App Help

Question

Hi,

I am attempting to build my first workflow/app with Alteryx. What I am hoping to create is an App in the gallery where my users can plug in two different reports, one with customer order information, and one with customer labor information, have these blended and then output into an Excel pivot table template.

The two reports which feed the pivot are pretty different, so lots of formatting is required to get everything uniform. My workflow/app so far works to getting report1 & report 2 blended. Since I am running this on my machine, I can then point the output to the Excel pivot template. Given that when published to the Gallery, you lose the ability to have the output pointed a specific file on your local machine, I am unsure of how to accomplish the last part.

I have attached the three reports I am working with.

Any insight on how to accomplish this?

I thought to bring in the template excel file and try to blend the data from the combined reports, but I am losing the pivot upon import. Not sure this approach is feasiable or if I just aint smrat enough to figure it out.

Any help at all is greatly appreciated.

Report 1 - Test Event Overview.xlsx

Report 2 - Test Event Labor.xlsx

Excel Template - AMR Report Template - Alteryx Test.xlsx

Mika_IONE · Answer

bsharbo to since you are not in the gallery situation I think you are on the right track. I would make a block until done so I first can copy the template file when write to the new copy.

In the first output I would put a "command" node and copy the template (not sure if you should copy to the network or local drive) then on the second output from block until done you can write to the new copy.

Make sure that you in the excel template file set the pivot table to update automatically when opening.

I hope some of this can get you forward with your project!

ps. If you intend to make lots of tables in this way you need to think of a way to remove the new copies of the excel template when you are done with them.

//Mika

Mika_IONE · Answer

Hi,

I'm fairly certain about this solution but haven't tested.

When saving your app to the gallery you can click "workflow options" and then "manage workflow assets". To my understanding, if you check these boxes the files will be uploaded to the gallery server. If you check the box for the excel template Alteryx will store the file (in this case the excel template) with the app and make a copy of that file in the temp directory when running the app.

Kind regards

Mika

bsharbo · Answer

Don't want to necro your thread, but I also would love to see a solution for this.

The ability to have an app output data to a formatted excel file, and also have multiple users run the app at the same time is something I need direly..

I know how to output the results to an excel file on a network path, but not how to solve that problem when multiple users want to run the app at the same time....

I imagine we are going to need to copy an Excel file from a shared drive to a temporary directory, and then output to that temporary file? :-)

Curious for the answer here.