topic Re: Cumulative Average in Alteryx Designer Desktop Discussions

Cumulative Average

ZoeM — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 21:19:27 GMT

Hi!

I have a dataset of Dates and days late.

How can I calculate a cumulative average field that I will use in a line chart?

Re: Cumulative Average

binu_acs — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 21:28:52 GMT

@ZoeM, can you post the formula for calculating the cumulative average and the expected result?

Re: Cumulative Average

KGT — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 00:43:37 GMT

There's many ways to do this, what is the cumulative average based on? First up will be converting the date if it comes in as a string. DateTimeParse() is what you want for that. Then, either summarise, or Sort/RunningTotal. Depending what you are after.

Simple solution for just the cumulative average on this dataset, would be a

Sort (By Date),
RecordID (used as a counter for how many records in the average).
Multi-Row Formula to get the Cumulative Average: ([Pre/Post Bus. Days]+[Row-1:CumulativeAvg]*[Row-1:RecordID])/[RecordID]

Please correct your field names before using them in a formula though (double spaces, punctuation etc). That's a request from future users of your workflow.

Re: Cumulative Average

nikolinamilincevic — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 12:11:22 GMT

Another option is to use single R tool to get cumulative average, once you have data whose cumulative average you want. Assume that you need a cumulative average of a column called "days".

Then you could write in R tool:

data <- read.Alteryx("#1", mode="list")
data <- as.numeric(data$days)

avg <- c()

for (i in 1:length(data)) {
my_var <- data[1:i]
avg <- c(avg, mean(my_var))
}

write.Alteryx(avg, 1)

Let me know if this helps :)

Re: Cumulative Average

ZoeM — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 18:10:04 GMT

Thanks for the response. I have not had to use the Multi Forumla Tool so I am not versed in configuring it for this purpose.

Is this something you can help with?

Re: Cumulative Average

apathetichell — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 18:15:42 GMT

hey ---> multi-row formula will definitely work. another way is sort your dates, use a recordid, use a running total. use a formula to divide your running total by your record id. This is your basic cumulative sum/n entries formula.

Re: Cumulative Average

KGT — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 00:42:01 GMT

Sure, take a look at the attached. I added the solution by @apathetichell as well.

Re: Cumulative Average

apathetichell — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 15:28:21 GMT

@ZoeM --- can you chime back in --- confirm that everything is working and accept a solution or two or three.

Re: Cumulative Average

ZoeM — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 16:04:20 GMT

This is super awesome, bug thanks for the support.

Just tweaked it a bit for my workflow but getting the expected result!