Analytics Hub 2020.4 Release Notes

Release Note Product Versions
Version	Date	Release	End of Support
2020.4.0.250b036	November 18, 2020	Major	May 18, 2022

New Features

Browser Support 

Internet Explorer 11 is supported.

Support for I/O Network Files

Users can now select a network file location as an input or output from a workflow.

Updated Log Details Page

Logs now stream as the workflow runs, can be searched, and appear in a lightbox.

Platform and Site File Restrictions

Platform and Site Admins can restrict the upload of certain content types or file extensions. When signed in as a Platform Admin, go to Settings > General > File Upload Restrictions. When signed in as a Site Admin, go to Settings > File Upload Restrictions.

Notifications

Platform admins can activate email notifications for certain events. When signed in as a Platform Admin, go to Settings > Notifications.

Data Preview

We've added the ability to preview a sample of data in a file or data connection, as permissions allow. Save time when determining if a file is the one you want or if the output was generated correctly by not having to download and open. To see Sample Data, go to Data Catalog and drill down to a table. Select the Sample Data tab. You can also select a data file (for example, XLSX, CSV, YXDB) in Files, then select Sample Data. Site admins can turn this ability on and off in site settings.

Schedule Metadata Loaders

Site Admins and Data Stewards can now schedule metadata loaders. Scheduling removes the need to run loaders manually and helps the data catalog to remain up to date. To schedule a metadata loader run, go to Data Sources and select the data source for which you want to configure the metadata loader. Select the vertical ellipsis icon > Load Metadata > Schedule Metadata Loader.

Run As Identities

Allow users to run a workflow as a Windows user other than the default service account. Run As Identities are created from existing credentials in the platform. You can also share Run As Identities. To share a Run As identity you own, go to Credentials > Run As Identity. Find the credential to share and select the vertical ellipsis icon > Share.

Support for Windows Authentication

Connect to data sources and files that require the use of Windows Authentication. Username and password, not embedded, credentials are supported. A limitation is Windows Authentication credentials can't be used for connections to load Metadata Loaders. 

Send Credentials from Designer

Create a credential in Analytics Hub for a workflow with data connections upon upload from Designer. When you run the workflow in Analytics Hub, it will work right away, as the connections are already configured.

Enable and Disable Schedules

Now you can disable a schedule when you don't want it to run instead of deleting it. To disable a schedule, go to Jobs > Schedules. Select the vertical ellipsis icon > Edit Schedule next to the schedule you want to disable. Turn off the Enable Schedule toggle.

Worker Licenses

We've updated the Licenses page to provide a single location to enter licenses, making it easier to manage licenses for engine workers and data packages.

Platform Job Queue

To see where your job is in the queue of all workflows on the platform, go to Jobs > Queue. This queue view also provides a way for Platform Admins to assist with long-running workflows when needed.

Use Tags to Assign Jobs to Engine Workers

Platform Admins can configure engine workers to run specifically tagged jobs. This is helpful if you want to allocate workers for certain job types or priorities, certain sites, or region-specific data processing. To manage tags, sign into the Platform Admin site and go to Engine Workers > Job Tags. 

Prioritize Jobs

Prioritize the highest value workflows to make sure they don't sit in the queue behind lower value jobs. To set job priority, go to a workflow and select Run or Schedule > Advanced Settings > Job Priority.

Run Mode

Admins can use run modes to provide an extra layer of security on the platform. Restricted and semi-restricted run modes prevent potentially harmful workflows from running.

Sync LDAP Groups

Now Platform Admins can sync groups from LDAP (Active Directory). To do so, go to Platform Admin > Settings > Directories > User Directories.

Engine Worker Management UI

Platform Admins no longer have to sign in to each engine worker to manage settings. Manage engine workers from Platform Admin > Engine Workers > Worker Details.

Select Upload Location in Designer

When uploading to Analytics Hub from Designer, you can now save to a location other than your personal folder. To do so from Alteryx Designer, select Save As > Location > Select.

Licensing

User licenses are separated into 2 types: Analytics Hub User and Designer User. A user with the Analytics Hub User license type can log in to Analytics Hub, but can't connect Alteryx Designer. A user with the Designer User license type can connect Designer to Analytics Hub for easy upload and download of workflows, sharing connections, and more. Platform Admins and Site Admins can assign user licenses.

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Known Issues and Limitations

Browsers

• Analytics Hub only supports Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer 11. Using an unsupported browser might cause issues in the application interface or other failures.

Certificates

• Self-signed certificates that are provided by the ayxhub.ps1 script are only valid for 60 days.
• Configuring Analytics Hub with certificates containing special characters in the certificate password might fail due to limitations with how PowerShell parses some special characters. Try wrapping the password in single quotation marks (for example, ayxhub.ps1 -https enable C:\ssl\host.domain.com.crt C:\ssl\host.domain.com.key C:\ssl\bundle.crt C:\ssl\host.domain.com.pfx ‘password’).

Consumer Role Limitations

• Consumers can't run analytic apps with a File Browse tool.
• Consumers can't use bulk download functionality.
• Attempting to drag and drop a file into Analytics Hub might cause the file to open in the browser - this is because consumers can't upload files. This could also happen to users without Create permission in a folder.

Content Displayed in Tables

• Content might not refresh automatically after an action is performed. Refresh your browser if the content isn't updating.
• Sorting in tables throughout the platform might be case-sensitive.
• Columns might not be resizable.
• Content might be truncated or difficult to read whenever the window size is not full screen.

Data Catalog

• Syncing the same data source across sites simultaneously can cause failures in the data catalog load.
• Failed sync operations might leave entries in the data catalog that conflict with future sync attempts. This can be mitigated by using the re-run feature on the failed job within the data catalog results table.

Deleted Content and Users

• When deleting a user or removing them from a site, their content will remain and can be manually removed or transferred to new owners.

Designer

• Some workflows that appear to fail upload might actually succeed. Check Analytics Hub to confirm.
• New file versions are automatically created when uploading an existing workflow. No warning is provided.

Dialog Response Time

• Some dialogs might not immediately respond to user input as they are still processing the request. Acting again during this processing might cause issues. Examples, where this might occur, are creating a site and creating a group.

File Upload Dialog

• Issues with the dialog showing in-progress file uploads might happen when uploading a large number of files or navigating to various pages while a file is uploading.

Install

• Install fails unless Postgres Admin username is all lowercase. During installation, if you set up your Postgres credentials with a username that contains capital letters, the install will fail. This is due to a script in the background that sets up that user and expects it to be case sensitive when connecting to the database. 

LDAP

• Disabled user accounts are synced.

Microsoft .NET Core

• Microsoft .NET Core places extracted files for the runtime of the Alteryx Engine Worker in folder C:\Windows\Temp\.net\CutlassApi\. Disk cleanup utilities or antivirus programs could delete these files causing Alteryx workflow executions to fail. You might see the error message "Failed to retrieve asset." If this occurs, delete the C:\Windows\Temp\.net\CutlassApi\ directory and restart the AlteryxEngineWorker service. A workaround to prevent this problem is to set the Windows Environment variable DOTNET_BUNDLE_EXTRACT_BASE_DIR to the Analytics Hub installation folder (for example, C:\Program Files\Alteryx\Extracted_Runtime_Files\). After setting the environment variable, restart the AlteryxEngineWorker service for the setting to take effect. In a multi-node environment, make this change on all Analytics Hub machines. We're evaluating a permanent solution for this issue.

Overview Page

• Metrics displayed on the Overview page might not display correctly depending on actions taken on the platform.

Proxies

• Proxy environments aren't supported.

Reporting

• Some reports might not render as expected if generated from a run on Analytics Hub, specifically HTML output type.
• Insights are not supported.

Scheduling

• Whenever an output folder is removed, the schedule might fail without notification.

Settings

• A worker might not appear as active if the heartbeat setting is modified to be higher than 60 seconds.
• Changing the Workflow Logs folder might display an error in the application interface but logs will still be written to the chosen location.

Sharing

• A warning about user permissions is not displayed when sharing with the ‘All Users’ group.

Sites

• A site named ‘metrics’ will cause an issue due to a naming conflict with product functionality.
• Underscores in site names might cause login errors.

Special Characters and Encoding

• Characters other than numbers and English letters (for example, ~, _) might not display properly in the application interface or might cause issues. Examples:
  • Spaces in a file or schedule name might appear as %20.
  • Characters used in files loaded to the data catalog might cause failures or issues navigating to the file.
  • Searching for a file with a name containing certain characters might return unexpected results.
• Metadata loaders for the data catalog fail if there are special characters (for example, @!") in the password for the connection.

Upgrade

• LDAPS:// is not checking for certificates in 20.2 or 20.2.1. Without proper certs in place, it will revert to LDAP://. If you're using LDAPS://, make sure to have a local (non-LDAP) platform admin account set up before you upgrade in case LDAP authentication fails after upgrade due to the cert issue.
• If Postgres is shut down before the upgrade, it will not start up automatically after. Restart Analytics Hub with the ayxhub.ps1 PowerShell script.
• The site settings page doesn't always migrate. After upgrade, Site Admins should check previous setting values. Also, set new site settings for Run Priority, Data Preview for Data Catalog, and File Upload Restrictions.
• The upgrade process sets all users to the Analytics Hub User license type. You might see an "Invalid license" error and a negative number in the Available column. To resolve the error, reassign the correct license types.

User Management

• Remove Users and Remove From Site options in the Users table will only remove user roles, not group roles.
• A non-functioning SMTP configuration can cause delays in user creation.
• Bulk removal of groups might not complete as expected.

Workflow Dependencies

• Some dependencies will not appear if they are in a macro.
• When you upload a workflow via drag and drop, Analytics Hub doesn't recognize connections and an "Unknown Data Source/Connection" message displays.

Fixed and Known Issues by Defect Number

Fixed Major Release Version 2020.4.0.250b036
ID	Description	Version	Issue Status
DE24428	Spaces can be included in the search query when searching for a user by first and last name.	2020.4	Fixed
DE25803	Users can successfully be removed from a group on the page displaying details of the group, as permissions allow.	2020.4	Fixed
DE26222	When viewing the table of groups, the site that owns the group is displayed in the Owner column.	2020.4	Fixed
DE26402	All users in a group are displayed on the page displaying details of the group.	2020.4	Fixed
DE25979	If you had a data source that was owned by a user that was removed from the system and you navigated to the data source page, the site would crash.	2020.4	Fixed
DE24967	Removed the option to "Publish this version of the workflow" on the Save option in Designer because this functionality has not yet been implemented.	2020.4	Fixed
DE26356	After sharing a connection to a group, the user can't share with a single user if a member of that group. Also, users can't remove sharing access from this group.	2020.4	Fixed
DE26881	If there are two pages of data sources, sharing a data source from page 2 causes the page to crash.	2020.4	Fixed
DE26918	When fixing a connection issue from a workflow dependency or changing the owner of a data source, existing data sources cannot be found.	2020.4	Fixed
DE26983	In some cases, when there's an issue in workflow dependencies, clicking the error message causes the workflow page to stop responding.	2020.4	Fixed
DE27196	When associating two data sources or clicking the Associated Data Sources tab from the data source's page, the data source page stops responding.	2020.4	Fixed
DE23164	A user can edit a file name with only the Edit permission. The Delete and Create permissions are no longer required.	2020.4	Fixed
DE25334	Outputs are no longer automatically packaged as a dependency on upload from Designer.	2020.4	Fixed
DE25589	Connections with long names are truncated in the Advanced Settings tab of the Run/Schedule dialog boxes.	2020.4	Fixed
DE25831	Navigating back to a file after it has been moved will no longer result in an error.	2020.4	Fixed
DE26023	Improved experience when uploading a large number of files in a single operation.	2020.4	Fixed
DE26064	When changing a dependency, it is possible to select an input file from the same location as the workflow.	2020.4	Fixed
DE26338	Workflow name is shortened if necessary to ensure workflow will not fail due to a long name.	2020.4	Fixed
DE27191	XML file as input to workflow is correctly recognized and displayed in the Dependencies table on the workflow page.	2020.4	Fixed
DE25582	If some tables are not loaded, the job has a new warning status to inform users.	2020.4	Fixed
DE25832	Filesystem loader can be used to load a shared drive.	2020.4	Fixed
DE25857	A loader can sync simultaneously on two sites.	2020.4	Fixed
DE26116	The length of the path of assets that are being loaded is not limited anymore. The only limitation in this matter is the length of the name of the asset. This limit is currently set to 127 characters	2020.4	Fixed
DE27654	If a user uses the same username/password on multiple data sources (different technologies) and uploads workflows to AAH, a connection for the second (and third and so on) data source is not created. The workflow will use the connection from the first data source and fail.	2020.4	Fixed
DE27675	When a site admin or data steward changes the ownership of a credential they do not own, the password must be removed from that credential. Otherwise, workflows and data connections that use this credential do not work properly until a new password is entered. The new owner will have to go into the credential and enter the password for connected assets in Hub to function properly again.	2020.4	Fixed

Known
ID	Description	Version	Issue Status
DE27503	If you schedule a workflow and then later disable that schedule, the next time that schedule was supposed to run, it will be marked as corrupted in the table. You can reenable the schedule and it will run successfully during its next run.	2020.4.0.250b036	Known
DE27978	Install fails unless Postgres Admin username is all lowercase. During installation, if you set up your Postgres credentials with a username that contains capital letters, the install will fail. This is due to a script in the background that sets up that user and expects it to be case sensitive when connecting to the database.	2020.4.0.250b036	Known
DE26901	Entering ' ' (space) as the first character in the search bar for Recents, Shared with Me, or Shared by Me results in an error.	2020.4.0.250b036	Known
DE27884	If you run an analytic app with a File Browse question and use a file with a name that has a space in it, the app will fail to recognize that file, and the run will fail.	2020.4.0.250b036	Known
DE26958	Run As selection does not affect anything. We'll remove it from the schedule dialog for loaders.	2020.4.0.250b036	Known
DE27822	The installer does not show the correct current version during upgrade. It always shows You currently have Analytics Hub 2020.2.0.0.	2020.4.0.250b036	Known
DE27815	Site Settings pages don't always migrate during upgrade. After upgrade, Site Admins should check previous setting values and set new site settings for Run Priority, Data Preview for Data Catalog, and File Upload Restrictions.	2020.4.0.250b036	Known