Cache tool

[jhollingsworth]

A cahce tool would allow a user to temporarily store a snapshot of inline data from previous run of the module.

Imagine a browse tool that was inline as opposed to a terminus tool (input and output). Now allow that browse tool to persist its data after a run of the module. When an option on that tool was activated, it would block all of the dependent tools upstream from it and instead send its cached data downstream.

The reason I think this would be a useful tool is that I often come to the end of creating a module when I'm working on the Reporting tools. I run multiple times to see the changes I've made. When the module has a lot of incoming data and complex data transformations, it can take a long time just to get to the point where the data gets to the reporting tools. This cache tool would eliminate that wait.

[gioel_molinari]

This would be a tremendous enhancement to alteryx. The ability to select any node in the workflow and 'run from here' in a way that uses the last runs intermediate outputs would allow for incremental execution of alteryx flows. When using alteryx to build data cleansing solutions this is a big factor when the datasets are large and take a long time (hours) to produce. When corrections are made to the data it is necessary for efficiency to insert them into the data flow without starting from the very beginning of the process.

[TaraM]

Have you seen the Cache Macro from one of our Content Engineers @MacRo - check out the blog post here: http://community.alteryx.com/t5/Engine-Works-Blog/The-Cache-Dataset-Macro/ba-p/3162

[adrianloong]

The cache macro is good however is it possible to have "caching" at a container level so the dataset is held in "memory" ready for the next process to run almost immediately?

eg: If i am sorting a large dataset eg: TB datasets within alteryx and i have 5 containers (if i make change to container 4 and press run , it will start running from container 3) as all the other calcs have been cached. Currently i am writing out to yxdb to achieve this.

Alternatively you can "lasso" around the container u want to run and it will remember and cache all results up till that point so only run the incremental changes.

[AlexKo]

Thanks for the feedback @jhollingsworth! We're releasing a version of caching in the upcoming 2018.3 release, which allows you to right-click on a tool in the workflow and create a cache temp file. Next time the workflow is run, it would start at that cache.

Stay tuned! I'd love to hear what you all think once you get a chance to play with the new feature.

[AlexKo]

Caching's live in 2018.3!

Thanks for pushing this one up on the priority list for us. We hope it will help streamline your workflow development and rapid prototyping use cases.