Shared drive access failing

[ManuAugustine]

The issue is with a number of our workflow which are designed to access business shared drives to fetch input or output files. We now see some of the workflow not able to access the file with a message 'not able to access, check if the path is correct'.

[ArnaldoSandoval]

Hi @ManuAugustine 

You should provide a little bit more information with your question, see my comments below:

• Is this happening with workflows on the Alteryx Server or user workstation?
•  The message "not able to access, check if the path is correct" is security; Please check with your admin team if security policies were changed recently?
• Do these workflows we working fine and out of the sudden started failing?

hth

Arnaldo

[ManuAugustine]

Hi, The error happens when the workflow is run from the server and it tries to access the input file stored in a shared drive. We have checked for security policy changes recently but have drawn a blank there. These workflows were working previously.

[ArnaldoSandoval]

Hi @ManuAugustine 

When we run Alteryx's workflows within the designer, they are using our login account credentials, and the workflow will be able to access any network drive our account has permissions; now this is not the case when we publish our workflows to the Alteryx's Server local gallery, at the Gallery, workflows are run by the server account, inheriting its access permissions, they is a key concept, server accounts do not have access to network drives, and it is not adviseable they do access them.

Because of this, you get some "Workflow Options" when saving workflows into the Gallery, this Alteryx's Help Article Save a Workflow to Gallery , (scroll down to the button of the article) explains this feature.

The Alteryx Server Gallery is a web page, and all the security concerns defined over the years are enforced by Alteryx, still you get options for workflows to be run by member of a team (Accounting, Finance, etc) with their own security definition, so the workflow will use the security credentials defined/assigned to the user login to the workflow.

hth

Arnaldo