Multi-Field Binning Odd Results

I have been testing the Multi-Field Binning Tool against an Excel table of 29,000 records. (all dummy data)

I am using the Equal Intervals option: (The minimum and maximum values of the tile field are determined. The range is split into equal sized sub-ranges and records are assigned to tiles based on these ranges.)

When I set the interval to 10 the workflow produces 15 tiles for each of the two variables. I expect to see 10 tiles and not 15. For other interval values the results are similarly different from what I would expect. You can change the value in the example I have attached to see this behaviour.

This workflow has a dependency on another macro: C:\Program Files\Alteryx\bin\RuntimeData\Macros\testMacroInput.yxdb It may be involved.

For comparison purposes I ran the TILE tool against the same data set and it ran as expected.

My work is attached. My question: Is this Multi-Field Binning Tool flawed or am I missing something?

Multi-Field Binning Exercise.yxmd

DQAC Membership Results.xlsx

Macros

Accepted answers

Joe_Mako

I see what you are saying, and it looks like a bug to me. If we open the Macro for Multi-Field Binning, and then expand the container for "Determine Equal Intervals", the series of tools in there has a few logic errors, and has opportunities to be optimized.

You can use the attached to replace your Multi-Field Binning tool, rename it, removing the "_v2" form the file name, and place in your macro directory. Be sure to rename/backup your old built-in macro. Mine was in the directory: C:\Program Files\Alteryx\bin\RuntimeData\Macros

I did not change any of the interface/input/output tools, so to workflows that use Multi-Field Binning, it appears to be the same macro, so it should not beak anything. I kept to the normal Alteryx Macro convention and documents like the others. This macro produces the expected results, and is much faster.

multi bin.png

MultiFieldBinning_v2.yxmc

All comments

Joe_Mako

They are giving you different results because the Tile tool is configured to "Equal Records" and the Multi-Field Binning tool is configured to "Equal Intervals"

If you configure the Multi-Field Binning tool to "Equal Records", and Number of Tiles to 10, then it will return 10 records in each of the Summarize tools.

derekbelyea

I agree with your suggestion but my question was different. Should I expect the "Equal Intervals" option to produce a number of bins that is different from the input variable (which in the example case was 10 and it delivered 15 bins) ?

Is this a feature or a bug?

pcatterson

I am also encountering what I think is a bug.

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