Analytics Hub 2021.1 Release Notes

New Features

Accessibility

Now you can navigate the Analytics Hub user interface using a keyboard or screen reader.

Disk Usage Page

The new Disk Usage page provides Platform Admins a view of Analytics Hub disk space usage including Sites, Logs, and more. This valuable insight helps admins resolve issues and investigate sites and files using a lot of disk space. To see the new page in Analytics Hub, go to Platform Admin > Disk Usage.

Improved Run Mode

Platform admins can now configure Run Mode through the UI (Platform Admin > Settings > General > Run Mode). We also added the ability for Site Admins to grant Run Mode exceptions to workflows on their sites. To change the Run Mode on a workflow, sign in as Site Admin and go to the workflow's details page > vertical ellipsis icon > Versions > Run Mode.

Licensing

A Sandbox SKU for testing upgrades is available to any customer, free of charge. Sandbox licenses map to their counterparts:

• Upgrade to Alteryx Designer for AAH -> Analytics Hub Designer User
• Analytics Hub Sandbox Designer User -> Analytics Hub Designer User
• Analytics Hub Sandbox User -> Analytics Hub User

Metadata Tags

Now you can assign tags to workflows, outputs, and other files for easier organization and sharing. To add or assign a tag, expand the side panel on a details page > Tags > Add or Select Tag. Learn more.

SAP HANA Support

We added SAP HANA as a supported data source technology.

Save Filter View

Save and share common or useful searches to more easily find content on your site. To save a filter view, go to Advanced Search > select filters > Save. Learn more. 

Select Workflow Version

We've added a new Versions dropdown when you Run or Schedule a workflow, so you can select the correct version of a workflow.

Table-Level Lineage

See specific tables used in a workflow and how dependencies relate to the information in the data catalog. To see table-level lineage in action, open a workflow with supported connections that are loaded to data catalog and select the Data Catalog tab.

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 should 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.
• Only Directory credentials can be used to authenticate from Designer. SSO credentials are not currently working.

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.

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.

Reporting

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

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.
• When upgrading from 20.2, the upgrade process removes the Analytics Hub Engine Worker. Check your engine worker status after the upgrade. It shouldn't be Active or Licensed. If that is true, re-enter your Analytics Hub Engine Worker license key. 

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.
• Workflow dependencies are only displayed for Input Data tools and Output Data tools in non-bulk load configurations.

Fixed and Known Issues by Defect Number