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Alteryx Designer Desktop Knowledge Base

Definitive answers from Designer Desktop experts.

Improvements to Browse Tool Data Profiling

lepome
Alteryx Alumni (Retired)
Created
PRODUCT:Alteryx Designer or Alteryx Server
VERSION:11.7
LAST UPDATE:11/14/2017

ATTACHMENT:None


Improvements to Browse Tool Data Profiling

With the release of version 11.7, we've upgraded the graphic displays of Data Profiles. This includes more attractive charts as well as manynewoptions to customize their display.

One of the biggest challenges in data analysis is datacleansing. We all want clean data, but sometimes it's difficult to know that there's cleaning still to be done. That's where Alteryx's Data Profiling is indispensable. As of version 11.0, the Browse tool became a convenient supplement to the Basic Data Profile tool, providing much of the same information in a more convenient format complete with graphical depictions of the data's profile. Now we have improved the Browse tool even further with Plotly visualytics built in.

The new graphics continue with the same basic format, but also allow dynamic customization.

String Columns

In addition to the now-familiar color coding that indicates data quality, the graph has been reworked to order the most common string values together so that it's easier to tell which valuesoccur most often.But the real magic is the ability to customize the display as needed using the new icons that appear when the cursor hovers over the graphic window:

with tools.png

In addition to being able to show details when the cursor is over a datapoint, you can now zoom in or out, and reset the axes at will. When you have the view you desire, you can save it as a .PNG file to be used as needed later.

NumericColumns

The display with numeric fields is also enhanced with the axes labeled much more clearly on both the main plot and the whisker plot.

Hovering the cursor now displays both the column value and the record number, so that it's easier to find specific points in the data. This can be done any of three ways: using spike lines, showing both coordinates together for easy selection of points with similar values, or showing the coordinates separately for easy browsing of points in record number order.

numeric with spike lines.png numeric with point coordinates.png

Just as introduced in 11.0, numeric columns can be displayed as sums by time or date if Time or Date fields are also present:

time sum.png

All of these displays are accessedby selecting the Browse tool after running a workflow. So it's more convenient than ever to verify the cleanliness of your data.

Comments
CaptnKirk
5 - Atom

what if I just want to see the all of the data results? I can now only see the profile view.

SophiaF
Alteryx
Alteryx

@CaptnKirk - you should still see all your data in the Results window; the data profiling feature appears in the Configuration window of the Browse tool

RodLight
8 - Asteroid

What determines whether a Scatterplot or a Histogram is shown for a numeric field? It seems that depending on the data I can get one or the other, but not both. But I get a "box and whiskers" plot below for either one.

ninetales
7 - Meteor

This is really cool and a great help for data quality profiling of master data like customers and products. 

Carl_J
6 - Meteoroid

How do I enable this functionality? I am running version 2018.3 but the configuration window just says "View data table in the Results window."