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Lock Your Workflow

You can lock workflows (including analytic apps and macros).

  • Users cannot open or edit locked workflows. When you try to open a locked workflow or macro, you see a message that it cannot be edited. When you open an analytic app, the app interface displays.

  • Users can run (but not open) locked workflows only on a machine with a serial number specified at the time the workflow was locked.

Warning

Once you lock a workflow, you can't unlock it.

You can lock workflows via the Lock Workflow option in the Main Menu or the Command Line. You can also lock workflows when you save them to Alteryx Server or export them to a file package.

Lock from Menu

Select Options > Advanced Options > Lock Workflow to open the Lock Workflow window.

  1. Output Location: Select Browse to choose where you want to save the locked workflow.

  2. (Optional) Restrict use to specific serial numbers (one per line): Enter a list of the serial numbers (email addresses). Only users with a listed serial number are able to run the locked workflow. List each unique serial number on its own line. To locate your serial number, in the main menu go to Help > About.

  3. (Optional) Set expiration date for locked workflow: Select a date. The locked workflow will expire on the date specified and will prevent the workflow from being run or used anymore.

  4. Check the box to indicate that you acknowledge the implications of locking your workflow.

  5. Select Save to lock your workflow.

Lock from Command Line

You can lock analytic app and macro workflows via the command line using these parameters:

AlteryxEngineCmd /Lock myworkflow.yxwz Output.yxwz

  • AlteryxEngineCmd: Refers to AlteryxEngineCmd.exe. Find this file in the Alteryx install directory Program Files\Alteryx\bin.

  • /Lock: The command argument to lock the workflow. It takes the specified workflow and makes a locked copy of it.

  • myworkflow.yxwz: The workflow you want to lock. This needs to be the full, absolute path to the workflow.

  • Output.yxwz: The copy of the original workflow in its locked state. This needs to be the full, absolute path to the workflow.

Optional Parameters

  • [CommaSeparatedSerialNumbers]: Pass a list of serial numbers for the locked workflow to work on. Don't include spaces in the list. This is an exclusive list and the locked workflow only works with one of the provided serial numbers. For example:

    AlteryxEngineCmd /Lock myworkflow.yxwz Output.yxwz serial1,serial2,serial3

  • [ExpirationDate]: Specify when a locked workflow expires. Don't include spaces in the list. For example:

    AlteryxEngineCmd /Lock myworkflow.yxwz Output.yxwz serial1,serial2,serial3 yyyy-mm-dd

    If you don't specify serial numbers, separate the parameters with quotes:

    AlteryxEngineCmd /Lock myworkflow.yxwz Output.yxwz "" yyyy-mm-dd

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