ACE Convo: Nicole Johnson, Why Tune your Workflow?

[MarqueeCrew]

Thanks for your feedback @Emil_Kos.  Here's another snippet from our recent conversation.  Nicole explains why performance tuning gets you to a better quality of work.

Is tuning your workflow something that you currently do?  Do you avoid it?  What can you share about your experience?

 Please join the conversation!

 Cheers,

 Mark @NicoleJohnson @Hollingsworth 

tagging:  @tessaenns @JoshKushner @ydmuley @Dynamomo @Rant @Leeia_I @WillM @KimA @JacobMoncla 

[Emil_Kos]

Hi @MarqueeCrew,

Thank you for sharing this. Like in my previous comment I really enjoyed @NicoleJohnson speech. She is one of the most recognizable people in the community and it is a pleasure to hear from her. 

Adding additional explanation during the conversation like the one below is a really cool idea:

My only suggestion for keeping the videos like this under the 5-minute mark. In the time when everyone wants to grab our attention, shorter videos will be watched by more people. 

Once more thank you for sharing and I am looking forward for more. 

[AbhilashR]

Thank you for organizing and recording these videos @MarqueeCrew! Always a pleasure to hear from fellow enthusiasts and learn from their experience. These bite-sized video series are a great medium.

My journey like most folks transitioning into Alteryx was mostly about trial and error learning. I was a master at building what I describe as dreadful pieces of art. Solutions worked but there was a lot to be desired from a performance standpoint. I got judged all the time but in hindsight needed that to get my act together. I probably have gotten better at building efficient solutions, and can definitely sound more intelligent than before, but still have areas of improvement.

It is a very broad yet deep topic, but if folks are comfortable, I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on aspects they focus on while tuning, maybe approaches & tips. I am mostly self-taught in Alteryx and often feel the need to share and learn from others. E.g. the approach in this video was new to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHrqmbgfK4Q

[MikeD]

Yes, I definitely tune my workflow to run as fast as possible.  Usually I just build it so it works first, then gradually improve each tool and process within it to speed it up.  Usually I get good improvements through data cleansing and attention to sorts and joins.  I have also done some work to determine the best memory allocations for various workloads.  To my surprise, more memory wasn't always better.