Alteryx Server Ideas

Would it be possible to specify whether a worker handles scheduled jobs, ad-hoc jobs or both?  Right now it seems that the workers treat both types of jobs the same, meaning that a slew of ad-hoc jobs initiated from the Gallery could slow down jobs that are scheduled to run on a regular cadence.  It'd be great if those scheduled jobs could have a dedicated worker (or workers) and have any ad-hoc jobs handled by a separate worker (or workers) so that the scheduled jobs (which might be more important) are not held up by one-off jobs.

Can we make the ability for a developer using Alteryx Designer and having a workflow using in-DB tools to pass along their credentials with the workflow when scheduling to run on Alteryx Server.  An individual user may have access to only certain tables in Teradata for example and the ODBC connection on Server may not have access to the same tables so we need to be able to pass along the encrypted credentials.  THanks!

As large enterprises continually strengthen security around their system and data assets, we're seeing adoption of products like CyberArk's Enterprise Password Vault (https://www.cyberark.com/products/privileged-account-security-solution/enterprise-password-vault/ )

 

The system is essentially a central repository that secures and automatically rotates passwords for privileged accounts- things like a functional account you would use to run workflows against a certain database or set of systems.

 

It would be great if Alteryx could build both Server (Run As Account) and Designer (for individual database connections) integrations with a tool like that.

Hi,

Currently for most of our workflows we are using our private Alteryx Server to run workflows, using executables that call alteryxenginecmd and output logs to dynamically created log files.  However, there is currently no way to leverage a custom log location for a workflow that is run directly from the Alteryx Gallery (apart from sending an email, which has scalability problems).

I would like an option to create the output log as part of a workflow, so that when we save that workflow to the Gallery, it can output a log with a dynamic name easily.

Because of sensitive nature of data we deal with, all of our infrastructure is located in a restricted area. As a result, our Alteryx server can only be accessed on machines with a corporate-built system connected to corporate network unless the access has been authenticated.

What this means is that while I am on my corporate-built laptop, I can access the Gallery node from anywhere as we use Windows login for authentication. However if I wanted to schedule a workflow while connected to a non-corporate network (eg when working from home) I wouldn’t be able to do it because the controller server can't be accessed - it uses http protocol without authentication.

 

Currently there's no workaround and the situation creates number of challenges for colleagues using the scheduler. It would be great it it was possible to use DirectAccess or alternative way of identifying that the connection is coming from a corporate client.

Starting with Windows Sever 2016 edition one could use Docker containers technology on windows environments. My idea is to dynamically convert Designer jobs/workflows  to Docker containers at runtime.

While Alteryx is a self-service tool for the business there is a need for administrators to get a little more insight to the usage of the installation on the server. Each customer is forced to create their own monitoring tools. I understand NewRelic and Cloudwatch can easily be used but there is a need to split the admin view by organization departments since each dept needs their own resource utilization and workflow report. Logical split view reporting should be facilitated by the Alteryx server product.

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...

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).

It would be great for Alteryx to provide the UI to allow the user to maintain the data on the target table through Alteryx. The workflow application would be a standard way to maintain reference data.

 

This would allow us to deliver a quick way to interface with relational tables. Something similar to the following projects:

 

- django admin site

- phpgrid

- etc.

 

 

This would avoid using Microsoft Access for example for quick table edits and using the simplified Alteryx app instead

Right now we can set the limit of processes a worker can run and each worker will ping the controller when a slot is available so that it can assign a new process. However, this is not efficient and you can truly load balance because you don't know how busy that worker acutally is...

 

We need a way that might be simliar to how we do on DataStage GRID environment where the LSF platform balances that workload across the entire GRID.

We get a lot of comparisons with DataStage ETL and what Alteryx can do. DataStage has the capability to partition queries and run on multiple worker nodes to allow the execution to be more efficient and faster than if it ran on one worker. We want similar capability on Alteryx as our case study shows right now that Alteryx is 10X slower than a query ran on DataStage through the GRID.

Dearest colleageues and comrades (Romans, countrymen?):

 

Have you ever queued up your jobs only to have them block your regularly scheduled programming? Imagine a world where, assuming you had multiple worker nodes, you can direct and prioritise your jobs on your terms.

 

This is what I am suggesting.

 

I've recently worked with Alteryx support, and they turned me on to a QoS setting in Alteryx Server settings. Peep this like a marshmallow chick in hot pink: 

After learning from the great Server Master Kevin Powney (blessed be his name), I learnt that there are currently 3 'channels' that this QoS variable governs. 0 is the highest priority used for workflows. 4 is used for chained apps. 6 is used for gallery service requests.

 

This will not do.

 

Why? Well, for one: hello arcane/memorisation.

Secondly, where is my control? I'm a millenial dammit! Service me!

 

So, my idea, that I want you to vote so highly on as to save yourself any myself a lot of hassle, is to allow a custom QoS variable to be a traffic variable. And here's how it works:

• For each workflow/app, you can assign it whatever QoS/traffic variable you choose. 
• This allows the user the power to control which 'lane' is clogged in the queue.

Example time! [cheers, candy thrown]

In my current situation, we have some jobs that are network-intensive (database calls), and jobs that are processing-intensive (CPU hogs doing hard-core maths). 

The network-intensive jobs run on the weekends so that we have the data in the morning on Monday. The processing-intensive jobs need to finish, but suck up all the CPU power. For the last couple of weeks, we've unsuccessfully run these jobs over the weekend. The downside is that since we cannot control how traffic flows (and we only have the 0/4/6 options in QoS, of which these only fit in the 0 lane [breath, sorry]) the CPU-heavy jobs have blocked more critical network jobs.

If we had two paths, we could assign the CPU jobs to lane 1 and the network jobs to lane 0 and they can run in parallel. And then my boss is happy. We like happy bosses, right?

 

Vote this up! My boss is awesome!

 

Thanks for your ear,

 

Hail Caesar or something.

 

-Cedric

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

 

 

When you create an App/Macro locally and give it a custom icon, that icon should follow the App/Macro when you load it into the Gallery.

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.

Currently the only filtering available in the Results tab in View Schedules is by Workflow Name. It would be nice to be able to filter by Status, so we can just look for potential problems, like warnings or errors. Currently, I have a job that runs every 5 minutes. That means I have to scroll through hundreds of rows, or about 12 pages using the default 25 rows per page, just to scan for potential problems in the last 24 hours.

 

How about adding a CAPTCHA option for Alteryx Server?

That will block bruteforce attacks, bruteforce to crack or bruteforce to lock...

 

One needs to obtain a designer license in order to have a server license.

It may be a good idea to package those two don't you think, and now it's ok to install designer on a Server OS.

 

It would be awesome if you automatically have a virtual desktop environment to connect to...when you get a server license,

 

The following is a slide from Inspire 2016 and the client's are already doing this

1. For keeping the running workflows unaffected by docking undocking workstations

2. It also increases the performance by getting the designer closer to the data

3. It would also be safe to share company analytics capabilities with outsider without giving them direct access to downloadable data etc.