Output — Alteryx

Any ideas for my macro.

Dark_Star9 — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 08:22:33 +0000

Hi there. Im a newbie into the macro world. My purpose is to output from each excels files and sheet an output with columns empty etc and the adress like L1C1 you know. From a tool DIR im taking my .xlsx files and output directly Full Path. Then im connecting into a macro for listing all the excel sheets and get a column names Full Path with C:\Users\Downloads\abc.xlsx|||Sheet1$. Hence from it im connecting into my second macro. My second macro is waiting for full path in control parameters and you have options to include or not empty rows and columns as checkboxes. From my Dir its working but when im adding this kind of excel into it first screenshot. The second one is my first macro for listing excel sheets and to make my column full path. On the third screenshot as u can see my real data is Col 3 and line 6 and the macro is giving an output on L1C1 WHY ? and im also losing Full Path from the macro input to the output. Do u guys have some ideas from that behavior ? TSYM 4 taking time to answer.

Downloading workflow output

larsvdb — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 07:42:11 +0000

Hi, in my company, there are only a few people with an Alteryx designer license who are building workflows for employees. I was told that people without license could receive output in two different ways:
(1) A scheduled, weekly output once/several times a week
(2) If someone with the license would download another output and send it.

Is there any other more flexible way for unlicensed users to start the workflow and receive output? Preferably on command?

Render Tool-Output file

Ayaanarjun-5885 — Fri, 09 Feb 2024 10:12:32 +0000

Hi, I have 2 Outputs that should be in same file but in different sheets. I'm unable to create new sheet for 2nd output in the same file using Render tool. How can I do that using render tool?

Creating an Outlook/Thunderbird Draft Email including Attachments

kelvin_tsang — Sun, 12 Jul 2020 08:50:57 +0000

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

This is an email with attachments

--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:

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.
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.
In the Blob Convert tool, select Convert from a Blob Field, and select Convert to Base64 encoding Binary Data
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.
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.

How to stop Alteryx producing .bak files when outputting to Excel

IraWatt — Mon, 09 May 2022 17:14:18 +0000

When I output to excel I always have an accompanying .bak file is there anyway to turn off the auto output of .bak files, they clog up my directories?

Unable to edit file paths

DanBlenkinsop — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 10:04:53 +0000

I'm no longer able to enter or edit file paths in output tools. Any changes i make to the file path are lost when i click off the tool and back on to it.

How to Display File Path on Alteryx Server

Xeu911 — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 14:26:19 +0000

Hi everyone,

I'm encountering an issue related to a topic that has been discussed in several posts here. However, none of them have fully addressed my specific question.

My use case is quite straightforward:

There's a workflow that generates an Excel file
I'd prefer not to output the file directly to the server (to avoid overloading the MongoDB)
Instead, I'd like to display a message to the user with a link to the file, which would be saved on a private NAS

Note: I'm aware of the email option, but I cannot use it (due to company policy).

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to achieve this?

Thanks,

Output error messages in an Excel file

BautistaC888 — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 21:41:19 +0000

Hello,

I wanted to know if it’s possible to output any error messages from the flow into an Excel file.

Thank you.

Scheduled workflows in Gallery writes 0 records to output (used standard output tool)

NaveenaD — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 12:01:03 +0000

Hi community,

I noticed that when our org. switched from Alteryx 2023 to 2024.2, the standard output tools write 0 records to output files when the workflow runs in gallery using scheduler. The same workflow when runs with a click on 'run' button in gallery I don't see the 0 records issue. This is even happening with Tableau output, the dashboard data wipes out. This happens with or without AMP engine enablement.

Do you have any explanation and solution for this?

P.S.This weird behavior happens only for scheduled runs.

Dynamic email output

Carlyn — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 14:48:08 +0000

I am trying to set up a dynamic email output so that it always reflects the appropriate dates in the body of the email. What is the best way to do this? Do I need to use a batch macro? Our company AI suggested a formula tool but this is not feeding anything into the Email tool so I am not sure what steps I need to take.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Output sheet automatic rename

Lizbhernan — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 20:42:59 +0000

Hello Alteryx Community,

I’m currently working on a workflow where I need to dynamically rename an output sheet based on a column name.

Does anyone have recommendations or best practices on how to achieve this? Any guidance or examples would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you in advance for your help.

Excel Formula Output

Lion24 — Wed, 04 Sep 2019 20:02:37 +0000

Hi,

I am wondering if it is possible to output formulas in excel rather than just numbers. In other words, if a column in Alteryx is the product of two columns - can I output into excel so that when I click into the cell I can see the formula?

Example:

Column A = 100

Column B = 2

If I create Column C called "Market Value" with the formula tool and set it equal to [A] x [B] I will get 200. When I output into excel, all I will see is 200 in column C. Is there any way I can output so that when I click into the cell I will see =[A] x [B]?

Thanks!

Lion24

How to output separate excel files based on values from a column dynamically

mkankaria — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 14:52:39 +0000

Hi everyone, I have the following use case and unable to solve for how to output to separate files, especially if the number of files to be output can change. Below are two examples runs with the workflow, but as run 2 highlights the numbers of group can change/is variable so the workflow needs to be able to create/save new files accordingly each run and overwrite the old files to update with new data as well. Would greatly appreciate any help!

Run 1-

Value	Group
1AB	Alpha
2BC	Beta
3CD	Alpha

Output-

Alpha.xlsx (Contains 1AB and 3CD)

Beta.xlsx (Contains 2BC)

Run 2-

Value	Group
1AB	Alpha
2BC	Beta
3FF	Alpha
4DE	Gamma

Output-

Alpha.xlsx (Contains 1AB and 3FF)

Beta.xlsx (Contains 2BC)

Gamma.xlsx (Contains 4DE)

Trying to separate data in Excel from trades > 5 days and trades <5 days in a table

sardarh — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 14:37:23 +0000

Hi all,

I am having difficulty on a workflow in Alteryx that I'm trying to separate the "age" columns between greater than 5 days at the top, and less than 5 days at the bottom. I have attached both a sample of what I'm trying to get out of the workflow, as well as the alteryx package in progress.

This is a daily email I'm looking to build, and the idea is to have the excel save dynamically with a new file name each day with the date in question, as well as to send an email with the contents of the attachment in the email body and excel attachment posted on the email.

Happy to clarify and would greatly appreciate the help!

Preserve Format on Overwrite not preserving format (Output Data to Excel XLSM)

EW — Wed, 28 Sep 2022 23:50:26 +0000

I'm attempting to use the super cool Blob template process that @NicoleJ described here.

My problem is that even when Preserve Formatting is checked, background color, borders, and other formatting is lost.

I've seen elsewhere that you have to specify the range, so that's what I've done. I've tried it both skipping and including field names, and every other which way I can figure out. Does anyone know of a solution or workaround?

I've made a simplified example to show the issue, my actual template and data will be a lot more complex once I figure this out! I'm not sure if it's relevant, but my workflow also generates a BAK file for each output spreadsheet when run. The Wait and Block tools seemed necessary to prevent file corruption from writing the data too fast, I believe.

Disable Wrap Text for Table Render

MattReif_SE — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 19:29:28 +0000

Have a workflow that generates a table render into an Excel sheet. This includes a column with a long list of manufacturing operations that still need to be completed, however when the table is generated the rows have "Wrap Text" enabled and it creates a very messy looking table. I want the rows to be the default height in excel without losing any of the operation data, I just want it to get cut off by the following column if it would overflow. I cannot find an option to change the wrap text and assume some sort of Row Rule Formula is required, whether it be something to disable wrap text or something to lock the height of a row to a specific size. I have tried a few options and researched extensively but cannot find anything or get it to work. If anyone has experience with changing some of these settings or what a formula code would look like I would appreciate any help/direction. Thanks.

How can I put the results into different sheets of one excel ？

phoebe_90 — Tue, 21 May 2024 08:20:59 +0000

If I have three different output, how can I put the results into different sheets of one excel ？

Can u explain the browse tool behavior here

Dark_Star9 — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 15:12:12 +0000

Hi there,

Im kinda confused by my alteryx's browse tool results. Here on the first screenshot i used a select records and it matches perfectly as u can see below.( numbers of records)

But when im looking directly after the macro output there is things i don't understand. Why the number of records here isn't matching while the full sheets etcs are on the third screenshot after a sort tool ( ascending):

Here is my output after the sort

If someone knows can you please enlighten me on it ? tysm.

Data Transformation Help

Travis_Ratliff — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 17:14:28 +0000

I have attached an example set of data that is the input and how I would like the output to be. The problem I have is that the names and products are merged, the names are column headers so trying to figure out how to move them into their own field and want it all to be dynamic as there could be more names and products added in the future. Any help or suggestions appreciated.

Condensing Data

Lizbhernan — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 20:47:33 +0000

I am working on a workflow in which I have to break down employees hours based on Regular hours worked, OT hours worked, and PTO Hours. I then joined them and instead of all the hours being on the same row with different column names it added extra rows per hours. I tried using a cross tab tool but it didn't work. I have attached the output and the desired output, to see if any one has any suggestions as to how I can get to my desired outputs.

TIA

Search names from a column to another and output the common name

DE22 — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Hello,

Could you, please help me? I want to check the AR_ Name column in the Client column and keep the common matching text (50-60% matching ). Moreover, if inside the AR_ Name clients have a similar name and if they do not match at all with the Client column, should return the AR_ Name. This should be applicable only for the AR_ name column not null/empty. Thanks a lot!

SharePoint Output 2.7.6 Macro update path-value

PeteLacz — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 07:40:11 +0000

I have no problem dynamically reassigning file path destination for SharePoint Input Tools. But on the Sharepoint Output tool, it will not redirect the file to the specified SharePoint path via the interface tool.

All I do is set the full file path in the field "Path - value" from

the preassigned value 'Documents/File Transfer/AlteryxDefault.xlsx'

to the new value 'Documents/Specified folder/Newfilename.xlsx'

What's odd is that the workflow is changing the file name to Newfilename.xlsx but is still putting it in the Documents/File Transfer folder.

I do it this way because I like to use my macros across multiple workflows. The 90day refresh period on sharepoint tools makes refreshing them in many workflows quite tedious.

Is anyone able to advise, or is this just a bug?

Spilt Multiple Fields in the same column into

Haydn_Cook — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 09:30:43 +0000

I need to try and split 3 different fields from the same column, at the moment they are under one general category, but i need them into seperate sections. Anybody know a way I can only select one type of text data. So I need to get Global ECM seperated from the Global M&A.

"File is being used by another process" while overwriting a yxdb with large field or blob

frank_saenz — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:15:14 +0000

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.

SALT Stack

mkosmicki1 — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 14:47:17 +0000

We've been struggling to get our SALT (Snowflake, Alteryx, Tableau) stack back up and running for 8 days now. Support is working on this, but it seems like there is a bug.

This all started when we upgraded Server to the most recent version. First the Snowflake supported driver stopped working. Then the Simba driver stopped working.

Like a disease, all users with SALT stack workflows lost the ability to read data from and write data to Snowflake cloud. We cannot run on desktop designer or server.

We've rolled back our server upgrade, which solved nothing, and now I cannot publish to gallery, run WFs in gallery, or see gallery in anything but the Edge browser.

We've reconfigured our credentials in DCM. That worked for exactly 1 run. Not doing that every day for 20 workflows.

Has anyone else had this issue? I find it hard to believe that we are the only SALT stack users who are having this issue.

Dheeraj Sudan & Meenu Hinduja - Chained App Fails After Server Upgrade Due to Incorrect..

MHindujaDheerajSudan — Sat, 17 Jan 2026 07:50:51 +0000

Hi everyone,

I’m Dheeraj Sudan from the UK. I’m a software developer and also run a business with my wife Meenu Hinduja. And I currently have a chained app published to the gallery. After a recent server upgrade, the app fails during execution.

App 1 generates two outputs using a relative path that should dynamically resolve to a temporary path on the user’s C:\ drive. However, when the workflow is run—either on the server or locally—App 2 attempts to retrieve files from **D:**, a path that does not exist anywhere in my workflow constants.

I have tried updating and replacing both the outputs in App 1 and the inputs in App 2, but the issue persists. App 2 continues to reference **D:**, and I’m unable to identify where this path is being pulled from.

Regards,
Dheeraj Sudan & Meenu Hinduja

Snowflake Bulk Upload Issue (Server & Desktop Designer)

mkosmicki1 — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 15:01:45 +0000

Just wondering if anyone else has had this issue after upgrading server to 2025.2.

We updated our server to 2025.2 last week. Since the update, we have noticed that the Snowflake bulk uploader using OAuth will throw a credential error at approximately 23 mintues and stop the workflow.

Here is the error:
Error SQLDriverConnect: The user you were trying to authenticate as differs from the user tied to the access token.[Snowflake][Snowflake] (17) 2 invalid keys are found in the connection string: Method Staging

We have been running these workflows in desktop designer (also version 2025.2) and all but one of them will run on desktop designer. This one workflow will run for approximately 23 mintutes, throw the same credential error as we are seeing on server, and stop the workflow. The only way we can get this ro run on desktop designer is to cache the data at the last tool prior to the output tool and then run the workflow using the cached data.

Note....other tools such as Stop Until Done, Control Containers do not stop the crediential error. We still see the credential erro at approximately 23 mintues and the workflow stops.

It's clearly not the OAUTH tokens, as we are using the same tokens for all the Snowlfake data pulls and pushes. The tokens are working in other workflows with no issues.

I've submitted a ticket with support, who says we must use the SIMBA driver or they can't help us. Every time we've used the SIMBA driver, it has been very unreliable. Snowflake recommends using their driver and that is what we use.

I am testing the SIMBA driver, to see if anything has changed there.

Loop through removing null columns and write output to multiple files

athina — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 14:29:13 +0000

Hello dear community, I was wondering if you had any ideas on the below.

I have a dataset that is the output of a Microsoft Form survey. The responses on the survey can be grouped on a main field, in my mock data that's the "Hobby" field. The questions on the MS Form are based on what the value for "Hobby" is. As a result, depending on Hobby, there are lots of completely empty columns:

I want to chop up the above and output it into multiple output files, one per each hobby.

I have come up with a low-tech solution, namely filter for each hobby, add a Cleansing tool to remove the null columns, then output each:

This results in nice clean data per Hobby, e.g. for Basketball the output is -

In trying to do it more dynamically/better, I came across a combination of using an Auto-field tool which automatically puts all null columns into Boolean type, followed by a Dynamic Select tool in which I deselect Boolean fields. I hoped this would give me the results of Solution 1 but it doesn't.

Does anyone have any bright ideas on how I could achieve removing null columns, per category ("Hobby") and then output those in separate files per "Hobby"?

Packaged workflow with mock data attached.

Any ideas extremely gratefully received - and thank you so much for reading!

Output

EleniTzakopoulou — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 15:42:00 +0000

Hello,

With the latest update, the option to export an Access file is no longer available.

Is there a way to restore it?

Thank you