Mode Calculations in Summary Tool

Question

Hi All - The mode calculation seems a bit wonky to me.  Can someone help me find out how the math actually works when there is a tie?  If I have a number set:

[2,2,2,5,5,5]  What is the mode 2 or 5?  What is the logic, smaller, larger, first, last?

Testing this yesterday I was getting inconsistent answers, sometimes the biggest, sometimes the smallest.  Testing it today, it seems that it picks the smallest number every time.  A little clarity would still be great.

AndrewBanh · Accepted Answer

Hi @sbarton003

In the documentation for the Summarize tool (https://help.alteryx.com/2018.3/Reference/SummaryProceses.htm), it says:

"Mode: Calculates the mode value for a group. The mode of a set of numbers is the smallest number that occurs most often in a group of values. If all values are unique, the smallest number will be returned."

It seems with your data set, because you have 2 values occurring the same number of times, Alteryx should grab the lower of the 2, so picking 2 would be along expectation.

Hope this helps you.

- Andrew