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.

When I use the option “First row contains data,” I get the result shown in screenshot 2:

Why isn't it returning the result as shown in screenshot 3?

Is it normal that we need to specify a range for Alteryx to read the file properly?
Are there any known issues with Alteryx when reading Excel files?

TYSM For answering

Regards.

Error: Designer x64: The Designer x64 reported: The Engine encountered a problem, and a report was sent to Alteryx for future investigation. If you have additional information to share (example workflow, sample data) to reproduce the error, please contact Customer Support with Reference ID: 575e4c82-2931-46a2-b1e4-5b8794589071

Hi Alteryx Community,

I’m working on a workflow to extract a specific table from a batch of PDFs using the "PDF to Text" tool with the "Line" method.

In the attached Excel file:

• The "Lines method" tab shows the raw extracted data from the PDFs.

• The "Table snips" tab includes screenshots of the tables from the PDFs, provided for reference.

• The "Expected Result" tab shows the desired output format.

I'm struggling to format the extracted data into a structured table. The main issue is that the relevant values are not always aligning correctly under the appropriate headers, likely due to inconsistencies in spacing or formatting in the original PDF files.

Could anyone guide me on how to transform the data in the "Lines method" tab into the desired format shown in the "Expected Result" tab? Any suggestions or example workflows would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance for your support!

Best regards,
Buddhi

Hello,

I am using the Email tool using an SMTP Connection via the "Use Data Connection Manager (DCM)" option. I am connecting using a Credential of the "OAuth with Alteryx Application"

The Workflow will successfully run and send e-mails if I run the Workflow from my home office being connected via VPN. However, when I try to run the Workflow while being in our corporate office and connected directly to the network it gives us "Error: Email (1): Record#1: Func 'curl_easy_perform' failed, ret = 67, desc = Login denied" error.

We are not changing any parameters related to the SMTP Connection and I have been working with my IT team but we cannot figure out what may be causing the Login Denied issue when at the corporate office. Anyone have any ideas as to what the fix may be for this? We also have run a test using Windows Powershell using my login credentials and the same SMTP and it will send a test e-mail when we do it it through there.

Hi!

I need to fill the last date gap within my workflow. The premise of my automation is to analyze the data of previous working date.

So, I need to:

1. If today is monday, the last available data is from friday, then copy paste friday data to saturday and sunday.
2. If today is monday, the last available data is from thursday (because friday is holiday), then copy paste friday data to saturday and sunday.
3. If today is wednesday, the last available data is from monday (because tuesday is holiday), then copy paste monday data to tuesday.

I created an auxiliary table with all weekend and holiday dates to help me out, but I cannot think of a way to do this. Anyone has any ideas?

There's also a sequence o two holidays in a row. (that could happen)

kindly advise and share the link

I need to fill the last date gap within my workflow. The premise of my automation is to analyze the data of previous working date.

So, I need to:

1. If today is monday, the last available data is from friday, then copy paste friday data to saturday and sunday.
2. If today is monday, the last available data is from thursday (because friday is holiday), then copy paste friday data to saturday and sunday.
3. If today is wednesday, the last available data is from monday (because tuesday is holiday), then copy paste monday data to tuesday.

I created an auxiliary table with all weekend and holiday dates to help me out, but I cannot think of a way to do this. Anyone has any ideas?

There's also a sequence o two holidays in a row. (that could happen)

I am trying to figure out what is up with this union tool which is set to auto configure by name. have been using it for awhile but for some reason it is acting up now. the L input on Join tool is 75,198 and my output on the union tool is 75,202 so I'm not sure why it's seemingly adding 4 rows of data. The L input is where the main data is coming from and R just pulls some qualitative info from Prior month file to add onto current month report. I already made sure there were no duplicates of data in my R input, the prior month file.

https://www.backend-rates.bazg.admin.ch/api/xmlavgmonth?j=2026&m=3

However, is it possible to make this step via Alteryx?

Thanks, K

For example: https://www.estv.admin.ch/de/maerz-2026

at the bottom of this page there is a possibility to get printable version: https://www.backend-rates.bazg.admin.ch/avgrateshtml?j=2026&m=03&locale=de

How can I get PDF like one attached?

Thanks, K

Hi all! I am reaching out because I need help with my workflow.

In summary, I perform a daily activity to calculate the average of last 30 days. (D-1 to D-30) However, when performing this activity on monday, I need Alteryx to copy paste the results of the last day column (in this case 2026_04_10) and create two extra columns with this data 2026_04_11 and 2026_04_12.

This should only happen during the weekends and on holidays.

A holiday example:

Lets suppose 2026_04_15 is a holiday. On 2026_04_16 I will perform the automation and it should generate 2026_04_14 and copy paste the results of 04_14 on 2026_04_15.

On both examples, if Alteryx copy pasted values due to holiday or weekends, it should remove columns in the beginning to make it only 30day interval (in the aforementioned weekend example 2026_04_11 and 2026_04_12)

Is there a way to do this? I'm completely stuck. I have no issues on creating an extra table with holiday dates to use as a reference in the automation, but I cant think of a formula to do this..

Thanks

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. my workflow is almost completed but can someone help me improve my workflow to achieve the following criteria:

1. if data row is not more than 56 rows and the net difference field didnt exceed +/- 25 per row, prompt a message type " no further action needed"

2. if data row is more than 56 rows and the net difference field didnt exceed +/- 25 per row, prompt a message type " Data rows exceed 56 rows. further action needed". create a output file of CSV
2.if data row is not more than 56 rows but the net difference field exceed +/- 25 per row, prompt a message type " Net difference exceed +/- 25.. further action needed". create a output file of CSV

i'm erroring out everytime i used the messagetype

i've attached the 3 sample input file for the 3 scenarios and the drafted workflow.

In my workflow, the data coming in has apostrophes in some business names and in some last names. The data is being output as a pipe delimited csv file.  On the fields that have an apostrophe in them, they get wrapped in quotes.  All the other rows and fields are fine when there are no apostrophes.  I have tried exporting as ISO and as Unicode, but I still get the quotes. I cannot use the never option in quote output fields as it is not allowed with a delimiter.

Any ideas as to why this is happening?

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, |, #).

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

Hi all,
My company recently got access to Alteryx Server. Before that we just had Designer Licenses and one Scheduler License. We are trying to set up some workflows in Alteryx Server for teams to run on demand and self-service.

I am having trouble understanding how the DCM connections work in Alteryx Server. We have tried to export workflows into Alteryx Server, and the only errors we get say cannot alias table or related errors about not finding the connection. 

Everything we use is from SQL Server. So in our designer/scheduler licenses, we have connections set up thru ODBC connections strings. I have seen in the Designer, when you use an input tool there is an option to check a box that says use DCM connections, we currently are not doing that. I am wondering if I have to map out the connections for the scheduler license (or whatever license I export the workflow from) to be identical to what is in the server? Has anyone ran into similar issues like this? I'm having a hard time finding documentation on this or steps to set it up

Thank you for you help in advance. 

I have 3 columns below(Month/Center/GM), 10 rows, that I need to combine with 2 columns(MCO MONTH and MCO), and 2 rows. When I do a Union, it works, but I can't have all the Nulls and blanks in the missing fields, and I need all the nulls completely removed so the rows with actual data values(not nulls) is always at the top.

I'm using 2024.2 server.

Stream 1:

Month        Center       GM
February    700026      Katie Sampson
February    701072      Team 701072
February    702079      Megan Kerrigan
February    703071      Susan Desjardins
February    704034      Vanessa Sanchez
February    705071      Tamiko Tanaka
February    706059      Katie Malm
February    707028      Ashlee Truong
February    708061      Eddie Estrella
February    709029      Jasmin Wolfe

Stream 2:

MCO MONTH   MCO
February        712
February        937

First pic is what I get after a Union with nulls. The second pic is the end result I'm looking for.

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.

I wrote an If Else statement in a formula tool to capture the months that are less than or equal to the "End of Month" date based on today's date.  The issue is that it should also be capturing row 4 as the End of Month is 2026-04-26 (so less than today's date 2026-04-01).  However it is not, and the Range column is stated as "No."  I tried another formula thinking it would work, but it is not also. 

Original Formula that doesn't work:

if [End of Month] >= [Current Fiscal Month]

then 'No'
else 'Yes'
endif

New Formula that doesn't work:

if min([Current Fiscal Month], [End of Month])=[Current Fiscal Month]
then 'No'
else 'Yes'
endif

Why is that? Prior please help and thank you!

Hello All,

I have a workflow that needs to start by looking at the excel input and confirm there are no missing or additional fields.  
From the input tool, I added a Field Info tool and created a text input to match the fields.  I have then joined these records - anything that goes to Left Join will be the missing fields, anything to the Right Join will be additional field.  I have added a formula tool to add the error message then used the Message tool to stop the workflow and display the error message. 

My question is, how do I join this back to the workflow?  If there are no errors, I want the workflow to process as is.  If there is an error, I want the workflow to stop and display the error message.  I feel like I'm missing a piece to this puzzle.  Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Hello Alteryx Community,

We recently began transitioning our workflows to Server, and I’ve been able to successfully save most of them. However, I’m running into an issue with one specific workflow. When I attempt to save it to Server, I receive the following error: “Workflow was not saved due to Illegal characters in path.”

Initially, I thought the issue might be related to special characters in the workflow name. I changed it from:

SS_1_Culinary Step 2&3_12.22.25 to SS_1_Culinary Step 2_3_12.22.25 

Unfortunately, I am still receiving the same error.

I also came across suggestions that this could be related to output configurations, specifically if the output paths do not include the

 ||| syntax. I did notice that some of my CSV outputs do not include ||| but I’m not entirely convinced that’s the root cause.

Has anyone experienced this issue before? If so, how were you able to resolve it? Any guidance or troubleshooting suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance!

I have 3 columns below(Month/Center/GM), 10 rows, that I need to combine with 2 columns(MCO MONTH and MCO), and 2 rows. When I do a Union, it works, but I can't have all the Nulls and blanks in the missing fields, and I need all the nulls completely removed so the rows with actual data values(not nulls) is always at the top.

I'm using 2024.2 server.

Stream 1:

Month        Center       GM
February    700026      Katie Sampson
February    701072      Team 701072
February    702079      Megan Kerrigan
February    703071      Susan Desjardins
February    704034      Vanessa Sanchez
February    705071      Tamiko Tanaka
February    706059      Katie Malm
February    707028      Ashlee Truong
February    708061      Eddie Estrella
February    709029      Jasmin Wolfe

Stream 2:

MCO MONTH   MCO
February        712
February        937

First pic is what I get after a Union with nulls. The second pic is the end result I'm looking for.

I have 4 different files for each month that I need to combine and reconcile. All files have a common field from which I can pull data from each file and create a reconciliation for each month  

I need help with created a YTD report which has 'Monthly recon combining all 4 files' for each month stacked to each other.

So I need to know how alteryx can pull all 12 months file for each file type (12x4=48 files) and create a Monthly recon and stack it next to each other

I tried using Input directory to read all files (I created a folder for each type of file) and then applied Dynamic Input. But I am hitting a wall after that as Dynamic input is not able to read all data in all files. I selected one file as example for the template and ask it to pull data but its not working.  I want to be pulling data from one specific tab from each months file.