Alteryx Server Ideas

As a server administrator, I would like to have more control over collections.  I have a user who is in charge of a collection out of office, and we have some users who need to get to be added to the collection to run workflows.  As admin of the server, I would like to be able to add users to this collection, modify permissions, modify workflows, etc.  This would be necessary both for when users are temporarily out of the office as well as if someone were to leave the company.

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 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?

Currently the e-mail settings for the server are set up using a wizard and are not available within the admin UI.

Please could you add an explicit section to the Admin UI to allow the admin team to set up approved SMTP settings, allowing this all to be managed in one admin console.

Further: Can you allow the admins to push these settings down to the desktop users.   This would allow the admin team to control the SMTP usage and prevent data leakage.   It would also reduce complexity for the user since the SMTP settings are all pre-set making eMail tools; and Events easier to set up.

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.

The shared data connections from the Gallery have been very helpful in centralizing data connection information between desktop users and their workflows when saved to the Gallery. The In-DB tools currently cannot take advantage of the Gallery Data Connections and require a completely separate setup that is both confusing and adds additional connection management work for creation/password changes. 

It would be a great enhancement to Alteryx if all connections for the different types of tools could be centrally managed from the shared Data Connections manager found in the Gallery.

Best regards,

Ryan

Admin settings for the Alteryx server are currently split between the Admin GUI in the gallery (screenshot 1 below) and a tool called "Alteryx System Settings" (screenshot 2 below).

Please could you move all of the system settings into the Admin section of the GUI.   Not only will this allow an admin to administer the settings remotely (rather than having to be logged into the actual server with an interactive login which is needed now) - it will also consolidate them into one place which makes things easier for admins to ensure that all settings are set up correctly.

This could be done progressively - a little bit in every release - over the next couple of releases, it does not need to be done in a big reengineering or a massive big-bang release (in fact - progressive release is much more favourable since you learn along the way and big-bang releases are well known to be failure prone).

cc: @TanyaS 

in version 2019.3, with artisan role, I able to add workflow to collection in the workflow page.

I not sure for later version, but in version 2021.4, only curator can do so. 

If I uploaded a workflow, designer already give me a link to the workflow, hence if I can add the workflow to the collection.

it goes through 2 pages within 2mins (max). it is very fast for me. 

but now, I have to go back to the homepage > collection > add workflow > wait eternal time for server to get the list of workflow > select it > click add.

it extra 5~ steps. with min 10mins extra time. and if the number of workflows larger and larger, 

it has chance that it fails to load the list and have to wait another 10mins, and another and another endless 10mins.

so 2mins > endless 10mins? please add back this feature.

Currently the server diagnostics (http://localhost/gallery/admin/#!diagnostics) covers a narrow time window (from what I can see - only the last few hours)

.... and if you attempt to zoom out or pan to see a broader time window - the graph gets smaller, but the data does not grow to fill the remaining space

Please could we request 2 changes:

a) add a time axis on the bottom of this chart so that the user can understand the time dimension 

b) Increase the time available for analytics to an arbitrarily broad set of data (which the admin can configure as a server setup parameter - retention period).   For us - we'd want to keep at least 3 months of data, and be able to view this analytically.

Thank you 

Sean

Option to Zip All Outputs

For workflows that produce various different output files, I think it would be nice if the Gallery had the functionality to create a single zip file containing all outputs. The user would opt in or out of this functionality using a checkbox in the Gallery workflow settings (for apps, this checkbox could also appear as an additional setting above "Questions"). After the workflow has been run, the user would only see the zip file in the output preview instead of each individual output file. 

This functionality would create a more user-friendly experience as it would eliminate the need for zip file creation workarounds, such as using the Run Command Tool or the "zipfile" Python library to create zip files (these options also do not generate a zip file in the Gallery output preview).

The Save to Gallery window does not resize. When I try to Save my Workflow to my Gallery and Manage Workflow assets, I can not widen that window to see the full path to my assets.

This makes it very hard when you have many assets to know if they need to be included or not with the promotion. It may take two or three attempts guessing what asset is what to get the correct combination to make my App run correctly.

It would be nice to be able to widen this window much like we can with the Workflow dependencies window.

I love the gallery data connection feature - we're going through some big systems architecture changes, resulting in new locations for many datasets. Having a single place in the Gallery Admin area to update connection information works beautifully.

We're running into issues with the gallery-hosted data connections when trying to run some apps on our private gallery though. The trouble comes up when the gallery-hosted data connection appears inside a macro that's part of an app. We get an "Unable to translate alias" error when trying to run these types of apps.

If we have an app using gallery-hosted data connections that are outside of a macro, the gallery is able to resolve the connection alias fine and work properly. The issue only appears when the gallery data connection is part of a macro used inside an app.

We use macros a lot in our app development because it allows us to use standard methods for accomplishing common tasks. Using macros also enables us to set up automated testing workflows to make sure our processes produce expected results. As it is, we're unable to take full advantage of the gallery-hosted data connections because they don't work within macros, and instead have to continue using hardcoded connection strings. These are a bigger maintenance burden as our underlying systems evolve and are updated.

Now, gallery does not support AD group , need to setup user one by one.

If gallery support AD group synchronization, it is more convenient for gallery admin to manage large number of users.

By assigning AD users to AD group, it will reduce the maintenance task of gallery admin, since gallery admin don't need to grant rights in the gallery directly. 

Hello, I would like improved user management features and/or training

• Display 100 does not seem to work consistently
• Click /navigate from user to user – once I select a user would like to go to next user
• Changes I make with filters refresh every time I go back – which means I have to constantly reset my view in between each user
• Modify user settings in collections – would like to modify user settings instead of delete and re add user

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,

Right now, if you are using Windows Authentication, you can map AD group and users on the Permissions and Collections tab.  But for some reason, you can't use AD groups on the Data Connections tab.  Most of our databases are already secured by in-house AD groups in which you have to be a member in order to access that database.  Instead of managing a 2nd, most likely duplicate, list of users in the Data Connections tab I would like to be able to map the pre-existing AD group to that data connection.  That also means I don't have to service access requests.  If someone wants access to a database, they talk to the database owners, get added to the group and then they automatically can pull that data into Alteryx.

So, .YXI files are great, they allow a much simpler installation process of macros from the Gallery to your local machine and server. 

However one problem; they are not supported to be hosted on the Alteryx Gallery. This means that in order to share .yxi files they have to be hosted on some other drive and then you have to have a workflow in the alteryx gallery which provides users with the download link.

This makes that clean process a bit less clean, and it also causes problems with big customers who cannot whitelist these share drives for which the .yxi files are hosted. I myself have had about 20 emails from one global consulting firm in the US requesting access to a macro, I can't link them to the content as they are blocked, and therefor I have to email them individually. 

It's a tad tedious and ruins the 'install experience'.

If you don't know what I'm talking about you can follow my colleagues (Peter Gamble-Beresfords) blog here:

https://www.theinformationlab.co.uk/2017/10/05/create-share-alteryx-tool-installer-yxi-file/

What I'm asking for is simple, support for .yxi files in the Alteryx gallery, in the same way you do with macros.

Ben

The only reference I can find to this idea is here : https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Connect-Gallery/Share-Results-in-a-Collection/m-p/231 .  It references that the feature of "sharing workflow results" was "on the Roadmap" in 2014.  I did some searching through the current Ideas page and cannot find anything.  I also reviewed the release notes since Alteryx 10.5 and cannot see that this was added.

A user approached me today with a problem of "Many people need access to the results of this data, and I want everyone to be able to see all the results".  While you could potentially email these results to a specified user set, that would require maintaining both a collection and an email tool in the job, and could potentially cause notification fatigue if users only care when they go to the Alteryx Gallery.  Similarly, results could be saved to a networked location, but that would require a user to go to two locations in order to find this information.

As such, having a toggle that allows users with permission to view a workflow, to also see the results of any/all users, would be huge. 

Issue: When Workflow names have similar beginnings on server a user cannot distinguish between them because the columns on this GUI are not expandable as would be expected. A user has to make their browser larger and all columns open proportionately.

Solution: Change column settings so users can drag column widths to make changes. A bonus would be to allow a user to set a default along with an option to always auto expand all.