Star Alliance Airline Soars with Alteryx Server
At a Glance
1000+
Workflows Governed
10
Departments Migrated
25
Alteryx Champions Trained
Overview
Service
Data Engineering & Infrastructure
Industry
Airlines
Stack
Data Engineering and Architecture
Star Alliance Airline Soars with Alteryx Servera
January 15, 2025
Tyler Nagano
Stack
The Challenge
Our client is a Star Alliance airline carrying over 15 million passengers globally each year and is a seasoned user of the Alteryx Analytics Platform for their operations. Due to a surge in demand from the pandemic, they faced challenges in maintaining their growing Alteryx infrastructure and retaining essential knowledge as experienced staff left. While they had systems in place, these were not sufficient to ensure continuity, prompting the need for a proper governance framework to enhance knowledge sharing, preserve business logic, and implement best practices for Alteryx Server.
The Solution
The Compass Analytics team began with an Alteryx Server architecture review to identify pain points and bottlenecks in the airline’s analytics process. The review revealed an opportunity to improve throughput by scaling workloads across additional nodes. The team also set up resource monitoring, which had previously been absent. In addition, they conducted governance training on best practices for deploying and maintaining Alteryx workflows on the Server, provided documentation standards for workflow creation, adapted key workflows to these standards, and supported the airline through the full documentation and migration process.
Impact
1000+
Workflows Governed
10+
Departments Migrated
25
Alteryx Champions Trained
250+
Hours Saved
Stack
Performance Issues with Alteryx Server
Our client, an established airline company, relies heavily on Alteryx to manage critical business operations, such as identifying passengers for rebooking on disrupted flights and analyzing cabin booking performance across their network.
Alteryx is widely used across multiple business units, with workflows centrally processed on a large Alteryx Server.
Although the client has significant expertise in workflow development, they encountered difficulties stemming from staff turnover and inadequate documentation, which has led to the need for complete workflow rebuilds. To address this, they aimed to revamp and standardize their documentation process across all business units using their upgraded Alteryx Server.
Additionally, they experienced performance issues with their Alteryx Server due to the high volume of daily workflow processing.
Resolving these challenges would enhance internal knowledge sharing, improve analytics and governance, and ultimately lead to more efficient operations and stronger data-driven decision-making.
Growing Number of Flight Delays
Lack of Documentation Standard
Our client sought an effective solution to streamline the sharing of Alteryx workflow knowledge among team members. The existing process, where workflow expertise was tied to individual employees, resulted in knowledge loss and increased training costs whenever staff turnover occurred, hindering organizational progress and market competitiveness.
Alteryx Server Guidance
To address their Alteryx Server performance issues, our team conducted an architecture review which revealed significant bottleneck issues caused by large jobs. Our team recommended horizontal scaling to better distribute workloads by job type. Our team also implemented system monitoring to track CPU and RAM usage across worker nodes therby highlighing any further performance issues.
Shifting Working Cultures
Our team identified a critical issue regarding the maintainability of workflows over time. With numerous licenses deployed and multiple workflows developed by each user, it became evident that a new approach to documentation and knowledge sharing was necessary to ensure smooth business operations. To address this, we standardized training protocols across the organization, fostering improved communication and more efficient workflows.
Improving Air Traffic Control and Communication
To help the client solve their issues with Alteryx Server governance, configuration and documentation best practices, the Compass Analytics team provided two main services: Alteryx training sessions and Alteryx Workflow documentation and migration.
During the Alteryx training sessions, the Compass team presented a comprehensive framework for Alteryx Server governance and supplied governance documents to manage internal change management processes, specifically for promoting Alteryx workflows from the development server to the production server. Additional sessions covered key components of our Alteryx workflow documentation standards, offering users documentation templates and a guide for effectively structuring major workflow elements. These sessions are foundational in cultivating a work culture focused on maintaining workflows moving forward.
For the Alteryx workflow documentation, we documented several critical business workflows following the Compass documentation standard. We reorganized workflows to provide a clearer flow of transformations and added context to key components. Before migrating all documented workflows to the Alteryx Server production environment, we conducted walkthroughs with each workflow owner to ensure adherence to documentation standards and other checks necessary for promoting workflows to production.
Reducing Turbulence on Flights
The Alteryx Server training and Workflow documentation initiatives have significantly enhanced the Star Alliance airline's knowledge-sharing capabilities and governance framework. By standardizing documentation practices, the airline has streamlined operations, reducing rework and ensuring the seamless execution of critical business processes.
Documentation Best Practices
The Compass team delivered hands-on training in documentation best practices, ensuring the team could effectively implement key components. They assisted in documenting critical workflows, establishing a foundation for the organization's documentation standard. This refined practice promotes better knowledge sharing and more sustainable business operations.
Alteryx Server Governance
The Alteryx Server governance training set a new standard for managing workflows on the server. Comprehensive documentation provided a framework for governance and workflow promotion processes. These improvements in server infrastructure and administration enhance efficiency and robustness in workflow processes and analytics throughput.
New Ways of Working
The Compass team introduced a new documentation standard and initiated change management processes to improve workflow documentation. Through training sessions, best practices guides, and the initial documentation of workflows, they laid the groundwork for enhanced knowledge sharing and efficiency, reducing rework and optimizing business processes.
