Hi,
Every time, after ran the workflow, it will generate a bak file in the same folder.
I delete them before, nothing change. I would like to know what is this used for ? Thank you.
I used to do the same thing - delete them - just thought they were noise. But then I learned how to use them, and they are invaluable when you make changes to your modules.
Give it a try - next time you modfiy and existing module, after you "save" it, go to it's location, and find the .bak file. If you modified a yxmd, then change the ".bak" to ".bak.yxmd". If you modified a yxwz, then change the ".bak" to ".bak.yxwz". Then open the file. You'll see that it was the module you changed, but WITHOUT the changes you made. Great for version control.
According to the Help doc...
.bak (Backup copy of a workflow)
A backup file (.bak) is created as soon as a workflow is edited and saved. The .bak file will be the workflow in its state prior to the most recent save. The .bak file is created in the same directory as the edited workflow and carries the same name.
Also note that there are "autosaved" copies of workflows as well. You can see these under the File menu of Designer. (How often those are saved can be determined by what you set in User Settings under Options.
How can I keep the .bak file from being created or delete it after the .xlsx file is updated using a workflow? I cannot append to the .xlsx file because I receive an error that the file is not accessible. I have to delete the .bak file and rerun my workflow. It then runs successfully. I want to eventually automate this workflow, but can't until I fix this problem.
Thank you
The .bak file is used to save the previous version of the file you are overwriting. This is not an option that can be removed as this is a fail safe if something happens to the new file and you can recover the previous version. You should never see more than one .bak for a file. It may be that there is an issue with the file itself that is causing the issue. I would attempt to write a new file and then see if you have any issues overwriting that file.
DanM,
For the workflow's I totally get it, but why if I my output is either appending or overwriting a worksheet in excel is it creating one for that as well? Some of our reports are automated and published to a folder where they are picked up by sharepoint for end users. I don't want to write a new file just "update" the existing one with the new data.
JP2
I just hit save instead of save as by mistake and wanted to cry. This post saved me a lot of work! 🙂 Thank you!
It worked beautifully on Alteryx Designer! I really appreciated your expertise, Ben!
