Dynamic date input from Directory

Hi all, I have a condition where in a directory I have many files but I want only the selected excel date file to be imported, the files have specific date format Ex. xxxxx_20240920, which is yyyymmdd format , so here I want only the files to be imported when I dynamically choose date from interface tool,

Ex. Files in Directory - Book_20240917 , Book_20240918, Book_20240919, Book_20240920, Book

You can create a sample excel files with these names, now my condition is I will select a date in interface tool for suppose 19th Sept, So the input will have only data from Book_20240919, excluding any other data, I want all the data from Book_20240919, Or else if I select 20th Sept in interface tool it will select only data from Book_20240920, so here the most important factor is extracting only those files which I have selected as my date in interface tool, need to use interface tool to manually select the date. Can this be done ?

Workflow

Input

Parse

Date Time

Preparation

Interface Tools

Accepted answers

binu_acs

@Kaish one way of doing with the date time interface tool

Date_21092024.yxwz

All comments

alexnajm

Yes it can - use a Date interface tool connected to your Input Data tool, and use an Action with Update Value with Formula to convert the original date into this formatted date (2024-09-01 to 20240901) to then update the portion of the file name that needs updating

Kaish

Hello @alexnajm, thank you for your reply, could you help me with a attached wf as I am new to Alteryx and I am unable to perform these tasks, if a reference wf can be provided I can then apply the logic to my flow.

alexnajm

I think you should try it first and attach your workflow so that help can be provided from there

alexnajm

Something like this would give you a start: Solved: How to use Interface tools to update date value in... - Alteryx Community

ChrisTX

Also check out Action Tool (alteryx.com)

Kaish

I am not able to get the solution as the required post is for a single input file but I am working for a directory, and apologies for not sharing the data as I am working with organizational system and data, kindly guide me through the steps I can surely perform the task

ChrisTX

If you just want to type in a date value, you can use a Text Box. See attached app.

If you want to read a list of existing files and display a list of dates to choose from using a Drop Down tool, I think you'll need to use Chained Apps. Because interface tools are populated before the workflow/app starts running.

Screenshot 2024-09-20 092733.png

Chris

Dynamic date input from Directory.yxwz

binu_acs

@Kaish one way of doing with the date time interface tool

Date_21092024.yxwz

Kaish

Hi @binu_acs , My data is in .txt format how can I perform this is Alteryx? I am currently working on it but it is giving error in dynamic input tool, same text fle I am able to read in input tool data with my configuration as required in delimiters "\t" so in input file my data is loading correctly but in my dynamic input it is reflecting error, how can I resolve this ?

binu_acs

@Kaish Are you getting schema error with dynamic input tool? If that is the case you need to use batch macro instead of dynamic input tool

Kaish

With excel file I was able to resolve the problem with your solution, but when I want .txt file to be readable in Alteryx, while setting up .txt file in dynamic input data, the file is not loading, it loads an error with a note too many fields in record #1, how can I resolve this issue and load my .txt data date wise ?

binu_acs

@Kaish if it is .txt files then you need to change the delimiter to \0 also increase the record length

Kaish

As per requirement, I want those data in different columns, they are all coming in 1 string column, and I don't have any delimiter to differentiate text to columns data.

binu_acs

@Kaish then your .txt files should be in fixed length, in that case you need to split based on the position,

Kaish

Any way how I can fix this problem ? any way where I can read my data properly, few .txt files are readable with delimiter set as /t, but few files with same format is not readable, how to fix this ?

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