Put Capitalize’s 20+ years of Governance experience to work for you. Our comprehensive Alteryx Lifecycle Governance service allows your team have the right blend of control & organization while still maintaining the powerful self-service/citizen development strengths of Alteryx.
What is Lifecycle Governance?
Due to the nature of Alteryx being primarily a self-service tool, it can create some potential governance challenges that are more complex than standard IT technology deployments. As your organization’s use of Alteryx increases and becomes a more prominent line of business system, we feel it is important to consider thinking through the different Alteryx components and their “lifecycles” across people, processes and technology in order to appropriately mitigate risks and proactively avoid issues before they occur. After observing this need across 100’s of clients, Capitalize is now offering Alteryx Lifecycle Governance services developed from our unique deep experience with Alteryx and our company’s deep knowledge in developing such methodologies.
Why Alteryx Lifecycle Governance Services?
Lifecycle
Governance
Services
People
- Who should have access?
- How do they get onboarded?
- How do we ensure they still need a license?
- What happens if they leave?
Process
- How do we document workflows?
- What is the change management process?
- Who owns the workflow and how do we communicate issues with them?
- How do we ensure workflows are still needed and continue to be tested if the sources/targets change?
Technology
- How do we push out desktop licenses/upgrades?
- What's the process for keeping up with Server releases?
- What should we do for backup/recovery?
- What's the process for bringing on a new, critical, data source(SAP/Oracle Financials)?
People
- Who should have access?
- How do they get onboarded?
- How do we ensure they still need a licensed?
- What happens if they leave?
Process
- How do we document workflows?
- What is the change mamgement process?
- Who owns the workflow and how do we communicate issues with them?
- How do we ensure workflows are still needed and continue to be tested if the sources/targets change?
Technology
- How do we push out desktop licenses/upgrades?
- What's the process for keeping up with Server releases?
- What should we do for backup/recovery?
- What's the process for bringing on a new,crirical, data source(SAP/Oracle Financials)?
Lifecycle Governance Services?
People
- Who should have access?
- How do they get onboarded?
- How do we ensure they still need a licensed?
- What happens if they leave?
Process
- How do we document workflows?
- What is the change mamgement process?
- Who owns the workflow and how do we communicate issues with them?
- How do we ensure workflows are still needed and continue to be tested if the sources/targets change?
Technology
- How do we push out desktop licenses/upgrades?
- What's the process for keeping up with Server releases?
- What should we do for backup/recovery?
- What's the process for bringing on a new,crirical, data source(SAP/Oracle Financials)?
This is just a small subset of the questions we ask in order to gain a better understanding of your organization’s Alteryx maturity and the dependencies that Alteryx has. This allows us to tailor a unique solution to our clients that is targeted to improve the governance of Alteryx in the categories that we mutually agree will be most beneficial.
There are five key areas that make up Lifecycle Governance with Alteryx:
Users
Data Sources
Support
Workflows
Technology
Users
Data Sources
Support
Workflows
Technology
Our team examines each Lifecycle area to identify where you are today and make recommendations on where you should be tomorrow. These recommendations are developed in concert with client to ensure alignment on Alteryx governance goal and agreement on priorities with your organization.
The primary objective of the outcome is ensuring a "Right Sized" governance model to provide order, consistency, and oversight to ensure that you are getting the most out of Alteryx without creating unnecessary overhead.
Below we have outlined the different Alteryx Lifecycles, which is a high-level view of the functional areas that we cover in our assessment and program planning.
ALteryx Lifecycles
- Lifecycle of a User
- Lifecycle of a Data Source
- Lifecycle of a Workflow
- Lifecycle of Alteryx Designer
- Lifecycle of Alteryx Server
The lifecycle of a user begins with onboarding and training and goes all the way to role change/separation. Onboarding and training are complex and time-consuming processes. Each new hire requires function-specific training and access to relevant data and analytic tools. It can be difficult to organize, especially when onboarding large groups at a time.
- Onboarding
- Initial Training
- Continuing Education (Designer)
- Continuing Education (Server)
- Role Change/Separation
- Request License
- Manager/IT approval
- Deploy Alteryx to Computer
- Ensure License info/time stored and kept track of
- Alteryx.com learning paths
- Formal Alteryx Training course/recording
- Required certifications and timelines to complete
- Assign User to certain user group/Pod
- Required retraining’s cycles and timelines
- Required certification management
- Training and documentation on updates in Alteryx and new tools
- CoE conference
- Annually review user need for license
- User group/Pod regular meetings
- Admin Training
- End user training
- Security group permissions clearly defined and documented
- Upgrade training and refreshers
- CoE conference
- User group/Pod regular meetings
- Identify user to be removed
- Migrate workflows/schedules to a new owner
- Remove license and Alteryx from computer
- Reassign license to another use (if applicable)
- Annually review user need for license
Data has become the life blood of most organizations and every organization manages their data differently. Leveraging a plan of governance is key to eliminating rework and removing added complexity while adhering to client security standards. The number of use cases and functionality where Alteryx can be leveraged is quite large, so it is important to clearly map out where it will be used in your organization and technical infrastructure. We cover evaluating data sources, publishing data, security and access requirements, and decommission / migration of data sources
- Evaluate
- Publish
- Security/Access
- Change/Update
- Decommission/Migration
- Location (DB, Excel, ERP…)
- Integration process already exist?
- Integration capabilities
- Security and access setup
- Data quality assessment
- Data clean up requirements
- Data velocity requirements
- Data type consistency
- Forecasted demand on data needs (processor and volume)
- Testing
- Approvals
- Security
- Deployment
- Refresh schedule
- How/who do I request access
- Documentation on access limits (ie cannot run a complex query)
- Approvals
- Regularly review/audit users security/access
- How/who do I request an update
- Approvals
- Testing
- Deployment
- Regularly review/audit users security/access
- WAM
- Developer and End User survey/discussion
- Approvals
- Migrate existing workflows to new data source
- Testing
- Decommission/Archive
Determining the value of an Alteryx Workflow can be very subjective, but from idea inception we track Hard and Soft ROI metrics to feed a simple business case for development. We have idea ingestion and specification templates, requirement / mockup templates, best practices and recommendations on Workflow development, testing, deployment, monitoring and support.
- Idea/Specification
- Development and Testing
- Migration
- Deploy/Monitor
- Change Management
- Decommission/Archive
- Can Alteryx be leveraged?
- Data source availability
- Use of predictive or advanced tools?
- Check repository if something similar already exists
- End user(s) affected
- Timeline (need by)
- Data source security
- Requirements and Design
- Data Source Identification
- Best Practices
- Outputs and Presentation
- Test Plan and Acceptance Tests
- Approvals
- Security
- Schedule
- Deploy
- Set up schedule job if applicable
- WAM
- Add to a collection/group
- Who is monitoring?
- Notifications of failures?
- Who can access/run
- Developer and End User support
- Who do I contact to update?
- Approvals
- Design / Development
- Testing
- Deployment
- Document workflow updates, use meta info
- WAM
- End user survey / discussion on workflow
- Testing verification
- Approvals
- Archive workflow
- Security so no one can run/update, only admin has access
When it comes to allocating a Designer license to an individual, we can help to assess the need, guide through the installation procedures, and recommend appropriate enhancements. Combining this with the Lifecycle of a User ensures users are armed with appropriate knowledge and training.
- Assess Need
- Install Procedure
- 3rd Party Tools/Enhancements
- Version Management
- Decommission/End of Life
- Budget
- Number of users
- Number of use cases
- Business goals alignment
- Default set up
- Install Predictive tools
- Best practices for setups/configurations
- Internal API, ODBC configurations
- Data permissions
- Additional licenses-Business Intelligence suite, machine learning, auto insights
- Macros
- Data streaming configurations API, ODBC configurations
- Approvals needed to test/download tools/macros/apps from Alteryx
- Partner Custom tools
- Enable AMP Engine
- Enable Compatibility Mode
- Enable more memory
- Documented upgrade cycle
- Alteryx notifications/best practices
- Designer phonehome URL
- User no longer using Alteryx
- Migrate workflows/schedules to a different user
- Remove Alteryx license and software
- Annually review user need for license
Similarly with Alteryx Designer, we can help you assess the need and value of Alteryx server, optimize its configuration to your environment as well as provide guidance on monitoring and version management.
- Assess Need
- Install
- Configuration
- Disaster Recovery
- Scaling
- Monitoring
- Decommission
- Number of users
- Need for scheduling jobs
- Budget
- Centralized Repository
- Business critical workflows
- Security authorization and authentication mechanism (active directory, okta)
- Computing requirements
- Alteryx Server Pre-Req questionnaire
- On prem? Cloud?
- Security Integration
- Admin Training
- Persistence layer decision
- Recommended user groups
- Configure prioritized jobs on scheduler
- Admin and end user training
- Service account config
- Configure database drivers and credentials.
- Assign data source access to specific user groups
- Controller connections
- Set up collections/group
- Integration with existing DR plan
- Regular DR testing and updates
- Back up/refresh schedules
- Back up storage
- Documentation
- Regenerate controller token if compromised
- Computing requirements
- Alteryx Server Pre-Req questionnaire
- Budget
- Workload Size
- Workload execution time
- # of concurrent users
- Server monitoring and usage reports
- # of schedule jobs. # of business-critical jobs
- Scaling approach up vs out
- Computing requirements
- Alteryx Server Pre-Req questionnaire
- Alteryx notifications/best practices
- Documented upgrade cycle
- Server monitoring and usage reports
- Review schedules and failure notifications
- Designer phonehome URL
- Admin Training
- Review user usage
- Decision process and documentation
- Scheduling
- Back up process
- Wipe data
- Insert data into new server
- Remove old server
Why is this important?
Lifecycle Governance is a system of checks and balances that provide a long-term program roadmap of everything from training to troubleshooting role changes and change requests. It prioritizes future objectives, while ensuring that no steps are missed that could potentially alter the functionality, productivity, or security of your Alteryx environment.
Alteryx Workflow Provisioning
Who can create a new workflow? What types of workflows are allowed?
User Management/Security
Who is responsible for granting access to licenses, data sources, cross departments? What patterns should be followed?
Environment Management
Do we have a development, test and production environment? What is the promotion process?
Data Source Management
What is the plan for cataloging data sources? Integration tools leveraged?
Change Management
How are requests for new and significant changes resolved?
Staffing and Training
What staff is needed to support our Alteryx footprint? What training will they require?
Development Standards
What standards should our development teams follow?
Approvals
Who is responsible for approvals – workflows, data owners, system owners, schedules, etc.?
Monitoring
How is system health monitored?
Backup and Recovery
Frequency, granularity, supporting SLAs