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Alteryx Designer Desktop Ideas

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Conditional Output (AKA Output if No Errors Exist)

As a designer, I need to output data only when no data quality errors are encountered within a workflow.  I suppose that I wouldn't want to see any errors, but if I am writing multiple output files and errors are encountered during the output processes (e.g. #3 of 4 fails), then I'm kind of out of luck.  So let's focus on data quality.  If Nulls are encountered in "Actual" data or unjoined records are found or dates are out of range, you name the issue, I don't want to output any data to specific output tools.  Work-arounds exist.  I can output to a staging file and conditionally schedule or use a conditional runner macro to output to the production data.  But what I really want to do is to stop an output tool from receiving any data to output.

 

Today I handle this by counting error records that would be caught by a TEST tool and appending the count of these bad records to the data that would go to output(s).  I filter for IsNull([Count]) and only when 0 ERRORS are found by the test tool, can data be output.  Otherwise null records are received by the output tool and it quietly makes no changes.

 

My ask is to configure an output tool to be disabled if ERRORs exist.  That means that the LAST thing to happen in the execution of a workflow will be the output processes.  They will all be blocking tools and can't happen until there are no tools left to run except for the outputs (configured as blocked).  Maybe this is a big ask.

11 Comments
mcarrico
9 - Comet

Agree 100% on this one.  I get a lot of questions from my internal users on graceful error handling and Alteryx definitely leaves a bit to be desired on this front.  I recognize that this could be a difficult task given the parallel nature with which many Alteryx tools fire, but examples like this highlight how the door is often left open for error-prone data being sent out of the tool.

MarqueeCrew
20 - Arcturus
20 - Arcturus

New Runtime configuration option.

 

 

Check box = Do not output ANY file if an ERROR is present.

 

HOLD all output functions until workflow runs every tool (cache them) and then start writing to output if no errors are found.  If one of the output files fails, we'd like to not output any, but that would be Christmas.  Let's just know that all processing of data was successful before outputs are generated.

 

Maybe in a cloud or future environment this would look like step #1 build cache.  Step #2 is load output files.  In a local implementation, you've got to have adequate temp space available for the cache.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

Kenda
16 - Nebula
16 - Nebula

Me gusta!

ChrisTX
15 - Aurora

This related idea from 2017 has 16 likes.:

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Ideas/Conditional-Output-AKA-Output-if-No-Errors-E...

 

Wonder if the product team would add all of your Likes together, to get some traction on this one?

 

I think the overall need is for some graceful error handling.

 

Chris

CristonS
Alteryx Alumni (Retired)

Thanks @ChrisTX! I will merge these to maximize the likes.

ChrisTX
15 - Aurora

@CristonS when you merge two Ideas, would it make sense to capture the second Idea as a Comment under the first Idea, to ensure none of the detail is lost from the related second post?

 

Chris

CristonS
Alteryx Alumni (Retired)

hi @ChrisTX it's there, it's just embedded in the thread chronologically as if it had been a comment from the beginning.

CristonS
Alteryx Alumni (Retired)
Status changed to: Revisit

This is not approved for the short term, but we will revisit this in the future.

NicoleJ
Alteryx
Alteryx
Status changed to: Coming Soon

We believe Control Containers will be an excellent solution to this idea! 😁

NicoleJ
Alteryx
Alteryx
Status changed to: New Idea

It brings us incredible joy to announce that Control Containers are finally here - and they are awesome. Check out more details about this amazing new tool in this blog article!

 

(NOTE: This request was to add the option to an Output tool to prevent output/execution if errors, but with Control Containers, we've enabled a lot more flexibility to do this with any tool that you don't want to execute if there are upstream errors. Hope that helps!)

 

Cheers!!!

 

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