Alteryx Analytics 2018.3 Alters the Way You See Analytics

[AshleyK]

Two months ago, I had the privilege of showcasing some exciting new features to thousands of eager customers at our Inspire 2018 Conference. It is with great pride that I introduce our latest release, Alteryx Analytics 2018.3, which will alter the way you see analytics. We continue to see growth in the amount of data available and the need to analyze this data at faster speeds which is why we packed 2018.3 with features that enhance how everyone across the analytics spectrum can bring insights to life faster and perform more advanced analytics easier.

We are committed to helping you get to your answers faster and this requires accelerating insight into the entire data landscape you are working with. Last year we took a first step by adding data profiling where you can see how your data changes along the workflow in an interactive way. Today, I'm thrilled to announce we have now expanded on that to provide interactive visualizations across the Alteryx platform.

Visualytics at every step

We are incorporating visualizations throughout the Alteryx platform so you can see your data from the moment you input your data through sharing every insight.

Insight Tool

- The Interactive Chart Tool replaces our current Charting Tool to instantly create and customize popular chart types and output in both static and interactive formats.

- Our Insight Tool brings your insights to life through interactive dashboards you can share across your organization via the Alteryx Gallery. Stakeholders can see the whole picture of your analysis and drill down on what’s important to them. 

- Visualytics extends to Promote for data scientists to instantly see the health of their models and dig deeper into every outcome in the new analytics tab to ensure the model stays healthy once in production.

Deliver answers faster

While visualizing along the analytics process increases data comprehension, we are also bringing you features across the platform to ensure you can work smarter, not harder, to meet those tight timelines.

Caching- Our new caching feature in Alteryx Designer received a standing ovation Inspire because it allows for a workflow process to be stopped and then restarted from the caching point without starting over which can drastically reduce processing time.

- Alteryx Server becomes more enterprise-friendly with job prioritization and worker node assignment that enables admins and users to prioritize the most critical jobs to the top of the queue. The worker node assignment puts global IT admins in control over where jobs are executed based on geography, types of jobs & data being processed.

- Alteryx Connect gets smarter by recommending related assets to help you discover other available analytic assets to use in your analysis. You can also search and find Connect analytic assets straight from Designer’s search bar to help you get to the next question and answer faster.

Next level analytics

It can be difficult to move fast with the amount of data growing by the nanosecond and extra pressure on data workers to perform more advanced analyses. This release continues to bolster support for those with specialized analytic talent with code-friendly tools.

Python Tool

- The Python Tool with Jupyter notebook integration in Alteryx Designer gives data scientists an easier way to get their code into workflows. This facilitates collaboration between the data science teams and analysts and allows important code to become a part of the overall business process - right in Designer.

- We continue to build on our big data capabilities by adding more Apache Spark Code tool support - Spark Direct for Databricks on Azure and HDInsight - which allows you to quickly leverage the power of Spark right within a workflow.

These are just a few of the exciting new features in Alteryx Analytics 2018.3. I encourage you to experience the new capabilities in Alteryx Analytic 2018.3 through our on-demand webinar.

We hope you are as excited about the new offerings in Alteryx Analytics 2018.3 as we are. For existing customers, you can experience the breadth of our new offering by upgrading to our latest release. And there is plenty more coming! We also welcome you to participate in the 2018.4 beta and help shape our next release.

For those exploring the Alteryx platform, take our latest build for a test drive with our free trial and see for yourself why thousands of analysts choose Alteryx to tackle their biggest analytic challenges.

[NicoleJohnson]

I'm still giving a standing ovation for the caching functionality!! Cannot wait to try it out... Thank you, @AshleyK and the whole Alteryx product development team, for continuing to exceed our expectations when it comes to new, responsive, innovative enhancements like these! 

NJ

[mbarone]

Okay, it's laugh-at-an-ACE-day............why can't I figure out how to get the new caching functionality to work?  Wasn't it supposed to be select-tools-to-cache-then-right-click?

*** UPDATE *** I figured it out.  If you want to cache everything up to tool X, then right click on ONLY tool X.  Do not select tool 1 through X and right click on the group of tools, as you will not see the option.  Which makes sense now that I think about it.  You're caching the output up to and including that one tool.

:)

[DataPrepChad]

Did I see a hint of worker node priority on the server, being able to assign a specific worker for a specific workflow to be scheduled??

[JulieM]

@DataPrepChad you did! Included in the 2018.3 release for Server is the ability to assign priorities to scheduled and manually run jobs as well as the ability to assign specific jobs to specific worker nodes. A blog post to dive deeper into this functionality is coming soon!

[JohnJPS]

I'm in love.... Python Jupyter right there on my screen, ready to roll... and in a data flow ready to accept stuff from Alteryx.  All with zero back-end installation fuss.  Absolutely awesome!  Love it!

[marco_zara]

Hopefully this is just the start.

There are so many Python libraries that could be easily be converted to tools and finally give Alteryx a more competitive ML tool selection.

[JohnJPS]

@marco_zara, well said... and much of that needn't wait either: it would be straight-forward to build macros that wrap the functionality.

[sameerpremji]

Could someone please post a link to the recording of this webinar? Thanks!

[joewkelly]

Where is the cache stored?  Our company deals with a lot of health information and our policy is to not store data on local hard drives, which could be stolen easier than our network drives.

Also, I have a workflow that has the "Cache and Run Workflow" option disabled on all of the transformations.  The first thing I do is to take two inputs into an R tool.  Is this a limitation - anything with an R tool can't be cached?

[RachelW]

@joewkelly You have some great questions about caching. 

Where is the cache stored? The cached data is stored in a temp file (in the same location as other temp files). It is removed when you close workflow or close Designer. 

Is this a limitation - anything with an R tool can't be cached? With caching we are storing the data from a tool's output anchor. Caching will not work on tools that have more than one output anchor. If you find you frequently want to cache on tools with multiple output anchors, you can drop a Select tool from the output anchor you want to cache and cache from the Select tool. Adding a Select tool will not impact the performance of your workflow. 

I'll make sure that our documentation online reflects this information. 

[MindiG]

@sameerpremji here you go! 2018.3 On-Demand Webinar Link