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.

Super cool, this new tool!

There are many differences compared to the older version:

It can remove invisible characters.
It can remove letters, except for those in a specified list (e.g., A, Y, X).
It can remove numbers, except for those in a specified list (e.g., 1, 2, 3).
It can remove punctuation and special characters, except for those in a specified list (e.g., ñ, |, #).

For many times, you want Alteryx to process some data, generate a report, and send to a group of recipients. However, you cannot really trust Alteryx to send directly to recipients because you want to check the report for the last time before it gets dispatched. If Alteryx is going to just generate the report and send to yourself, then you will have to manually forward the email, insert the recipients, remove ”FW: ” from the subject, and clean up the email header of the email body. These manual steps kind of of defeats the purpose of automation.

In this tutorial I'm going to share with you how to ask Alteryx to send you a Draft email. That is, an email with the ultimate recipients, Subject and email body already populated for you. It even attaches the newly generated reports that you want to send to recipients. After you receive the email from Alteryx, you can open up the Draft email, review and click send. Below is a sample output:

Now, to do this, you need to know a little bit of a file format called an eml file. An eml file is a text file with file name ended with eml. The content of the text file is similar to below:

MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Unsent: 1
To: anyone@anyone.com
Subject: Draft Email with Attachment
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="email_boundary"

--email_boundary
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="html_boundary"

--html_boundary
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

This is an HTML message. Please use an HTML capable mail program to read
this message.

--html_boundary
Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<html><body>This is an email with <b>attachments</b></body></html>

--html_boundary--

--email_boundary
Content-Type: application/pdf; name="pdf_attachment.pdf"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="pdf_attachment.pdf"

[A base 64 encoding of an pdf attachment]

--email_boundary

Content-Type: application/vnd.ms-excel; name="excel_attachment.xlsx"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: inline; filename="excel_attachment.xlsx"

[A base 64 encoding of an Excel attachment]

--email_boundary--

Here are the description of some key fields:

• MIME-Version: 1.0: Just keep this
• X-Unsent: 1: This line will make sure the file be opened in your email client in Edit mode. I have tested it in Outlook and it works. If you want this to work in Thunderbird, you will need to install this fix.
• To: This is the To email address you want the Draft email to pre-populate. This is usually a list of target report recipients.
• Subject: This is the Subject you want the Draft email to pre-populate.

Now, the boundary lines are more difficult to explain. Basically, you need to declare a boundary and describe what you are including. In my example, I'm including an HTML message, and two attachments. Just look at the sample eml message above and you should get a good idea of how to use the boundary.

Then, the most tricky part is, you want to include the attachments. You may use Alteryx to generate the reports, and the reports can be PDF, or Excel, or a picture, or a Word document or any file type. I'm going to attached a PDF file and an Excel file in the Draft email. In the declaration, you are going to specify Content-Type of each attachment. That basically tells your operation system what program to use when the recipient double-clicks on each of the attachment.

Now, the most interesting part is how you would encode the attachments in the eml message. Alteryx has these very interesting tools just for this purpose: the Blob Input and Blob Convert. You can make use of these to read your PDF file, convert to base64 text, and include in the Draft email.

Several things to watch out for when you configure the Alteryx workflow:

1. Empty lines are important in the eml file. However, when you use the Summation tool to concatenate the strings, it removes empty lines. You will need to replace the place holder [BLANK LINE] near the end of the workflow.
2. When you use the Summation tool to concatenate the strings, make sure you specify \r\n as Separator. It is the carriage return line feed.
3. In the Blob Convert tool, select Convert from a Blob Field, and select Convert to Base64 encoding Binary Data
4. In the Output Data configuration, just output as a Comma Separated Value file but you are going to specify a filename with *.eml ending, such as DraftEmail.eml. That's the file you will attach in the Alteryx workflow and send to yourself for final checking.
5. In the Output Data configuration, make sure you put Never in the Quote Output Fields.

Please leave any comments below if you have any insight/feedback, and I will try to answer them, thanks.

Hi All, 

I'm looking to generate a list of workflow in each collection level. 

How to generate and what is the process to create a workflow?

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

I downloaded Alteryx Design. To activate the license, I am required to sign in Alteryx One. I put the email I use to sign in Alteryx Portal, but  no code is sent to me. I checked the spam, and I did it 2 days ago. 

I'm using free license from school email.

Please help me. I can not find any videos, instructions.

Hello and good day,

I would like your assistance in retrieving the "Y" flag from the lookup table. I have attached example files: a dummy file and a lookup table. The "Short Name" in the dummy file should be matched against the lookup table. When a match is found, the corresponding value ("Y" or "0") should be supplied to the "Credit Union" column in the dummy file.

Hope to see your sample workflow.

Thanks,

Kamen

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?

Hello Professionals,

I'd want to thank all professionals who helped me when I was stuck while studying for Alteryx Designer Core. I'm unsure if the next step is Alteryx Designer Advanced, but I'd like to continue learning more about Alteryx. Any advice and instructions on what sources to learn and practice is very much appreciated.

Thank you,

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 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 was asked to work on Alteryx.
I have a challenge with automating data cleaning.
I want to automatically clean extra delimiters in the description columns of concatenated BSEG_BKPF tables from SAP.

I can handle cases where a description column has extra delimiters using this Formula : 

IF Length([Field_1])-Length(Replace([Field_1], "|", "")) > [NB délimiteur attendu] then Left([Field_1], FindNth([Field_1], "|", [Premier "|"])+1) + REPLACE( SUBSTRING( [Field_1], FindNth([Field_1], "|", [Premier "|"]) , Length([Field_1])-FindNth(ReverseString([Field_1]), "|", [Dernier "|"])-FindNth([Field_1], "|", [Premier "|"])),"|","")+ Right( [Field_1], FindNth(ReverseString([Field_1]), "|", [Dernier "|"])+1) else [Field_1] endif

Where : 
[Premier "|"]) = Length( Left([Field_1], FindString([Field_1], "SGTXT"))) - Length(Replace(Left([Field_1], FindString([Field_1], "SGTXT")), "|", ""))

[Dernier "|"] = Length( Left(ReverseString([Field_1]), FindString(ReverseString([Field_1]), "TXTGS"))) - Length(Replace(Left(ReverseString([Field_1]), FindString(ReverseString([Field_1]), "TXTGS")), "|", ""))

This allows me, based on the headers, to know how many normal delimiters surround my description column.

This position-based formula does not work when more than one description column is malformed.

If you have any ideas using Alteryx or another language, I would be very grateful.

StreamIn (52) ERROR [HY000] [AmazonAthena][AthenaClientError]: ExceptionName: InvalidRequestException, ErrorType: 130, ExceptionMessage: Unable to verify/create output bucket aws-athena-query-results-0719165104-us-east-1¶OdbcException¶   at System.Data.Odbc.OdbcConnection.HandleError(OdbcHandle hrHandle, RetCode retcode) ¶   at System.Data.Odbc.OdbcCommand.ExecuteReaderObject(CommandBehavior behavior, String method, Boolean needReader, Object[] methodArguments, SQL_API odbcApiMethod) ¶   at System.Data.Odbc.OdbcCommand.ExecuteReaderObject(CommandBehavior behavior, String method, Boolean needReader) ¶   at System.Data.Odbc.OdbcCommand.ExecuteReader(CommandBehavior behavior) ¶   at org.ForeSight.Tools.Athena.ExecuteScalarQuery(String dsn, String query) ¶   at org.ForeSight.Tools.LakeFormation.GetStagingLocationUri(String odbcDsn, String prefix) ¶   at org.ForeSight.Alteryx.StreamInEngine.WriteData() ¶   at org.ForeSight.Alteryx.StreamInEngine.II_Close() ¶   at SRC.Alteryx.GenericIncomingConnectionHandler.II_Close(GenericIncomingConnectionHandler* )

I currently have a .txt file with over 600 columns and a separate excel file that has column names and lengths for each field. Is there a way for me to use the excel file to define the fixed lengths for the .txt file when importing into Alteryx? 

I've tried reading it in as a fixed width text file, but it only gives the option of manually defining each field name and length on an interactive slide bar or importing a Flat ASCII file with the Field Settings. 

Every time I try to install a YXI tool after downloading it from marketplace add on, I receive an error message saying this is not a supported install type. 

Currently I am trying to install the Outlook 365 tool. I am on version 2025.1.1.27 and have confirmed there are no other versions of this particular Outlook tool anywhere on my device. 

I have tried various other marketplace add ons, and each time they download successfully to my C:\Users\mallie.feltner\AppData\Roaming\Alteryx\Tools folder , but when I try to install the tool in Alteryx I get the same error message that it is not a supported install type. 

Looking for any advice on how to troubleshoot or resolve this if anyone has experienced anything similar with all yxi tools. 

Hi

I have a long list of unstructured data. In the first instance I need to extract the email addresses that are populated into a new column.

After using a text to column with Space as the delimiter I tried the following - IF Contains('@', [MAILING / BANKING INSTRUCTIONS1]) THEN [MAILING / BANKING INSTRUCTIONS1] ELSE "" ENDIF. But that didn't work...

Where an email is not contained I also need to extract the names from the list. Can anyone suggest the easiest way to achieve this?

I'd greatly appreciate any help that is out there!

Cheers

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

Hi everyone,

I’m creating a workflow in Alteryx that will call a Macro on a scheduled basis. The Macro receives the following inputs via a Text Input tool:

• Source Oracle table name

• Filter / WHERE clause (if applicable)

• Destination database/schema name in Snowflake

Normally, the Macro processing is straightforward: I use Input Data (Oracle) and Output Data (Snowflake) to establish connections, and a few Control Parameters allow the Macro to sequentially move a set of tables from Oracle to Snowflake.

However, this time I’m encountering some CLOB and BLOB fields that require additional processing, and I need some guidance.

I have two main questions:

1. Dynamic routing based on data type
   a) How can I analyze or parse an incoming table dynamically to identify the data types of each column?
   b) Once the data types are identified, how can I route them to different pipelines for processing? For example:

   • Text, Date, Number → Default Snowflake datatypes

   • BLOB → Use the BLOB Convert tool

   • CLOB 

2. Handling CLOBs
   The sample table I tested on doesn’t have large CLOB values, but the workflow still times out at this step. I assume some additional processing is needed to move the CLOB. How should I handle this efficiently in Alteryx?

I’m relatively new to Alteryx and have only used a limited set of tools, so any tips, best practices, or example workflows for handling CLOBs and BLOBs in a scheduled Macro would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance for your guidance!

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.

Auto detecting a table of data from a PDF using the new Computer Vision tools from Intelligence Suite is a great new functionality, but figuring out how to make it work was not intuitive for me. I did a lot of trial and error figuring out how to extract a table of data from a pdf. Here's how I made it work.  

• Image Input - browse to "Titanic Data.PDF" (attached)
• Connect the output from the Image Input tool to both 
  1. D input anchor of Image to Text tool
  2. the optional input anchor of an Image Template tool - set configuration image to 'image'
• Image Template Tool -  set configuration Image to 'image'

the output contains a Markup field - connect the output to the T anchor of the Image to Text tool

• Image to Text tool - set configuration Image to 'image'

the output contains one pipe-delimited field called table0 (there may be additional table fields depending on the structure of the input pdf.)

• Use a Text to Columns tool with | delimiter
• Use a Sample tool to skip the first row of 0|1|2|3...
• Use Dynamic Rename to 'Take Field Names from First Row of Data'

My workflow (version  2021.3) and the PDF of titanic data are attached. I hope you find this helpful!

terry10

Hello,

I have a table that has City, State, Start Date, and End Date. I'm using the Generate Row tool to generate a row for each date between the start date and end date. However, what I'm finding is that it's changing the City names, so even though the original row said Los Angeles, some of the new rows will say LosAngeles (removing the space) or Los  Angeles (adding an extra space). Here is how my Generate Rows tool is set up. How do I fix it so it's not changing any fields and just adding the dates.

Hi Team,

I hope you are doing well :)

I have a below table

where i have concatenate a column based on field Codes and Dept code and called the new column as Codes + dept Code

Now for each unique values for column  Codes + Dept Code i have to test whether previous month column value is blank or zero and if it is blank or zero i have to check another Codes + Dept Code unique value. 

for other than blank or zero values in previous month column i have to check the maximum value in amount column and populate that records into output file.

Many Thanks in advance!!

hi all

Hope you are well, would it be possible to link excel input tab where tab name changes slightly each time we get data please ?

Please see the attached picture-in the attached we get excel with tab name "Dataset_12345", each time only number changes but Dataset word stays static

Thanks in advance

Ariz

Hi Everyone,

I made a post a little while ago describing a situation I frequently found myself in and my desire for a robust solution. You can read it here if you like (https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Desktop-Discussions/How-to-move-untouched-Excel-Sheets-to-an-existing-workbook-VBA/td-p/1417782), but the tl;dr is this:

Essentially, I needed a way to make exact copies of the excel sheets I was working with, formatting and all (really the crux of the whole issue), and transfer them into the output excel workbook that Alteryx is creating. The manual solution of just opening up the input and output files and copying the tabs over is not that bad, but for whatever reason I was determined to figure out a way to automate this part of the solution. In my example there are only two source workbooks, but in a situation with 5+ it could really save you some time once you get it set up.

You know what they say, if you can’t find someone to do the job, do it yourself. I have solved my own problem, and have attached the entirely self-contained solution macro below, and I’ll put some instructions/guidance further down in this post. The next few paragraphs will be me yapping about how it works if there’s any interest. Be warned that it involves running .ps1 and .bat files so you will see your command prompt come up when running it. Not sure how everyone’s IT department feels about this.

The yap:

The solution ended up being a PowerShell script that is created and updated dynamically by an Alteryx formula, and then converted to a blob and output as a .ps1 file. As part of that Alteryx formula you also dynamically create a .bat script that calls the powershell script. I'll be honest, I don't recall the exact reasoning why Alteryx couldn't run the powershell script directly, but it works, so I'm sticking with it. You actually end up having to do two .bats because I can't figure out how to get the Run Command Tool to point to a dynamic location either, and I wanted the titles for these scripts to be specific to the files they’re affecting. This minimizes the chance of any accidental error occurring. Let me describe the complete sequence below: 

1. Source Filepaths and Source sheets are one input into the macro. The Target Workbook FilePath is a second input.
2. Summarize by Source File, Concatenate Sheet Names onto a single line per source file
3. Append the Target Workbook FilePath to each line of the Source File/SheetNames records
4. Here is where we start creating the scripts. You create one base script as a placeholder, and for the sections that need the filepaths and sheets specific to each source workbook, you build those individually by pointing the expression to the relevant fields
5. You then use a summarize tool to concatenate those file specific lines of code together
6. You then use a formula to replace the placeholder sections in the base script with the ones you just concatenated. This is also where other various Utility scripts are created (a .bat that creates a folder for all these scripts to go into, the .bats that run the .ps1 file, and a cleanup .bat). Everything is generated IN the formula tool so it remains self contained.
7. Now we output and run the executables
   1. First we create a folder called “MoveTabsExecutables” that all of our scripts will be output to. This is purely for organization so that the macro isn’t just leaving leftover executable files all over the place
   2. Next we output our actual .ps1 script. Then we output the .bat file that calls it, and then we output the second .bat file with a hard coded name that the Run Command Tool can point to. Subsequently and hopefully obviously, we then run the Run Command tool. This is where the copying of tabs actually happens.
   3. Finally, we output and run the “Cleanup Script”. The point of this is to “leave no trace” so to speak. It deletes the “MoveTabsExecutables” folder when it’s done, as well as the various temporary files that the Run Command Tool requires you to create
      
      

The Instructions/Guidance:

• I have no idea if anyone else will actually find value in this tool, but if you do, you will need to implement block until done tools into your workflow to get it to work properly. Half the reason it exists is due to issues with overwriting when attempting to use the "out of the box" tools.
• The macro has three modes:
  • Input Rows – You feed your FilePaths, SheetNames, and OutputFilePath into the input nodes of the macro directly. This is the way it’s really intended to be run.
  • File Browse – The macro is capable of operating as a standalone tool if you point it to a source workbook and target workbook directly. As simple as it gets.
  • Folder Browse – Same as File Browse, but with a folder. It will move every tab in every workbook that is input.
    
    
• The tabs it copies will overwrite anything that exists with those same tab names in the output. This means you can run it over and over and not have to do anything because it will overwrite each time.
  
  
• What this also means, however, is that you cannot have a sheet name in your target workbook that matches the sheet name of a source workbook the first time you run it. It will start appending things and it will get messy.
  
  
• If there are tabs with the same names in different source workbooks however, it will append (_WB1, or _WB2) respectively. Regardless of whether there is a conflict, the macro outputs a tab in your target workbook with a report of which tabs were copied and which _WB suffix relates to which source workbook.
  
  
• There can only be ONE Target Workbook. The filebrowse and folderbrowse methods force you into this. If you try to use more than one with the input rows method, it will simply sample the first one and copy all of your tabs there. If you have a use case with different destinations, I suggest you throw this macro inside another batch macro and figure it out from there.
  
  
• There can be any number of source workbooks if using the Input Rows or Folder Browse method.
  
  

The Leftovers:

• One of the tasks the “Cleanup” scripts does is delete temporary files. If you happen to have any .yxdb files with the word “delete” in it, contained in the same folder as this macro, it will be deleted.
  
  
• If you open up the macro you might see me label certain things as “MoveTabs” but in all instances, Move means Copy. The source workbooks will retain everything.
  
  
• Similarly, you might see FileName and FullPath get used interchangeably. This is because when you use an input data tool and choose to input the fullpath, it gets labeled as FileName. In most cases when I say path, I mean the complete path up until the file extension, and "file" will be just the file name itself
  
  
• While working on this I named the folder everything was in "VBA Script Test" because I thought VBA would be the solution. That wasn't the case, but I never updated the folder name. No VBA is used.
  
  
• If you try and open up the macro and run it, it won't work properly for a couple reasons, but most importantly, it is only meant to be run one method at a time, so disable those other containers.
  
  
• AI did help with creation of the .ps1 and .bat scripts. 

You might be thinking “wow, this was a lot of work for you to set this up, to accomplish very little”.

You are correct. But it’s done now.

Hello - I'm currently working on a project that I need a dynamic drop down for. Currently I have this set up using the 'Drop Down' and 'Action' tool for my workflow where I have created the list of values I want to select from. These locations populate in my 'Run as an Analytic App' questions but when I choose a location --> finish its showing "No Output Files." 

Is there something I'm missing?

Hi Everyone,

One of our customer is using SAS and wants to migrate to Alteryx. What should be our approach and is there any tools available in alteryx that helps in the migration process.