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The Alteryx Browse tool and Prophecy’s Data Explorer both let you inspect, validate, and understand the data flowing through a workflow or pipeline. In Alteryx, you add the Browse tool to the canvas and connect it an upstream tool. It provides a full or sampled data view, statistics, metadata, histograms, and spatial visualizations. In Prophecy, the Data Explorer is built directly into the UI. You do not add a gem to view data. Instead, you preview data from any gem’s output by clicking a graph icon. These appear throughout your entire pipeline.

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Automated migration results

When you import an Alteryx workflow that uses a Browse Tool, the Transpiler omits the tool: no equivalent gem is created because the Data Explorer is part of the UI and does not require a canvas node.
  • No ToDo or placeholder gem is created.
  • Upstream and downstream connections remain unchanged.
  • Imported pipelines typically contain fewer nodes than the original workflow.
Removing Browse Tools before migration is optional.

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Manually replicate in Prophecy

To inspect or profile data in Prophecy:
  1. Open the pipeline in the project editor.
  2. Run the pipeline or run a preview.
  3. Click the graph icon between gems to open the Data Explorer.
This provides the same diagnostic role as Alteryx’s Browse Tool.

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Configuration options

In Alteryx, you configure the Browse Tool by placing it on the canvas and connecting it to an upstream tool. In Prophecy, no configuration is needed. Every gem supports preview:
  1. Run or preview the pipeline.
  2. Click the graph icon on any connection.
  3. Review the previewed dataset, schema, and column-level statistics in the Data Explorer.
The Data Explorer lets you do the following:
  • View sample preview: shows columns and values for a limited set of rows.
  • Quick Data Profile: computed from the sampled data; shows most common values.
  • Expanded Data Profile: computed across the full dataset; includes unique counts, longest/shortest values, most/least frequent values, min/max values, value-length statistics, and detailed summaries.
  • Visualization: shows bar charts, histograms, scatter plots, line charts, and pie charts for visualizing column distributions.
  • Interactive controls: sort, filter, search, hide columns, export the sample (CSV/JSON/XLSX), and save transformations as gems.

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Output behavior

The Browse tool is diagnostic only; it does not modify data. It reruns upstream logic to refresh its preview. Prophecy’s Data Explorer is similarly non-transformational.

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Known caveats

Some view configurations, such as behavioral analysis, differ between the two platforms.

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Examples

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Alteryx Browse tool

Goal: Inspect the results of a Join operation. You place a Browse tool immediately after the Join tool to view the resulting dataset. The Browse Tool displays joined rows, metadata, basic statistics, and profile charts.

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Prophecy Data Explorer

Goal: Inspect the output of a Join gem. After running the pipeline, click the graph icon on the connection after the Join gem. The Data Explorer displays:
  • Sampled rows
  • Schema and data types
  • Quick or expanded profile statistics
  • Optional charts for visual distribution analysis
No additional gem is required.