Percentage Change in Data

[taran42]

I am building some error checking into my data and one bit of checking that I want to look at is if the data has changed by a certain percentage. For example, I have a client with ten locations and they add two new locations to their data. When the workflow updates, the new locations will be added to the data set for a total of twelve. That's typical. However if the locations jumped by eight, or even an additional ten, that would be unusual. I want Alteryx to alert me to such a large change in the data.

In my example I used locations, but this could also be true for revenue, employee headcount, etc. I want to be alerted to large changes (something like 10%) from the previous day/week/month's data. Is there a way to do this within Alteryx?

[echuong1]

Yes, you can essentially build a calculation to find the percentage change. From there, you can use a message tool to stop running the workflow and notify the user that there was a change greater than X%.

Do you have some sample data you can share? I can try to mock a workflow.

[taran42]

I do not have a sample set of data I can use at this time. Obviously all of my client data is confidential and I can't use it here. I can put together a rough data set and post it here.

[Qiu · Accepted solution]

@taran42 
Is this something you need?

[taran42]

@Qiu  Thanks for the help. I like how you laid this out; it looks like it will do what I am looking for. I am in the process of implementing it now.

It'll probably take me a while to fit it into my workflow, I'm still fairly new to Alteryx. My data sits on Tableau Server, so I'll need to compare what I'm about to write to the server with what I have already written. I guess I will have to save my output locally as well, then compare that with what I'm about to upload to the server. I suppose I'll need a stop action as well. I'll let you know how it goes.

[taran42]

@Qiu Thank you for the solution you posted. I was able to get the results I was looking for.

[Qiu]

@taran42 

Thank you for the feedback and also the accept mark.

Happy to be able to help.