I’ve compiled a set of best practices I use to clean messy tabular flat‑file data, most often from CSVs or PDF‑to‑Excel exports for general ledger, payroll, sales, and similar reports. These requests usually involve applying the same cleanup steps across many files or sheets and combining them into a single table under tight deadlines and inconsistent data structures.

These tips focus on a quick and fast cleanup rather than long‑term or repeatable workflows, so I avoid macros or advanced concepts.

Let me know if these are helpful or if there are other approaches worth considering.

Common Tools

Input Data Tool (Link)

• I often output the file name as a field to use for validation or pivoting in the Summarize tool.
• Use “Start Data Import on Line” or the Select Records tool when the first lines of data or headers are buried below report formatting.
• I enable “First Row Contains Data” for instance where I know the headers are not able to be used. This is also helpful if you’re using the workflow for multiple datasets and you do not want to manually identify the needed columns each time.
  • If using the headers in the files later, use the Dynamic Rename tool and the mode Use Headers From First Row. Or, use the tool to label staging fields quickly; for example, renaming all the fields “Pre” if you know you will use those column names later.

Record ID (Link)

• Add a Record ID as soon as the structure stabilizes.
• This has many benefits, such as:
  • Track how rows move, disappear, or duplicate.
  • Serve as a join field.
  • Functions as a sort field.
  • Make it simple to filter for specific records when troubleshooting or validating.

Data Cleansing (Link)

• I find benefit with Remove Null Columns, but avoid Remove Null Rows as I have experienced valid rows drop unexpectedly.
• I avoid Replacing Nulls with Zeros or Blanks because doing so changes how the end users interprets missing values. It can also make tracking difficult when comparing to source material.
• I do trim whitespace, however, there are cases when keeping them is beneficial. For example, if a field has fixed-width padding then you can use that to isolate it using a length formula. If I were to have removed the whitespace, then I would lose the fixed-width as an anchor.
• If applicable, I apply Modify Case, preferably to Title Case, if it helps with readability and the end user approves of it.

Union (Link)

• While this tool is straightforward, I recently came across a use case where the order of a union mattered.
  • When joining between multiple sheets, I realized only one sheet had the headers intact, so that sheet had to be ordered first. Otherwise, the effectiveness of the Multi-Row Formula tool I was using would be disrupted.
• To set the order, enable “Set a Specific Output Order” in the Configuration pane.

Multi-Row Formula (Link)

• This tool is critical and comes up in almost every request. This is because the reason someone reaches out for help is often because they were having trouble filling in important fields across the report so that they can pivot and filter.
• For example, the use case could be to take the account or department number that only appears once in the beginning of the section, or several account numbers throughout the report, and populate it with every record.
• To configure the tool for this use case, select “Update Existing Field” for the field you want filled in. Do not select “Group By”.
• To fill down a null value from the previous row (most common): IF IsNull([Field]) THEN [Row-1:Field] ELSE [Field] ENDIF
• To pull up a value from the next row: IF IsNull([Field]) THEN [Row+1:Field] ELSE [Field] ENDIF

DateTime (Link)

• Converting dates to the right format is important for the end user to be able to filter and calculate dates within Excel.
• One frustration with this tool in Alteryx is that it requires you to rename the output column. My suggestion is to suffix the original field with “Pre” and then name the final name of the date field within the DateTime tool. Then drop the original field once validated. This preserves field lineage and avoids naming confusion after.

Summarize (Link)

• The Summarize tools is used for subtotal and total validations.
• Also, use the Summarize tool if a column which informed a level of detail is being removed and you need to consolidate the records to a lower level of detail. For example, if the end user requests to remove any employee level of detail.

Containers and Annotations (Link)

• I use containers to group workflow phases and temporarily disable work during testing.
• I rename annotations on tools I expect to revisit so the purpose is clear at a glance. I turn off the ones

Design Patterns

File and folder structure

• I found some version of this folder logic helpful for me for most Alteryx projects: Data > Workflow > Output > Deliverables.
  • Outputs could be intermediate YXDBs for use between workflows or files that I want to review or format before delivery.
  • Deliverables holds the the final requestor-facing copy. I keep it separate from Output so that I do not accidentally overwrite work an end user has done.

Review expected deliverable with the end user

• Ensure that you are only working with data that is important to the requestor or end user.

Deliver a sample for proof-of-concept

• If the data is large or there is urgency, working on a sample and sending it to the end user to validate is helpful could prevent future rework before working through the whole dataset.

Use YXDB file type for efficiency

• I consolidate data into the YXDB file type early if the data source spans many files, periods, or formats. The YXDB file type is developed by Alteryx and processes significantly faster than Excel. If I have multiple Alteryx workflows, I’ll output the intermediary files between them as YXDBs.

Isolate columns rather than clean

• Rather than try to clean up an existing field, I find it’s often less of a headache to isolate the values I need into a new field.
  • For example, rather than try to clean up the “Credit” column, I’ll prefer to create a new “Credit” column using the Formula tool and extract the data I need from the original column.
  • Similarly, if a column has multiple pieces of information that needs to be separated, such as Year and Month, I’ll create a new Year column and a new Month column to capture those details.
• This limits the number of considerations needed to make when trying to remove data, as you cannot usually see all the irregularities you’ll encounter in a large dataset, prevents unintentional impact onto other fields, and gives me more control if I want to make a change later.
• I can use the original column for reference and then deselect it when complete.

Troubleshooting by isolating records

• Use the Filter tool to isolate the problematic Record IDs before the issue appears and follow them through the workflow.

Validating totals before handoff

• Subtotals and grand totals from the original dataset need to be removed to prevent double counting. Once isolated, I’ll recreate the totals using the Summarize tool when I’m complete. Then, I’ll use the Join tool to compare them to what was listed in the report.
• For the Join, I label the totals from the report “Expected” and the ones I create called “Actual”.
• To identify errors across many records, I create a field to calculate Expected – Actual. For the difference, I use the absolute function ABS() to normalize negative and positive differences and then use the Round() function to normalize the amounts to two decimal places; otherwise, minuscule differences will show up as errors.
  • For example,
  • Difference Amount = Abs(Round([Expected Amount – Actual Amount], 2))
• Then, I use a filter to identify any differences > 1, as the results from > 0 often include differences due to rounding.

To summarize, these tips reflect my approach to data prep for tabular reports when the ask is urgent and the source is imperfect. If you have approaches that you also find beneficial, any suggestions, or corrections, please drop a message.

Good evening everyone. Was hoping i could get ideas, or maybe steer me in the right direction, on how to build the below (see screenshot).

I have a numeric field called AMOUNT and i need to be able to create a new field that spells out whatever is in the AMOUNT field.

Is there a tool that will do that? Asked Chatgpt and it told me i need to build a macro, but i'm not the best at building macros. Let me know if anyone has ideas. 

(oh i attached an example alteryx workflow if that helps)

Thanks so much.

Hi All,

I am one of many users on data teams who use Alteryx at my company. The team I am on consists of five users, down from six. We have fifty-plus workflows published and running in our team collection. 

The user we recently lost published many of our workflows. Now we have to manage updates to them all. To do this I've documented ten steps to make these changes and most of those are simply to take over another user's workflow. It would be about three otherwise. Doing the math, this is over 500 steps to make relatively simple updates (updating a server path in one tool for each). This should be, at the worst, 150 total. We could even devise a plan to automate this update and make it even easier/faster, but the additional server steps cannot be addressed by us.

We want to ensure that others who can access our workflows and possibly edit them if we're not available. We do not want to use the current process which involves

1. Opening from server in Designer
2. Writing down current refresh schedule
3. Change / test locally
4. Delete the existing schedule
5. Asking IT to delete existing version
6. Saving the updated workflow to the server
7. Adding to the collection
8. Testing/validation on server
9. Re-Scheduling
10. Adding the schedule

This should be as easy as or simpler than:

1. Open from server
2. Change / test
3. Save to server
4. Test/validate

 All of our other applications follow the second, shorter path, sometime enabled by using a service account what all members can publish with. 

How do we do this?

Thanks

I have an input tool connection to a third party SQL database. It contains roughly 100 tables with various fields unique to each. I'm trying to connect to the database then create a list of the table names and fields to generate a sort of data dictionary. The third party adds tables and fields regularly, so I need it to be dynamic and pick up the updates vs a excel file they send me once in a blue moon.

What tool, or combination of tools would I use to generate a list of tables and fields in each table?

I have a schedule I need to transpose with a lot of data. Any tips, tried transpose but was unsuccessful.

I have 300 Records for 12 months of data, that is 25 rows per month Group By Month and value in Descending order. I want to put a record Id for all the records, for example for the 25 records in Jan i want to keep the record ID as 1 to 25 and it has to be the same 1 to 25 for all the other months for total 300 records. how to acheive this?

Hi 

I have the data as attached for 5 year. I need to calculate Each month average. for example for Jan 2025 - The average should calculated by Dec'24+Jan'25/2 and for Feb'25 it should be Jan'25+Feb'25/2 and for all the years data it should calculate in this way

How to Acheive this through Alteryx? Can someone help me out it this?

I have a workflow which is working on my local desktop and server seamlessly. When I downloaded from my server for a enhancement, and when trying to re-upload, it's giving error.

'No incoming metadata from one or more upstream tools. Check the input data and run the workflow again'

My both inputs ( 1 is .yxdb and other is a database query), both have data and both's metadata and their data type are same.

I have seen a similar post in community, where the reason was because of a disabled tool container. It's not the same in my case, even I have removed it to test, but still it's failing for both he Union tools.

Upgrading your Alteryx Server environment often means performing a sequence of delicate steps—one misconfiguration, missed backup, or delayed manual hand-off can derail the entire process. That’s why our team developed a new automated script to automate the Server host recovery process that may be required during an Alteryx Server upgrade.

The result? Significantly less time lost, fewer manual errors, and an overall smoother upgrade experience.

Let's See it in Action

The new Host Recovery Automation script can be used to perform a backup of your existing Server and embedded MongoDB instances, and subsequently can be used to recover the Server with your original users, workflows, and schedules restored. This is an important step for Server upgrades that require migrating environments or recovering your Server instance during a disaster recovery scenario.

To get started:

• Navigate to the Alteryx Licensing and Downloads page
• Click “Download” next to Alteryx Server, select version 2025.2, and download “Server Host Recovery”
• Edit the configuration file alteryx_recovery_config.json and update the values for your environment
• Open PowerShell as Administrator
• If you see a digital signature error or script execution is blocked, run the helper script comm .\Enable-Run-ServerHostRecovery.ps1
• To perform a backup, run .\ServerHostRecovery.ps1 -Backup
• To recover the Server from your backup, run .\ServerHostRecovery.ps1 -Recover
  
  

Then go grab a cup of coffee while the script works its magic.

The script will then automate the first 4 steps of the host recovery process, including:

1.  Setting the time zone and ensuring the host can access Alteryx
   
2. Verifying prerequisites and configuring Alteryx Server with default settings.
   
3. Recovering your existing RuntimeSettings.xml, including restoring the controller token, encrypted storage keys, the Run As User and SMTP password, and transferring the encryption key
   
4. Recovering your MongoDB back-up, including confirming a successful restoration and removing Alteryx Server locks
   
   

From there, you’ll take back over and restore any additional files and settings, including data drivers and connections. Then you can restart the Server and confirm full operation is restored. 

Why You’ll Love It

Through automation, the script removes the most time-consuming and error‐prone work, allowing you to refocus your efforts on final testing and verification. This provides several benefits, including:

Fewer human errors

Since the most repetitive and error-prone tasks are automated, you reduce the “oops-I-forgot-to-do-X” risk.

Reduced manual work

The host recovery script automates over 20 manual tasks, dramatically cutting the time and effort required for upgrades so you can focus on higher-value initiatives.

Cleaner audit trail & visibility

The script logs every action and exception, making it easier to trace, troubleshoot, or hand off to another sysadmin. This strengthens governance and transparency across the upgrade process.

Easier, recurring upgrades

By streamlining host recovery, Alteryx Server upgrades become a repeatable, low-risk process. You can confidently upgrade more frequently and quickly take advantage of the latest Alteryx enhancements designed boost productivity and governance.
 

Upgrade Smarter, Not Harder

Preparing your environment to upgrade Alteryx Server doesn’t have to be a high-stress event. With host recovery automation, you can dramatically reduce disaster recovery and upgrade time, minimize errors, and give your team the confidence to keep Alteryx Server running smoothly for your mission-critical workflows

Happy upgrading!

1. No Data Cleansing tool
   1. Too slow and risk of configuration loss
   2. Use instead Multi Fields Formula Tool
2. Left join connected to main data stream and enrichment/filter/correction/Comparison on the right
   1. For easier reading of the workflow
3. Select after Input Data tool and before Output Data tool...
   1. If you don’t want to look for the missing column
   2. Only exception to remove intermediate column no longer required
4. ...and no use of the Select in Join tools which are fed only with required columns with the exceptions
   1. If enrichment: Deselect duplicate column
   2. If “filter”: Deselect all right columns
   3. If “Correction” set the name of the new column correcting and deselected column corrected
   4. If “Comparison” set the names of the column from both sides
5. Don’t use Unique in main data stream
   1. If you want to be in control of your date, use Summarize Tool

I am trying to get a virtual lab license with 80 seats so I can teach Alteryx Designer to my MBA students again this year. I am a professor in the business school at University of California Irvine cpechman@uci.edu. I made a request for a virtual lab license with 80 seats 2 weeks ago using the SparkED online form and I haven't heard anything back. Could someone possibly help or tell me whom I can contact to get help? thanks.

Hi All,

For what it seems a quite basic, routinely process of updating a yxdb by reading the yxdb and unioning it with the new incoming data, my workflow fails with the classic "Error creating the file: The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process. (32)"

This approach is commonly and widely used in many of my workflows, as this is the only way of appending yxdb records. But for some reason in this case in specific it does not.

I tried everything: sequencing via control containers (as you can see below), adjusting data types, changing the name of the yxdb. Nothing worked.

Not sure if it helps, but the yxdb file contains three columns: two V_WString (one is just a regular text, and the other one is a JSON value of a day's log) and another DateTime. At the moment, the yxdb only contains one record.

EDIT: I tried removing the JSON value prior to running the workflow and it seems like Alteryx succeeds in ovewriting the file. It seems like it doesn't like to overwrite yxdbs when handling columns with large texts or blobs. 

I am trying to figure out a way to output to multiple Excel sheets without using the Render tool as that causes the workflow to take ~25 min to run and output the file which has a size of over 74,000KB and is unusable.  Since the four sheets don't have a standard schema I can't simply divide them up by a tab name column as I would normally do and if I try to union them then there are a lot of unneeded columns in every sheet.  As of right now, the inital designer has it set up so that the workflow has to be run four times to get all of the sheets in the file and I want to see if there is a way to get that down to just one.  I was thinking maybe there was a way to use the Arrange tool to manually set the columns up the way I need them for each sheet, but I've never fully understood how to use that tool.  Below, is an image of the workflow as it stands now and a list of the challenges I am facing.

• Cannot use render as it takes too long and the file is too large
• Sheets do not have common schema and unneeded columns are added to sheets when trying to union
• Cannot use a block until done tool as the sheets don't have a common input

P.S. Apologies for all the redactions

I have an Alteryx workflow the size of which is > 100MB, i need to get this size < than 9MB

Hello - thanks for the help in advance. 

I have cells that follow this format:

qual RES1 'Restaurant' = 'Five Guys/Burger {US}'
qual GY1 'Gym' = 'Planet Fitness'
qual LOC1 'Location' = 'New York/{Bronx, Brooklyn}'
concept 'Example 1'

where 'School' = 'Syracuse University' 
  and RES1

  and 'Meal Type' = 'Dinner'

concept 'Example 2'
where GY1

  and 'Day' = 'Wednesday' 

  and LOC1


Above is just an example, but all my cells will follow a similar format. What i need done:

I want all of the qual values at the top to be replaced by their full values throughout the cell. So if in the cell, there is a reference to GY1, I want it to read 'Gym' = 'Planet Fitness'

So in the above, my desired output would look like:

qual RES1 'Restaurant' = 'Five Guys/Burger {US}'
qual GY1 'Gym' = 'Planet Fitness'
qual LOC1 'Location' = 'New York/{Bronx, Brooklyn}'
concept 'Example 1'

where 'School' = 'Syracuse University' 
  and  'Restaurant' = 'Five Guys/Burger {US}'

  and 'Meal Type' = 'Dinner'

concept 'Example 2'
where  'Gym' = 'Planet Fitness'

  and 'Day' = 'Wednesday' 

  and 'Location' = 'New York/{Bronx, Brooklyn}'

Please note the three quals above are examples and my quals will be different, however they will follow the same format and be at the top of the cell. they represent a key that is referenced throughout my cells. I want basically a find and replace done with the qual values throughout the cell. 

I am designing a workflow where I have a filter condition to check if a file needs to be updated or not. Even when the condition is not met, Alteryx executes the True path with 0 records. This results in the file getting updated with null values. I want to retain the original content of the fie if the condition is not met. 

How can I achieve the same? 

Introduction

When building an Alteryx Analytic Application, dropdown lists are commonly used to let users select parameters such as fields, sheets, files, or categories. While creating a dropdown is straightforward, keeping it up to date when new values are added can be tricky.

In this article, I will explain the different ways to populate a dropdown list in an Alteryx Interface and focus on the best approach to ensure the list stays dynamic and up to date.

1) Static dropdown list (manual values)

The first scenario is creating a static dropdown list, where the list of values is hard-coded in the workflow and does not depend on any external or dynamic data source.

When to use it?

• The list of values is small
• The values are not expected to change
• Simplicity is more important than flexibility

How does it work?

You manually define the dropdown items in the List Box interface tool's configuration.

Limitations of this approach:

If, unfortunately, the list needs to be updated later:

• You must open the workflow
• Manually add or edit the values
• Re-publish the app (if running on Server)

This approach is not ideal when values evolve over time.

2) Dynamic dropdown list

The second scenario is using a dynamic dropdown list, which is the recommended solution when values come from data and may change. This approach ensures the dropdown list is automatically refreshed whenever new values are added to the source data.

We will walk through an example whose core idea is:

1. Create a small data preparation workflow
2. Output one column containing the allowed values
3. Use this column to populate the dropdown list in an analytic app
   

Note that the data prep logic can be:

• A separate workflow, or
• The first part of the same analytic app
  

In this example, we will use two chained analytic applications.

Application 1: Extract sheet names from an Excel file and save them into a YXDB file.

Application 2: populate the dropdown list from the YXDB file

Application 1: extract sheet names from an Excel file whose name is travel and save them into a YXDB file.

The first application is responsible for building the list of values that will later be used in the dropdown list.

Step 1: The process for reading the Excel file is illustrated below.

• A File Browse interface tool is used to allow the user to select an Excel file at runtime.
• The File Browse tool is connected to an Action tool, which is connected to an Input Data tool.
• In the Input Data tool configuration, the option “List of Sheet Names” is selected.

This configuration returns the list of sheet names from the selected Excel file as a single column.

The travel.xlsx file used in the example contains three sheets: Destinations, Budget, and Schedule.

Step 2: Generate a value column

• A Record ID tool is added to the workflow.
• This tool creates a new column that assigns a unique identifier to each row.
• The generated column is renamed to Value.

This Value field will later be used internally by the List Box tool to track selections.

Step 3: Prepare the output structure

A Select tool is used to:

• Rename the Sheet Names column to Name
• Change the data type of the Value column to String

This step is essential because the List Box tool expects the external source to contain Name and Value fields, both of which are compatible with string-based selections.

Finally, the result is written to a YXDB file (for example: Out1.yxdb).

This YXDB file will serve as the dynamic reference source for the dropdown list in the second application.

This means:

• Any user running the app can browse to any Excel file
• The dropdown list containing the sheet names automatically updates when a different Excel file is selected

Application 2: Populate the dropdown list from the YXDB file

The second application reads the Out1.yxdb file created in application 1 and uses it to populate a dropdown list.

Step 4: Read the Out1.yxdb file

• An Input data tool is added to read the Out1.yxdb file.
• This file contains two required fields:
• Name: the label displayed to the user
• Value: the internal value used by the app

Step 5: Configure the List Box tool

• A List Box interface tool is added to the workflow.
• In the List Box configuration:
• Select Generate Custom List
• Set:
• Start Text → "
• Separator → ","
• End Text → "

This formatting ensures the selected values are returned as a properly formatted, comma-separated string.

Step 6: Define the external source for the dropdown list

This is the most critical configuration step.

• In the List Values tab:
• Select External Source – Must contain Name & Value fields (can be a relative path)

• Reference the Out1.yxdb file (preferably using a relative path)

By doing this, the dropdown list dynamically reads its values from the YXDB file generated in the first application.

Step 7: Configure the Filter tool

• A Filter tool is added to the workflow.
• The Filter tool is configured to keep only the rows where the Value field matches the user’s selected sheet names.
• The filter expression is defined using a placeholder condition, such as:

Value IN (...). In our example, as shown in the screenshot above, a filter is applied to keep the first two sheets.

At this stage, the expression is static and will be updated dynamically at runtime by the Action tool.

Step 8: Configure the Action tool

• An Action tool is connected to the List Box interface tool.
• The Action tool is also connected to the Filter tool.
• The Action type is set to Update Value (Default).

At runtime:

• The Action tool replaces the placeholder expression in the Filter tool.
• The replacement value comes from the user’s selection in the List Box.

This allows the workflow to filter and keep only the sheet names selected by the user, ensuring that downstream processing is applied exclusively to the relevant sheets.

Why is the Value field used for filtering (instead of Name)?

When configuring a dynamic dropdown list in an Alteryx analytic app, the external source is expected to provide two fields: Name and Value. While both are required, they serve different purposes, and understanding this distinction explains why filtering is typically done on Value.

Name: Display Purpose Only

• The Name field represents the label shown to the user in the dropdown list.
• It is meant for readability and usability.
• It can contain:
• Spaces
• Special characters
• Long or user-friendly descriptions

Because of this, Name is not ideal for technical operations such as filtering or parameter substitution.

Value: Technical and operational field

• The Value field represents the actual value passed into the workflow when the user makes a selection.
• It is the field used by the Action tool to replace expressions at runtime.
• It is expected to be stable, unique, and easy to manipulate programmatically

Filtering on Value ensures:

• Consistent behavior, even if display labels change
• Cleaner expressions, especially when multiple values are selected
• Fewer issues with quoting, spacing, or special characters

Key Takeaway

If your dropdown values depend on data that can change:

• Avoid static lists
• Use a dynamic, data-driven approach
• Consider chained apps when the dropdown depends on user input (such as file selection)

This methodology significantly reduces maintenance and prevents issues where new values fail to appear in the interface.

The lessons that were provided in Alteryx are helpful tools for everyone to learn and get ideas to work on their data conveniently. I got stuck on my project while using Alteryx, but thankfully, I can rewind videos in the interactive lessons to guiding me to work on my project smoothly and successfully. 

I have a schedule that, at the end of each month, two fields will be added to this schedule with the field names starting with "Current_Month_End_Date + Amount A" and "Current Month End Date+Amount_B". Please see screen shot 1. Therefore, by the end of 2026, this file will essentially contain Amount A and Amount B fields for each of the month end within 2026.

I would like to add a calculation field at each month end that reflects Amount B minus Amount A. See screen shot 2 below. The field name for this calculated field would be "Current_Month_End_Date_Calculation". Since the data fields are being added to the original file starting with a different date each month, is there a way I can systematically add this calculation field in the logic without having to manually revise the calculation formula each month? 

Hello everyone!

I am trying to find a solution for the following problem:

I want to write my created table in Alteryx into one Excel file. My idea is, that the file contains different worksheets. Each worksheet should show the columns Check, Position, and one number-column (1, 2, 3, ...).

Meaning the worksheets of my Excel file should contain the following columns (see photo attached of the table structure in Alteryx):

Worksheet 1: Check, Position, 1

Worksheet 2: Check, Position, 2

Worksheet 3: Check, Position, 3

...

I want to have an automated solution, so using the select tool and creating devisions in the workflow for each worksheet is unfortunately no option to me (because I have a lot of number columns). 

Does anyone have an idea how I can achieve this output if my table in Alteryx is structured according to the photo?

I really appreciate any help that you can offer, thank you very much!

Best regards,

Kim

Hi,

Can someone comment on the exposure, and available remediations (if required), for the embedded MongoDB with reference to CVE-2025-14847, commonly referred to as MongoBleed?

My understanding is that this potentially impacts all versions of MongoDB currently supplied with supported versions of Alteryx server?

Does the Alteryx implementation use zlib compression?

If so is it possible to switch it off?

If it is required what are the plans to patch the various supported versions of server?

I ran into this issue when a co-worker was having trouble with the Round() expression in the formula tool.

After some research on the community, I found the reason, which seems to be how Alteryx stores the values in a binary format. There was a pretty complicated explanation of why that you can see here if you really want to know.

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Desktop-Discussions/Alteryx-Odd-Behavior/td-p/89086

On this other post, https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Desktop-Discussions/Rounding-Discrepancies/td-p/501512 there was a possible solution that worked most of the time. It's an ingenious way to resolve the issue, but I was confused as to why this remains an issue for Alteryx. 

If you are working with data where the rounding in the last decimal place is not important, you can likely just rely on the Alteryx round formula. I have worked with many CFOs in the past, however, and know that any detectable "error" will bring into question everything else in your analysis. Due to this, I developed a macro, which is really just a formula tool, but I set it up as a macro to be able to share with others who may not want to change the formula tool to meet their needs every time. 

The included macro has a browse tool in it as well to display how it is working and comparing to the results provided by Alteryx's Round() expression. The build design is simple (which rounding should be), but instead of using the number as a number, I break it down into its components.

First, I set the number of decimals to round to. Next I convert the number into text. This way, I can pull the specific digit that the rounding is based upon. Using this digit, I can manually test if it is 5 or more (round up) or less than 5 (round down). This is what you would have to do if manually rounding each number by hand.

After that, I am pulling the part of the number that precedes the rounded digit. This was done by using the Floor() expression of the original amount times 10 to the power of the number of rounding places. So 2 decimal rounding would be times 100, 3 times 1000, and so on. Finally, I add a 1 (round up) or 0 (round down) based on the rounding test times 10 to the power of the number of rounding places. In the data included in the macro, you can see this would add .001 for the amounts where the rounding would round up.

I'm curious if anyone who has experienced this rounding issue in the past could run the macro against the data to see the results. I am pretty confident though that this method will provide 100% accuracy on rounding where other methods seem to fail.

Enjoy! 😀

Hello - I am having an issue with Fuzzy Match. 

I have a data source that looks like:

And I have a list of Names that I want to Fuzzy Match for in NAME. For Example, my text looks like

I have the second table as a Text input in my Alteryx flow. I want to Fuzzy Match for the second table values in the first table. Please not my actual data set is much larger, I am just using this as an example. 

Thanks for the help!

Hii

Looking for simpler solution in Alteryx designer for creating 2 new columns from the input data rows. 

In my attached excel file, Columns A to F will be the input data which consists of thousands of rows for different group, location, metrics and Date months.

I have also included output columns G and H in this input file just for reference to show how i want them to be calculated

is there efficient and simple alteryx logic that anyone can help me with here? to calculate these 2 output columns (Column G and H). May be someone can share screenshots of logic or required component configs here

Column G logic=
(For each metric and Location ID (If location ID is null then for  Group ID), i need to get consecutive month trigger count scanning the file in descending month order )

Example 1:
For Metric= acceptance, Location ID = 100 , i need to calculate for each month row, i need to go back to consecutive previous date and see if it is present and count how many present

So Data row 1: Date= 2025-12. i See there is 1 consecutive month (2025-11) is present for Acceptance metric and Location id 100, So for this row 1, column G value should be 1

Data row 2: Date= 2025-11, i dont find consecutive previous month for same metric and location id (month 2025-10 is not present). so here Column G is 0

Example 2:
For metric= 'acceptance', when location id is absent, then i need to calculate for Acceptance metric for ex. for group id= 2, for each month row, i need to go back to consecutive previous date and see if it is present.

So Data row 8: Date= 2025-09. i see there are 2 consecutive previous months present for same metric and group id (2025-08, 2025-07 both present) , so here value of column G = 2 

Column H logic=
with same approach i need to calculate this for each row at metric and location id level (if location id is null then at group id level).

Here i need to count total occurances in last 12 month window for each row

example 1:
Data row 1: Date = 2025-12. For Location id 100 and metric=acceptance, i need to calculate occurances from 2025-01. I see 4 occurances (2025-12, 2025-11,2025-09,2025-07). So for row 1, value of column H will be 4.

example:2
Data row 19: Date = 2025-10. There is no previous date row for metric=acceptance and group id=5. only current row. So value here for column H = 1

Same logic for 'Stale' metric rows

I need to parse a ten digit string value to reformat. My end result should look like this:

Column A           Column B

1234567890        12-345-67890

0123456789        01-234-56789

All of column A will be 9 or 10 digits with the 9 digit values needing a preceding 0 if one is not present. Column B will always be 12 including the dashes.

In Excel the formula leveraged is Left($a1,2)&"-"&mid($a1,3,3)&"-"&mid($a1,6,5)

What's the most efficient way to do this in AD?

Hello,

I have a below data set in excel. Data is import from line 1. So Alteryx created the default field Name like Field1,Field2,Field3 etc.

My requirement is the selection of field in output file should be dynamic. If i passed the count 2 from text then it should select only first two columns i.e. F1 and F2 rest should be ignore. If i pass the count 4 then it should select first 4 columns i.e. F1,F2,F3 and F4 from above table.

Once the column selected, the number of columns i need to rename from F1,F2,F3 header with Column1, Column2, Column3 etc.

How can i achieve this? Could you please help!

Your help is really appreciated .

Thank you in advance.

Hello Community,

Thank you so much for participating in our Office Hours - Server Upgrade session last week! Your incredible enthusiasm strengthens our Community and highlights the value of learning together. We are hosting another Office Hours session this Friday, 19th December, at 2 PM UTC to guide you even further in your Alteryx journey.

Please use the link below to register for our Office Hours on the Data Connection Manager session, where we will focus on using DCM to connect with Snowflake & Databricks:

Register Here

Feel free to use the comment section on the session registration page or contact us at communityevents@alteryx.com if you need any assistance in joining the session.

Take care.

There is a user on my team that is unable to output telemetry xml files.  Her RunTimeSettings xml file is updated to enable telemetry the same as mine, but she is not outputting the xml files and I am.  I blacked out the folder path where she should be outputting xml files, but I did confirm it is correct.  Does anyone have any ideas on why her xml telemetry files are not outputting?

Hello Community,

Join us for another License Administration session during our Community Live series on Tuesday, December 9th at 11:00 AM EST / 4:00 PM GMT.

We will show you ways to get started as a license admin and give you a preview of a few things we have in store for those transitioning to Alteryx One. Please register via the link below:

Register Here

Email us at communityevents@alteryx.com or use the comment section on the session page if you need any help or have any questions about the session.

Take care.

Hello!

My original inputs at the very beginning of the workflow are .yxdb files.

I am running a large amount of data through a Unique tool and linking it it back up through a Find And Replace tool. For the Find and Replace tool, the "Find Within Field" and "Find Value" fields are both Record IDs that have been converted to strings (since the find and replace tool does not allow for numeric types to be used). 

Here are the work arounds I have tried and have not worked...

1. Turning off AMP engine and re-running

2. Changing Record ID type to string in the Record ID tool at the beginning of the workflow and adding an Auto-Field tool right after to optimize the length of the field.

4. Doing the same thing as #2 and deleting leading zeros before running through the rest of the workflow. 

3. Changing Record ID type to string in a select tool (and changing field length to 999999999) before the unique and find/replace tools. 

Now I'm stuck. My workflow contains sensitive data so unfortunately I cannot share my data or workflow. Only an image of the error. 

Any advice or information is gratefully appreciated! Thank you :)