Alteryx Server Ideas

Currently there are certain locations on server that are paginating content results:

• /gallery/#!apps/studio
• /gallery/admin/#!apps
• /gallery/admin/#!subscriptions
• /gallery/admin/#!users

Each of these pages require users to either know exactly what they want to find by using keyword filtering or know exactly what page they want to go to and use the bottom arrows/page numbers to navigate to that page. Ditching pagination for something more intuitive helps users that may not be as acclimated with the depth of content when there are a lot of results, and also saves users multiple click interactions to find what they want.

There are tons of solutions for this, but infinite scroll is the most user-friendly & least taxing server & client side.

https://infinite-scroll.com/ has code & examples, and jquery seems to be the most widely used implementation.

Hi,

I've got an app in my company's gallery that I've updated 11 times, so in the gallery it says "version 11". I noticed when I click on that area, it brings up a window that shows all 11 of the apps I've uploaded over time, with options to make them the published version & to download. This confused me since each time I update the app I get a warning saying the app will be deleted, which is what I want.

So for this app, I have a 800MB file within it, which would mean that on my gallery server I have 11 versions of an app that each contain at a minimum 800MB of data. I've recently been told by support that this is as it's intended, and if I want to get rid of the all the different versions, I should deleted the app entirely and start anew. This of course would change the URL to the app, requiring the updating of documentation and redistribution of that documentation to over 100 users. And I lose the number of times the app has been run, which doesn't work for me.

My idea is to have another option in the window that shows all the different versions with the options to download, but this option would be to delete previous versions...COMPLETELY, knowing that the owner would no longer have the option to download the version or make it the published version. Having this would allow the owner to maintain the original app with the option of dropping previous versions that are really not wanted anymore.

For a given DB connection - there's a need to be able to specify the owner for this specific connection.

Reason for this is that the credentials for a given DB are not all managed by the central admin team - so we'd want to say that a given DB connection is owned by a particular person so that this can be updated frequently as passwords change.

For resilience - our particular policy would be to have 2 owners so that if one person resigns or changes roles, it invalidates the primary and reverts to the secondary - and then asks the new Primary to create a backup owner.

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

Today in managing Alteryx server, we manually configure new connections using the front end.  However, this has some potential drawbacks as it makes it hard to easily track change history, or make bulk updates to multiple strings, and it also leaves room for user error on configuration.

In this case I'm pretty specifically looking to modify aliases on the server itself.  I'm not particularly concerned with distribution to a wider audience, and the usernames/passwords associated in this case should not be available for use locally by users.  As a part of this, I am trying to identify a method to reduce or eliminate the need for anyone (including the data connection manager) to need to know the password for the specified accounts.  As some of these accounts may be used by multiple systems, it would be significantly simpler to integrate this maintenance into existing automated processes, rather than have a manual step to update the Alteryx connection values on the Gallery.

This is specifically a challenge today with regards to specific usernames or passwords which need to be stored.  Alteryx saves these values using machine-level encryption, but that is difficult to generate automatically.  Having a supported method that would easily allow creation of this file with password-level information would greatly improve maintenance of the Alteryx Server, particularly from an IT automation perspective.

Hello everyone,

I created before a post about managing chained workflows using the API.
After reaching out the support, it turns out to be impossible, which is unfortunate.

So I post this idea here, in case anyone is needing it too.

Feels free to ask me details if needed.

Thanks.

It's been mentioned previously but I haven't seen an official idea posted. The width of the "Name" column on the Collections page needs to be adjustable to allow users to see the full name. Since we have many distinct areas, we use naming conventions to help organize different groups' Collections. But, even as short as we try to keep it the full names don't appear most of the time. At the very least, increase the default width because cutting the names off after 24 characters is simply too short.

It would be helpful if there was a way to setup notifications so that it would email Admin whenever a workflow runs longer than a preset amount of time.

Admin would set time threshold for triggering notification i.e. > 15min and Alteryx Server would email Admin whenever a workflow runs longer than that so that they could monitor this specific workflow and take corrective action,

each canvas in our environment goes through initial dev; then a testing phase; then into production usage after completing testing & peer review.

Currently the server environment has no concept of progression or promotion so we have to set up our own Dev; UAT; and Prod gallery & server - this really is very clunky because assets have to be manually copied across.

What would be more effective is:

- Allow a single asset to have a lifecycle (like you do in GIT) - so that it can go through dev and testing as a branch of the main code

- Once ready - user then changes the lifecycle type to "testing" or "UAT" and pushes it to users

- Once signed off, the user then promotes this to a production flow, and it replaces the current production version

There are a few areas where we'd need to do some thinking (dependancy tracking; branching; changing connection details as you promote so that you can hit the prod data stores etc) - but fundamentally this would go a VERY long way towards eliminating much of the admin involved in running the gallery.

We've confirmed with @KevinP that the Alteryx Gallery / Server API does not currently support downloading canvasses in unzipped data-stream format. (https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Server-Discussions/Server-API-Download-packages-for-surveil...)

Please can we add an API end-point that allows the following:

• Connect to the gallery and download a canvas; along with all of its sub-canvasses and helper macros. 
• Format required:
  • Plain XML (not zipped)
  • Provided in a data stream so that we can perform analytics and surveillance on this data
  • Fields required
    
    • Canvas filename
    • Application ID
    • Some unique ID per macro / sub-macro
    • XML for the canvas
    • Last run date
    • Last changed date
    • Environment (this is important once Server actually allows a Dev; UAT; Prod progression cycle - so we can see which environment people are in)
    • User details who uploaded
    • User details who are marked as the owners
    • Any other meta-tags on the canvas (important once server allows for meta-tagging of canvasses for categorisation)

Current API only allows this to be downloaded to a zipped file; which then needs to be unzipped; and then loaded back into a data stream.

Thank you

S

CC: @revathi @AshwiniChezhiyan @LizaNemchynova 

As a Server 2018.4 admin, I need granular control of Server/Gallery defaults including:

1.) Pre-allocate AD users and groups (under Permissions) to specific Studios

2.) Control defaults for scheduling/priority/worker settings on Users

3.) Control defaults for workflow download/no-download at Gallery or Studio level

4.) Control defaults for notifications. Currently I have to check each notification template individually to disable it. Change template tile colors (or whatever) to provide visual queue as to which are enabled or disabled.

Above all, the tiled approach to displaying users, groups, studios simply isn't scalable. A simple data grid type display will allow higher information density allowing settings like: sharing, download ability, scheduling, credential type settings (studio default, artisan specified, runtime entered etc) to be easily reviewed. Basic server governance relies on easy visibility (reporting) of settings to ensure consistency...

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.

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.

Hi there,

Currently, when we download a version of Alteryx - we need to download a very large number of binaries across many different download locations.    Once we get these in, they need to go through InfoSec audits; then be packed for deployment etc.     this creates a very large admin overhead in that folk need to check for updates across multiple binaries and also create a significant number of different installs which then need to be rolled out across hundreds of workstations.

The request would be to change the approach to downloads for enterprise customers:

- Admin logs into the download portal

- They then select the components which they need (Designer; predictive; CREW macros; Microsoft starter pack; Tableau starter pack; JIRA connector from the gallery; additional predictive tools from the gallery)

- this then becomes the defined selection set.

- When any of these items are updated - the admin is notified

- When they download - these are then all built into a single installer binary which we can then download and roll out to all our workstations.

Many thanks

Sean

cc: @dataMack @adrianloong

In order for us to manage the large number of canvasses on our server - we need to add the ability for Admin teams to require additional attributes on every canvas:

For us, these mandatory attributes would be:

- Which team do you belong to (dropdown)

- What business process does this serve (dropdown - multiselect)

- Primary & secondary canvas owner (validated kerberos)

For the ones that have dropdown lists - we can provide the master data into a drop location or into a manually configured list on the server.

My company, a very large organization, is in the early implementation phase of Alteryx right now. My company requires frequent password changes and we plan on making heavy use of Shared Connections since there are also many shared data sources. Unfortunately, this would mean that every time a credential has changed that affects a workflow, the credential holder would have to contact Server Administration (me), and I would have to update any Shared Connections or other assets that use those credentials. This problem is exacerbated by also having to manage user permissions and which users belong in each Subscription Right now, that is not much of a big deal, but as the number of users begins to scale, this could become a very daunting task.

My current solution is to create Subscriptions for each Department, Group, or Team and give one person from that Subscription Curator permissions. This enables each Department to work more autonomously and reduces the load for Server Admin. The issue is that there is no permission level between the publishing rights of an Artisan and the ubiquitous acces of a Curator. So, with my solution, any one of the Subsription Curators can start using connections they're not supposed to have access to or deleting/stopping scheduled flows, intentionally or otherwise.

I propose that we find a middle ground between Curator and Artisan, a (Studio) Moderator. This person can be assigned one or more subscriptions by a full Curator and will have Curator-like permission, but only to the assigned Subscriptions. This means that they will be able to add/modify Credentials, Connections, and/or Scheduled under the envelope of their Subscriptions, but they won't have access to any others. I believe that this solution will mitigate the possible overflow of tedium to the true Curators while allowing the powerful communal features of Alteryx be used to their full potential.

Please provide the ability to bulk add/delete users to a gallery. This would be useful for on-boarding/off-boarding large companies, departments, and external customers. For public-facing galleries, this would provide us the ability to on-board/off-board entire customers of ours. 

Hi,

Currently on Alteryx it is possible to add visibility of a subscriptions scheduled workflows to all members of that subscription.

What we would quite like is for the ability to turn on or off the ability to edit workflows within that subscription for all members.

As in if a member goes on leave, or leaves the company, or is ill, other members can edit, update and cancel the scheduled workflow as needed without needing to go through an admin for it.

Many Thanks,

Oli

Hi there,

we are in a dynamic team where people move from 1 project to the other that implies moving series of workflows from private studio to collections prior to sharing. I have not found other ways but to do that 1 by 1 with very limited ways to filter the flows.

Could there be, from the collection, a way to 

 - increase number of possibilities to filters to find the proper flows (or maybe just simply allow folders in the Private studio)

 - be able to multi select the one to add / delete from / to the collection

thanks,