Find exact String in a Concatenated String

Question

Hello everbody,

I am fairly new to alteryx and have currently run into a problem with my workflow.

Basically I need to check users for actions. If they can do that they cannot do this.

I concatenated each users action into a long string. Then i am checking the actions (concatenated string) if they contain certain actions. If there is a match then the user has actions that they should not have.

The problem is right now i am using a contains function: Contains([Concat_Value], [ListOfActions]) and this is giving me an inaccurate output since

there are values in the Concat_Value that have the string of an action in ListOfActions.

Example:

concat_value : i go skiing, i go swimming, i go skiing

listofactions: i go, xxx, xxx

This gives me a hit. The user has conflicting actions but they actually do not since it is not an exact match.

It then matches: I run -> Conflicts with -> I go , although the user has i go skiing witch is then possible in this example. Only if the user has the action "i go" then it would be a conflict.

Basically how can i look for the exact string?

Thank you in advance!

Cheers

dinh_rsm · Answer

Hello everybody,

thank you for your input.

I tried it with your suggestion christina_h but i could not get it to run. I think the problem is that the ListofAction has 2 columns which indicate. If you have Action1 You cannot have Action2. I included a screenshot of the current flow.

Before the Join:

In the upper bracket. The rows are like Name, Value( which is the action), Concat_Value (a string of actions a user has).

The lower bracket is the action list which the rows are basically Action1, Action2 (If a user has a certain action1 they cannot have a certain action2).

The contains function :  Contains([Concat_Value], [ListOfActions])  as stated above gives me matches although the string is not exactly the same. Example with "I go" and "I go swimming". I get a hit for I go swimming although the string is "I go".

I hope this makes things clearer.

Thank you for the help!

Christina_H · Answer

It sounds like you only want exact matches, e.g. the list contains "i go" as a stand alone item, not "i go swimming".  If that's the case, don't concatenate the actions before matching.

Concatenate match.yxmd

FrederikE · Answer

Hey @dinh_rsm,

I think this is what you want?

I do a split to rows before doing the check - this way your Contains-Function works.

New Workflow2.yxmd