topic Re: Table tool column rules being incorrectly applied? in Alteryx Designer Desktop Discussions

Table tool column rules being incorrectly applied?

macjg — Tue, 21 Aug 2018 13:15:37 GMT

Baffled by this one, hopefully something obvious I am doing wrong.

I pass in this data to the Table:

And this is what comes out:

Questions are:

1) Why does some data disappear? e.g. under "K9" the first row used to be -12 and now is blank

2) Why is my column rule to turn negative numbers red not being applied consistently?

It seems like the Table has memory from previous runs where the data under the same column headings was different and is applying the formatting according to the old data - is that possible?

Any help greatly appreciated - example workflow attached.

Thanks

Re: Table tool column rules being incorrectly applied?

mceleavey — Tue, 21 Aug 2018 14:51:10 GMT

Hi @macjg,

there's a bit of an "undocumented feature" on the table functionality when applying row level formulae.

If you use the actual "where" wizard and apply the change to the data type before you put it into the table ti works.

I've attached the solution for you. Let me know if that works.

Re: Table tool column rules being incorrectly applied?

macjg — Tue, 21 Aug 2018 15:16:04 GMT

Thanks for the reply mceleavey, but don't think that works either unfortunately.

The reason I was doing the type conversion in the row rule is that my data will have new column names come in all the time, and I wanted to be able to apply the formatting rules to these new fields.

When I try applying the "When" method to "Dynamic or Unknown Fields" in the table, I get the result:

"The field "*Unknown" is not contained in the record"

I avoided that issue when I use the "Formula" method with ToNumber([_CurrentField_])=0

but ended up with the mysteriously disappearing data instead - seems like a bug?

macjg

Re: Table tool column rules being incorrectly applied?

mceleavey — Tue, 21 Aug 2018 22:39:47 GMT

Hi @macjg,

In that case yes. If the columns are dynamic you'll need to raise it with Alteryx, unless one of the fountains of knowledge on here can help you out.

I've come across this problem before and it seems to be a bug, but I also think it has something to do with mixed data types.

Interestingly, if you change the order in which the columns appear you can also get around it. Not always applicable I accept...

Sorry I can't be of more help.

Good luck.

Re: Table tool column rules being incorrectly applied?

macjg — Thu, 23 Aug 2018 15:10:09 GMT

OK thanks anyway for trying.

Dear Alteryx - any chance of fixing this bug please?

Surprised more people have not raised this at it seems like pretty basic reporting functionality.

Re: Table tool column rules being incorrectly applied?

SophiaF — Fri, 31 Aug 2018 14:20:00 GMT

@macjg I agree we should look into this further - I have escalated this internally and we will post here with an update/request for more information. Thanks for reporting!

Re: Table tool column rules being incorrectly applied?

SophiaF — Wed, 05 Sep 2018 14:51:31 GMT

@macjg I can see why the data is disappearing - there are the following rules on the following columns:

Column	Rule	Condition	Rule Style
Z8	Z8 Rule 1	Z8 == 0	Replace with blank text (empty string)
H9	H9 Rule 2	H9 == 0	Replace with blank text (empty string)
F9	F9 Rule 1	F9 == 0	Replace with blank text (empty string)
K9	K9 Rule 1	K9 == 0	Replace with blank text (empty string)
Z9	Z9 Rule 1	Z9 == 1	Replace with blank text (empty string)
TOTAL	TOTAL Rule 1	TOTAL == 0	Replace with blank text (empty string)

I'm doing some more digging into why the Unknown option doesn't work.

Re: Table tool column rules being incorrectly applied?

macjg — Wed, 05 Sep 2018 16:17:23 GMT

Hi Sophia,

Thanks a lot for looking into this one.

You're correct that there are rules on the columns - that is intentional - but they don't seem to be being applied correctly.

e.g. the K9 rule to replace with blank text when data == 0; why does this rule get rid of the "-12" entry under K9 as in the screenshot on my original post?

Thanks,

John

Re: Table tool column rules being incorrectly applied?

SophiaF — Thu, 06 Sep 2018 08:05:19 GMT

@macjg - in the example workflow that was provided (where I got these rules) they do seem to apply correctly. Here's what I see:

Do you have a workflow with the same rules that you applied on your original post?

Re: Table tool column rules being incorrectly applied?

macjg — Thu, 06 Sep 2018 08:40:26 GMT

I've just downloaded the original workflow attached to my first post and run it again - I get the same results I originally posted - which bizarrely are different to yours!

However the "if negative - red" rule doesn't seem to be applied correctly in yours either.

Re: Table tool column rules being incorrectly applied?

macjg — Tue, 11 Sep 2018 16:36:07 GMT

Hi Sophia

Did you get any further with this or still unable to reproduce the error?

Is it possible to speak to an Alteryx support representative directly or is this the best channel?

Thanks,

John

Re: Table tool column rules being incorrectly applied?

SophiaF — Thu, 13 Sep 2018 08:50:07 GMT

Hi John - I've emailed you directly. I will be sure to post an update to the post for everyone else when we have a resolution!

Re: Table tool column rules being incorrectly applied?

dyamichael — Thu, 28 Feb 2019 23:56:56 GMT

Has there been an update on this? I believe I am running into the same issue and can't find any other helpful documentation or community discussions.

Thanks,

Michael

Re: Table tool column rules being incorrectly applied?

macjg — Fri, 01 Mar 2019 09:39:05 GMT

hi dyamichael

I followed up a couple weeks ago as it's been nearly 6 months since first raised - got this response from Alteryx

Thanks for following up - unfortunately we don't have an ETA to provide, but we will be sure to let you know when a release is out that contains the fix.

John

Re: Table tool column rules being incorrectly applied?

dyamichael — Sun, 03 Mar 2019 06:48:16 GMT

Thanks John. I ran into the same issue in what I thought was a corrupted
table tool inside a batch macro after a version upgrade. I remade the table
tool and rules and it ran successfully when tested in the macro. It
produced the exact same formatting errors when running the app and then did
so when testing in the macro afterwards.

Cheers,
Michael

Sent on the run.

Re: Table tool column rules being incorrectly applied?

joshbennett — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 08:48:35 GMT

Hi @SophiaF

Bumping this - it has been ~3 years since you all added this to your backlog; can you please share an update on this bug?

Re: Table tool column rules being incorrectly applied?

JakePauley — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 18:40:50 GMT

Bump again. My workflow appears to be taking the _CurrentField_ to be 2 columns to the left. I shifted my Unknown/Dynamic columns over so there was nothing on the left and reordered them in the table tool, and now the _CurrentField_ is looking 2 columns to the right instead of to itself.