Browse Tool

Use the Browse tool to display data from a connected tool. You can see data Profile information for multiple columns at once in a single view, or for a single column of data. Available Profile information includes data type, number of records, data quality, and a variety of statistical information.

When a spatial, report, or behavior analysis data type is connected, an additional tab is available in the Browse tool. This tab will show a preview of the actual object on a Map or a Report.

 

Connect a Browse tool to the output anchor of the tool that contains data that you want to view in detail.

There are three ways to add a Browse tool to a workflow:

  • Drag a Browse tool to the canvas and connect it to a tool.
  • Right-click a tool and click Add Browse after.
  • Press Shift+Ctrl+B and click tools in a workflow.

The Browse tool requires temporary space and memory on your computer which increases the size of data and may impact performance. After you build a workflow and are ready to output results, you can disable Browse tools in the workflow.

To disable Browse tools in a workflow:

  1. Click the canvas to display the Workflow Configuration window.
  2. In the Configuration window, click Runtime.
  3. Select Disable All Browse Tools. The Browse tools in the workflow are grayed-out.

To enable Browse tools, deselect Disable All Browse Tools in the Workflow Configuration window on the Runtime tab.

View data in the Configuration window and the Results window. The Configuration window displays different charts and metadata depending on the type of data in the column selected in the Results window.

A colored data quality bar displays at the top of each column of data in the Results window.

  • Red (Not OK): The column contains values with leading or trailing white space.
  • Yellow (Null): The column contains no values.
  • Gray (Empty): The column contains strings with no values.
  • Green (OK): The column contains values without leading or trailing white spaces.

By default, the first column of data in the Results window displays in the Configuration window. Click a different column to view its data in the Configuration window. See Results Window, for more on the Results window.

The following options are available in the Configuration window:

  • Views: Depending on the type of data you are viewing, up to four tabs may display: Profile, Map, Report, Behavior Analysis. Two tabs can be viewed at once.
    • Single view: Click to view all tabs in a single window.

    • Left, right view: Click to view all tabs in the left and right halves of the window. Click different tabs in each window to compare data.

    • Top, bottom view: Click to view all tabs in the top and bottom halves of the window. Click different tabs in each window to compare data.
  • Data details: Displays the number of records, number of fields, and the file size.
  • Number of selected records: Displays the number of records selected. Click to clear the selection.
  • New window: Click to open data in a new, un-docked window. Data in the window will not change; this allows you to compare views and assess data after modifying and running a workflow. By default, the window name is the tool name and the tool ID of the Browse tool.
    1. With the Browse tool selected, in the Configuration window, click Annotation.
    2. In Name, type a name for the window.

When a Browse tool is connected to a tool with string, numeric, or date/time data types, the Profile tab in the Configuration window displays a chart and metadata of the selected column. Click columns in the Results window to view data profile information for other columns.

By default, data profiling is enabled. To disable data profiling features, go to Options > User Settings > Edit User Settings and deselect Collect and display data profile information.

Charts

Select a column to see either a bar chart or scatter plot in the Configuration window. They type of chart shown is based on the type of data you select.

If the data stream contains a date/time column and you select a numeric column, correlation charts are shown. For example, sales data from one column may be combined with dates in another column to create a chart with sales per month. Use the arrows or chart icons to move between multiple charts.

Once more than 10,000 unique values are profiled, binning is applied to increase performance and to represent the data in a more meaningful way. Messages at the bottom of the chart indicate when binning is applied.

Bar chart

String (categorical) value types are profiled, sorted, and displayed in a bar chart. The bar chart depicts the frequency of a value, or grouped values, in data. A quality bar summarizes data quality.

  • NOT OK (Red): values contain leading or trailing whitespace
  • NULL (Yellow): no values were provided
  • EMPTY (Gray): strings with no values
  • OK (Green): values without leading or trailing whitespace, NULL, or empty values.

Data points are represented in a maximum of 100 bins. If there are more than 100 unique values, the full dataset is profiled, but the chart displays the 100 most frequent values.

Scatter plot

Numeric value types are displayed in a scatter plot. The scatter plot depicts the distribution of data and includes a range (box-and-whisker) plot that identifies the lowest and highest values, and the first quartile, median or second quartile, and third quartile values.

Once more than 10,000 unique values are found, the data is represented as a bar chart displaying the 100 most frequent values.

Hover over a chart to make multiple chart interaction options available:

  • Zoom: Enable the ability to zoom into a selected area of the data by clicking and dragging.
  • Pan: Enable moving around the chart by clicking and dragging.
  • Zoom in: Zoom into the current centered position. Alternately, use your mouse scroll wheel to zoom on the cursor position.
  • Zoom out: Zoom out from the current centered position. Alternately, use your mouse scroll wheel to zoom from the cursor position.
  • Reset axes: Select to reset the chart to the default view. Alternately, double-click the chart.
  • Toggle spike lines: Display dotted lines to assist in finding a data point's axis values.
  • Show closest data on hover: Reveal a data value using parenthesis.
  • Compare data on hover: Reveal a data value using axis labels.
  • Save as PNG: Save the current chart view as an image file.

Metadata

The metadata for the selected column displays below the chart in the Configuration window. Available metadata depends on the data type in the selected column. See Data Types, for a list of data types.

If the selected column contains string values, the following metadata is provided:

  • Name: The column name.
  • Data Type: The data type of the selected column.
  • Size: The amount of memory reserved for each record in this column.
  • Non-Nulls: The number of non-null entries in the column, including empty values.
  • Uniques: The number of unique values in the field. Use the Unique tool to see a full count of unique and duplicate entries. See Unique Tool.
  • Nulls: The number of values in the column that are null, excluding empty values.
  • Blanks: The number of empty values.
  • Values with Leading Whitespace: The number of string values with whitespace before the value. Use the Data Cleansing tool or the Formula tool trim function to resolve the problem. See Data Cleansing Tool and Formula Tool.
  • Values with Trailing Whitespace: The number of string values with whitespace after the value.
  • Shortest (Non-Blank) Length: The number of characters in the shortest value in the column.
  • Average Length: The average length of values in the column.
  • Longest Length: The number of characters in the longest value in the column.
  • Shortest Value: The shortest value in the column.
  • Longest Value: The longest value in the column.
  • First Alphanumeric Value: The first string entry in a column that is sorted alphabetically.

  • Last Alphanumeric Value: The last string entry in a column that is sorted alphabetically.

If the selected column contains numeric values, the following metadata is provided:

  • Name: The column name.
  • Data Type: The data type of the selected column.
  • Size: The amount of memory reserved for each record in this column.
  • Non-Nulls: The number of non-null entries in the column, including empty values.
  • Uniques: The number of unique values in the field. Use the Unique tool to see a full count of unique and duplicate entries. See Unique Tool.
  • Nulls: The number of values in the column that are null, excluding empty values.
  • Minimum: The smallest value in the column.
  • Maximum: The largest value in the column.
  • Average: The average value of values in the column.
  • Sum: The sum of values in the column.
  • Standard Deviation: The measure of how dispersed the values are in the chart.
  • Variance: The measure of how far a set of random numbers are dispersed from the mean.
  • 25th Percentile: The median value in the lower, or first, half of the data.
  • 50th Percentile: The median value of the data.

  • 75th Percentile: The median value in the upper, or second, half of the data.

If the selected column contains date/time values, the following metadata is provided:

  • Name: The column name.
  • Data Type: The data type of the selected column.
  • Size: The amount of memory reserved for each record in this column.
  • Non-Nulls: The number of non-null entries in the column, including empty values.
  • Uniques: The number of unique values in the field. Use the Unique tool to see a full count of unique and duplicate entries. See Unique Tool.
  • Nulls: The number of values in the column that are null, excluding empty values.
  • Minimum: The smallest value in the column.

  • Maximum: The largest value in the column.

If the selected column contains spatial objects, the following metadata is provided on the Profile tab:

  • Name: The column name.
  • Data Type: The data type of the selected column.
  • Size: The amount of memory reserved for each record in this column.
  • Non-Nulls: The number of non-null entries in the column, including empty values.
  • Nulls: The number of values in the column that are null, excluding empty values.

The Basic Data Profile tool provides similar metadata without charts. Use the Basic Data Profile tool to output data profile information for further analysis. See Basic Data Profile Tool.

When a Browse tool is connected to a tool with reporting snippets, the Report tab in the Configuration window displays the reporting snippets as they will appear in a report. Reporting snippets are created by tools in the Reporting category. See Reporting Tools.

Report view options include:

  • Fields: Click to see a list of report fields displayed in the view. Click to deselect all report fields and the to select all report fields.

  • Navigation: Click navigation arrows to view specific records. By default, the Configuration window displays 10 records at a time.

When a Browse tool is connected to a tool with spatial data the Map tab in the Configuration window displays a map of the data drawn in spherical Mercator projection.

Map view options include:

  • Fields: Click to see a list of spacial object fields in the view. Click to deselect all spatial object fields and the to select all spatial object fields.
  • Pan: Click to pan around on the map by clicking and dragging the map to the desired position. Each time the pan is used, the map displays the new map image.
  • Selection: Click to select objects on the map. By selecting map objects, the corresponding data records will also become selected and indicated as being selected in the Table and Report views.

There are multiple supported selection methods. Select or click to enable, then deselect or click again to disable.

  • Single click: Selects individual objects.

  • Ctrl+ click: Adds or subtracts to a selection.

  • Click and drag: Click and drag a selection box around the objects to select multiple objects at once.
  • Zoom in: Click to decrease the map area, producing a more localized map image.
  • Zoom out: Click to increase the map area, producing a more generalized map image.
  • Zoom to selection: Click to zoom to a clicked point or a selected area.
  • Reset view: Click to reset the map view to the original area.
  • Base map: Click to view and select a reference layer for the map image. Only map file and layer sets currently installed on your computer appear in the drop-down list. See Dataset Defaults.
    • Copy: Click to copy the map image to the clipboard to be pasted into other applications.
    • Export: Click to save the map image in a supported image file format: .jpeg, .png, .bmp.

When a Browse tool is connected to a tool with behavior analysis profile data the Behavior Analysis tab in the Configuration window displays the XML content of a selected profile field, record-by-record, in a table.

Behavior Analysis view options include:

  • Profile: Lists profile fields in the data. Only one profile field can be viewed at a time.
  • Navigation: Click navigation arrows to view specific records. By default, the Configuration window displays 1 record at a time, because a single record contains data on all 60 clusters within the selected profile.
  • Dataset: Displays the data from which the profile was extracted.
    • Demographic: The level of classification with which the profile was built (typically household or adult).
    • Primary: If selected, this indicates primary demographic the profile was built for (typically household, population, or adult).
    • Cluster number: Identifies the cluster.
    • Count: Identifies the demographic that meets the profile criteria.
    • Base: Identifies the demographic (household or adult) for that particular cluster.
    • avgVolume: Identifies the average value calculated by dividing Count by Base for each cluster. Values are null if data is not provided for the cluster.
  • Data grid: Displays the cluster data.

Use the Behavior Detail Fields tool to add the data available in this tab to a workflow. See Detail Fields Tool.

You can convert a Browse tool to a Macro Output Tool or an Output Data Tool. You can undo this change if you have enough undo levels set in your User Settings.

To convert the Browse tool to an Output Data Tool:

  1. Right-click the Browse tool in your workflow.
  2. Select Convert To Output Data.
  3. Configure the tool.

You can now use the Browse tool as an Output Data tool.

To convert the Browse tool to a Macro Output Tool:

  1. Right-click the Browse tool in your workflow.
  2. Select Convert To Macro Output.
  3. Configure the tool.

You can now use the Browse tool as a Macro Output tool.