Alteryx Server Ideas

Alteryx Server does a pretty good job of tracking all the information you need in order to find out who ran a workflow at a given time, even if that workflow has been deleted from the Gallery.

However, if I need to identify what that workflow actually did on a specific date, and that version is no longer available on the Gallery, it gets really hard to track down.

There are some posts throughout the community on leveraging the MongoDB to try and reconstruct this, but in some cases the workflow is "Chunked" and becomes impossible for an end user to reconstruct.

I spoke to support about this recently and they suggested that by using the Scheduler, I could schedule the historical instance of the workflow and then "Really quickly" grab it when it was reconstructed from the temporary staging folder used by our Alteryx Server.  This has a few concerns, among them, finding a way to run this workflow so that the files can be created but it has no impact on tables, for instance if the given workflow drops a table as part of its execution.  Additionally, the only way to schedule with a different set of permissions in a 1-Worker environment is to change the default "Run Workflows As" to a different user, who also needs permission to access all files on the Alteryx Server.  This can also impact any other Scheduled or Gallery job that is executed while this recovery is underway, effectively causing downtime to do file recovery.

These restrictions are specific enough as to be impractical for most organizations using Alteryx Gallery/Server.

I think this could be solved by adding to the Scheduler an option along the lines of "Download a copy of the workflow", available to administrators. Ideally this copy could include some important metadata, like when that version of the workflow was uploaded, who uploaded it, and its ID/Version Number from the Gallery.

This would go a long way towards making it easier to Audit and respond to requests for historical information about Alteryx Workflows on the Server, and since the Alteryx Engine can already recreate these workflows, I think that a basic version of this feature could simply save out that temporary file, rather than executing it.

Use Cases:

1. As a server admin, planned PM outages should be scheduled.  These outages should prevent jobs from beginning execution (window of time) prior to the outage.  Jobs running at the time of the cut-off should be system-cancelled.  
2. As a server admin, unplanned outages should cause running jobs to stop.  At the conclusion of an outage, jobs that are system cancelled should be restarted.

Currently, we use Task Manager to control Alteryx Service (or command line).  An administrative function within Alteryx should support graceful stopping and starting of the service as user jobs are interrupted (or can be) by our activities.  While I currently post messages to users alerting them to admin activities, I am asked why Tableau can restart jobs (admin) and we can't.  Other admins have asked what is "hanging" alteryx service up for a STOP command.  I have explained that all jobs must be stopped in order for a quick restart of the service.  

We're using a single server today (this client) and plan to add workers to the configuration.   It would be helpful to know where work is running and be able to use admin functions across the servers.

Cheers,

Mark

I would suggest a service split to simplify maintenance actions in the Alteryx Server.

Split Alteryx Service into 5 services:

 Alteryx controller

• Dependencies: Alteryx Database
• Purpose: Controls job submissions
• Meaning: The Alteryx controller Service stopped means neither the users or the scheduler can submit new jobs

Alteryx Database

• Dependencies: N/A
• Purpose: Database
• Meaning: The Alteryx Database Service stopped means all the platform is down

Alteryx Gallery

• Dependencies: Alteryx Database
• Purpose: Controls the Web UI
• Meaning: Alteryx Gallery Service stopped means the gallery web page is down

Alteryx Scheduler

• Dependencies: Alteryx controller, Alteryx Database
• Purpose: Controls the scheduled jobs
• Meaning: The Alteryx Scheduler Service stopped means the users can still submit jobs manually but scheduled jobs wont be submited

Alteryx Worker

• Dependencies: Alteryx controller, Alteryx Database (only applicable if the server where the Alteryx Worker Service is running the Alteryx controller)
• Purpose: Executes the jobs
• Meaning: The Alteryx Worker Service stopped means no job will be executed on the node

This service split will help perform some maintenance tasks and enables the Platform Administrators to shutdown the platform correctly shutting down the services in the correct order.

Usage Example 1 (Cold Backup):

• Stop the controller so no more jobs can be submitted
• Stop all the workers
• After all the workers have stopped the Alteryx Database Service and the rest of the remaining services can be shutdown
• Preform the Cold Backup
• Start the services

Usage Example 2 (Changes in the worker configuration - By doing this the users will still have access to the gallery and their jobs):

• Make changes in the worker configuration
• Restart only the worker service

Usage Example 3 (Changes in the Gallery Page or Configurations):

• Stop the Gallery Service
• Make the changes
• Start the Gallery Service

I would like to be able to see which collection(s) a Workflow is in since in future users will access the majority of workflows via a Collection - so if a user asks me about access to a certain workflow I can find out how they would get access to it i.e. which Collection(s) it was available in and who owns those.

We are hoping to move to Mongo Enterprise as the backend for our Alteryx server, however we may not be able to given that Alteryx does not currently support Kerberos & Keytab authentication.    

Please could you add this to the server so that larger clients with Enterprise Mongo can scale upwards?

cc: @avinashbonu @DamianA @BenBu @Deeksha

Isn't it great that we can toggle between outputs from an app in the Gallery, being able to view and download each one? Yes! However, what if an app produces a lot of outputs...such as 1 per state...or 1 per product type...or 1 per month...etc. What is get is something like this:

Now imagine how long it would take to download all of these...ouch. I recommend Alteryx add a "Download All" button to the page that appears after an app finishes running.

Related Community Post here.

I’ve had a query from a Team here at my organisation regarding OAuth2. They are trying to investigate whether a Robotic Process Automation Tool can be integrated with the Alteryx Gallery API.

It uses OAuth2 but my understanding is Alteryx Gallery uses OAuth1. 

Can Alteryx Gallery API be enhanced to use OAuth2? A plan to support OAuth2 authentication for a REST API in a future release?   

Please Enable OAuth 2.0/OpenID Support for Alteryx Server  & Connect. Currently, it supports only AD , SAML . 

Current SAML has limitations, Unable to import Security groups from LDAP/AD if SAML is enabled.  

From a security standpoint, it is important that all users are authenticated when accesing the Gallery on Alteryx Server and using local accounts.  There shgould be an option available to force user to the login page rather than the public Gallery.  Users going to the Alteryx server URL should be presented with the login page by default before being taken to the Gallery, rather than seeing the public Gallery and needing to click Sign-in in the upper right corner.

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.

Hello all,


Alteryx Designer Cloud is quite young, somehow incomplete, not compatible with Alteryx Desktop etc... but I'm very optimistic than in a few years it will become a killing app !

That said, I'm more skeptical on this race to the cloud : from my experience, Cloud should just be one way of selling a product, not the only one. It has a lot of cons and a lot of pros and customers should have the possibility to choose between "on-premise" and "cloud"  product, and change from one to the other very easily.

My main customer on Alteryx is a government agency that deals with highly confidential, personal data. They won't go to cloud. Not in the next ten years. But they would love to have the Alteryx Designer Cloud on their own server.

Best regards,

Simon

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

Currently the Gallery's Admin API is a bit light on functionality. It only works with data connections & workflows and not regular server admin functions. Endpoints I'd love to see, but not limited to, are:

• Create/modify/diable users
• Create/modify/delete subscriptions (including assigning users to subscriptions)
• Job status
• Add/modify/delete workflow schedules

Open Custom Group management internal API's for Curators (or those with Admin Secret/Keys)

• GET .../gallery/api/usergroups/   --> Get all Groups
• POST .../gallery/api/usergroups/   --> Add new custom group
• POST .../gallery/api/usergroups/<GroupID>/members/    --> Add a group member
• Get .../gallery/api//usergroups/<GroupID>/ --> Get Group Details

If your server is on SAML, you can't leverage any AD group for granting access to resources. The new custom group feature is a help, but still requires you to manually add groups and member users, so it doesn't scale for large organizations (too much management overhead).

Having the internal APIs exposed would allow me to do my own group sync tool, synching members between Custom and AD groups of the same name. 

As a server Admin, I'd like to be able to do via APIs all that I can do via the Server Admin UI. This other idea was recently accepted for opening the collections APIs for Admin, it would be great if both Collections and Groups management were opened on the same upcoming release.

Currently, to allow a user to schedule jobs, prioritize jobs, assign jobs, create collections, or have API access, toggles must be set at the user level.  

As a server administrator, I want to configure these toggles at the group level, so that a) I don't have to modify a large number of users individually to grant them such permissions, b) I ensure consistency across groups of users that doesn't rely on humans clicking all the right things for each of the relevant people, and c) I can easily change these settings for multiple people, if needed.

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.

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

Our company has workflows where we use the Gallery API to kick off executions on server.  The user kicking off the workflow has setup API access using his account, but when he kicks off his jobs, it does not show up under his Gallery so he is unable to view the results.  In the admin panel, it shows the owner as (None) so it does not appear that workflows kicked off via the API get assigned to the user tied to the API key.

Conversations with Alteryx support revealed that these results are available via an API call, but not within the Gallery web UI.  It would be great if the user tied to the API key were added to the workflow execution so they could see results within the Gallery rather than going back through the API.