Is there a way we can turn on and off the tool in the workflow?

[crisantopaet1]

Is there a way we can turn on and off any tools in the workflow. This way we can run the tool and when a certain tool is marked off it is not executed. This way we can test the workflow and check different output without deleting the tools existing on the workflow, we can just turn then on or off.

[Gopinaath]

Yes. I agree. This is a great functionality that I have been looking in terms of troubleshooting. Especially, those who come from coding background will relate to this.

Implementation Proposal:

I suggest implementing it as a Right click on the tool and click "disable" in the context menu. Once disabled, one of the following will happen:

1. If it is the last tool in the workflow and has no outgoing connections, it will disable and the workflow will stop at the tool preceding it.

2. If it has outgoing connections, it will disable and data will continue to the tool connected after it as if the disabled tool never existed.

3. If the tool is sitting on its own on the canvas without any connections, it should not throw an error to say it is missing a connection as it is disabled.

[Illya]

This would be a very good feature. I would love to see a switch in every tool that made it act as a passthough that could be turned on or off. This would be useful in a number of scenarios well described by others in this thread. I would use it extensively while developing workflows where sometimes a single record would need to be sent downstream as a test and then all data sent through once changes had been made to test the entire dataset. The most practicable option at the moment is to delete and connect around on several tools and then replace them as necessary which is cumbersome. Also worth considering if a workflow option could be added (similar to disable outputs) to ignore or act upon tools with "Passthough" enabled. This would prevent people from disabling their tools by accident as well as having a central place to control multiple tools.

[bkramer66_dup_418]

To have the ability to "enable/disable" single tools within a workflow would definitely be a great addition! There are often times where I am developing and create a formula, filter, etc...that I use and test but then wish to see what the result is without having that in the workflow. Being able to disable it (and re-enable it, when desired), would alleviate the need to disconnect it from the data stream and re-connect it - both times at both ends. I am not sure if this adds any "lift" to the idea...but you can do this in at least one of Alteryx's competitor's tools. That alone should be reason enough to escalate it up the priority chain :,)

[DavidMorrissey]

Just want to add another voice to the chorus. The feature proposed above would be extremely useful when developing workflows. (I found this thread because I was searching for a way to do this exact thing...too bad it doesn't exist already.)

One additional thought: As noted above, tools can already be disabled if they are inside a Container. The problem is that records will not pass through a disabled container, so downstream tools receive no input. So, another approach would be to add a new setting to Containers, allowing records to pass through.

[BobD2020]

This would be a great feature.  As a Pipeline Pilot user, there is the concept of "pass through" so the pipe will by pass the component, without having to remove the connections or disable it.  This is especially beneficial when you have a logic component with 100 lines of an if then statement and you need to make a copy of the existing component and make minor changes.  You have the original component and the copied/updated component and can go back and forth between which component you want to process.