Disable all Downstream tools

[T_Willins]

When working on a complex, branching workflow I sometimes go down paths that do not give the correct result, but I want to keep them as they are helpful for determining the correct path.  I do not want these branches to run as they slow down the workflow or may produce errors/warnings that muddy debugging the workflow.  These paths can be several tools long and are not easily put in a container and disabled.  Similar to the Cache and Run Workflow feature that prevents upstream tools from refreshing i am suggesting a Disable all Downstream Tools feature.  In the workflow below the tools in the container could be all disabled by a right click on the first sample tool in the container.

[LiuZhang]

Can we use a filter tool with user parameter = 0 (or 1) to control the flows?

[TonyaS]

@T_Willins 

Would you mind adding the "Engine" Label to this idea please?

Thank you for submitting this idea.

I will discuss this with some of my team. 

[TonyaS]

I talked with our Principal Engineer about this and he said that just putting the first tool inside a disabled container should do the trick. 

Is that something that could work for you?  You can right click on that first tool to get it into a container, then click to disable the container. 

Let me know what you think. 

[cgoodman3]

To expand on @T_Willins idea, this would be a great feature to add in as it will make the debugging experience similar to the experience in coding tools, for example being able to at a break in the code or only running a specified section of the workflow.

Yes there are workarounds such as the tool container around the tool or adding in a filter tool with 1=0 to force a break at a certain point in the workflow, but when debugging there are often multiple issues and needing to add in this step as you work through really slows down the debugging process.

Maybe a solution which could work for a tool like Alteryx is a new testing tool which you can drag on to the canvas to act as a break, similar to @LiuZhang 's idea of using a filter, but at runtime the user has the opportunity to decide whether the break is active or not. This would enable you to include multiple breaks in the workflow and to easily move the tool to different areas of the workflow. 

[cgoodman3]

Here is an example of what I was thinking, which builds on @LiuZhang 's idea. It's just a simple macro which has a radio button in the configure to pass data through or not. You can then place this where you want in the workflow, as a feature enhancement it would be good it there was a global parameter which the user could set to disable / enable all pass-through tools.