environment.

Many thanks

S

cc: @HeatherMHarris @revathi @AshwiniChezhiyan @LizaNemchynova

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,

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

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.

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

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 

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.

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,

Although the connectivity to the eMail infrastructure is set up on the controller and worker nodes - there is no ability to set up automated alerting for errors on workflows from the server.

We would like to be able to set up the gallery as follows:

- Every job is owned by a user or a distribution list

- If that workflow throws an error or warning (this should be configurable on the server, whether warnings are included), then the author should be e-mailed with a link to the specific workflow and the error log.

This can be done in a round-about way, by running an error-reporting alteryx job after the fact - but this kind of alert needs to go out almost immediately given our dependance on Alteryx for specific SLAs.

cc: @avinashbonu ; @Deeksha ; @revathi

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.

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.

The current setup of Data Connections, as of v11.3, relies on users to have the same aliases or connection strings available to easily share Workflows and publish them to a Gallery. In order to solve this, I propose that a system be created that allows users to establish "Local" and "Remote" connections. The Local connections will be used anytime the developer is creating a Workflow on his own computer, but will be automatically substituted with the Remote connection information once the Workflow is published. Remote connections may be filled with an Alias to a connection from the Gallery.

The primary benefit of this is that an organization will not need all of their developers to standardize their aliases and/or connections strings per connection. Instead, they will create one connection within the Gallery that will be distributed to developers and applied to the Remote column. This will generally reduce difficulties regarding the expansion of an Alteryx user base within an organization. Below I will outline two possible implementations of this:

1) Add a Remote Connection String field when adding a connection in the Data Connection Manager. This optional field will allow the user to set only one connection to an IO transaction, but maintain the Local-Remote functionality described above. Here is a mockup of how that might look within Alteryx Designer. 

2) Add a Remote Connection String field on each IO action within Alteryx. This will give the developers more flexibility in which connections are used where, but will also require more setup and maintenance time. Below is a mockup of how that might look.

In the interest of information and system security, would it be possible to provide a means to remove social media and email sharing options (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) from the SHARING drop down menus, such as through a configurable setting in the RuntimeSettings.xml file?

Currently there is no means (confirmed by Alteryx tech support) to remove these options from the sharing menu.  Sharing within the system can be controlled somewhat by controlling access to the system or specific output locations.Once the info leaves the system, there is no longer any means of control.

Providing a configurable option will allow locations to tailor to their specific needs.

I would like to set a retry count when scheduling a job, and also to specify to duration in between retries, e.g. job fails, but then will retry to run 3 times with a 5 minute wait in between each retry.

Also would like a radio button next to all workflow results, so when you get a list of failed jobs you can click all the jobs and then hit rerun.  This should be complimented with select all functionality.  This will prevent me from having to go into each job and rerunning, i.e. save me loadsa clicks! 

The Alteryx Server Usage Monitoring & Reporting  reports are very useful. In order to automate the distribution and leverage our Tableau Server we have modified one of the macros within to publish the TDE to the Server and reworked the workbook to point to it. This is a fairly time consuming process to do, so the idea is to introduce a version of the workflow which pushes the datasource, producing a version of the workbook pointing to it.

While working in the Gallery, I think the file browse tool should allow the user to import a file without selecting a sheet or <list of sheet names> as is does locally.  

For example, I have created an app in which the user is able to import a file with multiple sheets, and all sheets are brought into separate input data tools with a single file browse tool (shown below).

Since the user does not select a sheet name, the file browse tool only brings in "SelectedFileName.xlsx|". The action tool is then set to replace a specific string "SampleFileName.xlsx|". This allows the input data tools to take this new file name, and add each respective sheet name to the end.

However, when working in the Gallery, the user is required to select a sheet name or list of sheet names, meaning a file browse tool is required for each sheet that you would like to import (shown below). This is a huge inconvenience for the application user, as they have to select the same file numerous times to import every sheet. 

Please let me know if you would like me to provide any more information, I would be happy to do so.

Thanks,

Matt

Hi,

@patrick_digan pointed out to me today that in my ignorance I thought that the "On Success - Show Results to User" option in Interface Designer did something on Alteryx Gallery, like it does when run locally.  I tried to prove him wrong (I've been manually checking off what outputs I want since day 1! How could it not have been doing anything?!) and failed miserably.  As far as we can tell, this functionality is simply non-existent within Gallery.

Please add this functionality so that we can suppress files (without reverting to hacky tricks like changing the output location so the Gallery can't see the output) with a simple check box.

Link to my shame, where I very openly explained exactly how I thought I had been solving this problem the whole time, and how after testing and review, it looks like I hadn't done anything with this configuration.

All these check boxes... and they don't change anything!

The ability to select a workflow or app within the Gallery web interface and change its name. This would maintain its historical run data, version control revisions, placement in collections, etc. 

Use case: As a workflow or app continues to be developed over time, the name may need a revision to continue reflecting the workflow's function. 

Best regards,

Ryan

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.