What Is It?

The Workflow tool enables users to streamline future analysis by saving the steps they’ve taken in analyzing data or creating visualizations within a Workflow file.

Why Is This Important?

The Workflow tool enables users within an organization to automatically rerun analytic and visualization steps on new sets of data. By streamlining and automating certain business tasks that are repeatable, Workflows minimize room for error while increasing overall efficiency and productivity. For example, a Data Science team can help Citizen Data Scientists establish a thorough analysis and prepare an automated Workflow that can then be broadly distributed to Citizen Data teams. Additionally, citizen data teams can create Workflows that are run monthly on new time intervals of data. As a result, insights and critical pieces of information are generated regularly, enabling teams to view, interpret, and take action on the outputs.

How?

Steps for creating and saving a Workflow

1. Open the Workflow panel by selecting Workflow from the Tools menu in the menu bar.
2. Any action performed in Explore that causes an update to a plot (or running a routine) will create an entry in the Workflow panel.
   • Workflow entries are created even when the Workflow panel is minimized or closed.
   • The checkbox for each entry allows the user to include or exclude entries when saving the Workflow.
3. To save a workflow at any time in a session, use the Save option from the Workflows menu.
   • Any entries unchecked when the Workflow is saved will not be written to the Workflow file (a JSON format).

Loading and Running a Workflow

Loading a Workflow on a compatible dataset will automatically run the Workflow. Attempting to load a Workflow on a dataset with different columns than the dataset that the Workflow was created with will display a prompt notifying the users regarding the invalid Workflow actions. These action items will be displayed in the Workflow panel but will be unchecked by default.

Notes

• Workflows are still in beta, please email support@virtualitics.com with any feedback or recommendations
• Running AI routines and Search creates two Workflow entries. One entry corresponds to the action of running the AI function and the other entry is created by the mapping generated when the plot updates after running the AI function.
  • Other than these routines, the Workflow functionality is synced with most of the entries in the History panel.
• Calculator entries will also be recorded after the Calculator result is added to the Features list. 
• Workflows are disabled while using the SVO.
• Workflows are disabled in VR mode.
• Workflows can be edited outside of Explore, within the Workflow JSON file (the default location is Virtualitics/Workflows). 
• Autosave does not recover Workflows.