This blog series is a weekly AlteryxTips blog that will provide you with Alteryx tips every week.
When you create the workflow, the tool numbers will increase and it will make the running time become long. When you take much data from database, it takes long time and furthermore if you use cloud data warehouse, there is a cost involved.
In these cases, I’ll show you how to make it work better with Alteryx.
However this is a simple way. Create the workflow up to a reasonable point or input the data from database, then use the Data Output tool to save it in yxdb format.
Immediately after input from Database
In this case, the better way is to save the data coming from database by the Output Data tool as yxdb file.
The YXDB file format is a exclusive format to Alteryx, allowing for extremely fast reading and writing of data.
And then, place the Input Data tool inside the Tool Container and disable it to change the input.
And then you can easily change to the Input Data tool from the Output Data tool by right click menu “Convert To Input Data”.
After that, the workflow is as follows.
The incoming connection at the Select tool should be changed to the Input Data tool which reads yxdb file instead of the database. If you don’t need to change the incoming connection at the Select tool, you only have to change the connection as follows.
If you have to change the incoming connection many times, to insert the Union tool is very useful as follows.
In this case, if the Input Data tool which reads yxdb file should be placed inside the Tool Container, you can easily change the Input Data tool by enable or disable the Tool Containers.
This way is very useful for changing the input data to the debug data.
Very long workflow case
When you create the complex workflow, especially use the RegEx, you have to run it many times. When the workflow has many tools and it is very complex, the running time could be very long.
Cache and Run Workflow
In this case, the “Cache and Run Workflow” function is helpfull for you. When you want to use this function, you have to show the right click menu on the caching point and select the “Cache and Run Workflow” menu.
This function save the data at the caching point and use that saved data and not run the tools which are placed before the caching point.
But when you close the caching workflow, the cache data will be deleted.
Save the temporary YXDB and create another workflow
There is another way to create the long workflow. In this case, save the data as YXDB file like the database input.
And then, create the new workflow and put the input file which you save as above.
When you finish to create the workflow, you can just copy them to the original workflow.
Conclusion
- I have explained the technique “Cache and Run Workflow” and “Convert To Input Data” which shorten the creating time and save the cloud DWH usage fee.
- If the temporary data quantity is low, you can paste it as the Text Input tool.
The next blog post is…
The next is about how to use the Wokrflow XML Parser tool.
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