Alteryx App or Gallery to save last run values

[terrence10]

Hello,

Is there a way to get Alteryx gallery to save the "last" run inputs after a simulation run?

e.g. I just my workflow with these 4 inputs successfully.

Next time I run the workflow - can these 4 inputs show up (instead of the default text value I have saved in the workflow)? 

Is there a way to save a workflow so the default input is "whatever ran last"?

Aside -- when running a workflow in the App - a user can save Analytic App Values to a file and load these values (*.yxwv) -- is there any way to load these app values when running a workflow from the gallery?

Thanks!

[terrence10]

Hi @BS_THE_ANALYST  - any update to the workflow? Thanks!

[KaranMahra]

Thanks all for sharing such a informative replies. 
Really learned from these examples.

[terrence10]

Hi @BS_THE_ANALYST  - are you able to share the workflow?

[BS_THE_ANALYST · Accepted solution]

Hey @terrence10. 

I've attached the chained app. Can you give it a try & we'll go from there. I expect it won't be as smooth as I'd like 🤪😂.

Once unpackaged, go inside the zip and run "MainApp.yxwz". This is the parent workflow. "SupportingApp.yxwz" is the workflow used to overwrite the parent each time. Run the app from within your file explorer. Don't open the app as a workflow and run it within Designer. I found inconsistencies on my end. Follow the process I sent in my original GIF

When entering some dummy values, include letters i.e. a,b,c,d,e. Fear not, the logic would be easy to adjust if just numbers were entered.

Let me know how it goes.

[terrence10]

Thank you @BS_THE_ANALYST  --

Quick question - where do you trigger the "SupportingApp.yxwz" app from the MainApp? I thought it would be workflow event - but don't see anything in there.

Seems like I have an older Alteryx version - so I need to re-save each of the apps

Also - would this work if a user runs the workflow from the gallery? I'm guessing a workflow wouldn't be able to "overwrite" an app if it's loaded in the gallery?

Thanks again! Very nifty solution

[BS_THE_ANALYST]

@terrence10 
The solution is built on the principle of using Chained Apps. This is a concept where App1 runs and then triggers App 2 and so forth (the chain). To configure one app to run another, you'll need to go to View -> Interface Designer -> Properties ; then select the 'cog/wheel'. In there you can set if you want to run a sequential app.

Now here's the unfortunate news 😔 🗞️. When this app is pushed to server, it won't work like we want. I believe it's because when this app (and the subsequent app) is packed and pushed to server, it gets saved as a .yxzp. Every time the server runs the workflow, it essentially unpacks the yxzp and unfortunately this means the apps will always be restored back to their original state when the .yxzp was created and pushed to server 😂🧐. 

However, this has me thinking that what we might want to do is leverage another cool thing. The Server API. Essentially, we'll create a third app to the chain which somehow creates a .yxzp of the current chain apps (saving that "new" default configuration) and publishes this version back to the server. Hopefully we could get it to just replace the latest version number so it isn't growing per run 😂🧐. It's just a theory but I think it could work.

There, of course, could be another route here! Nothing is jumping out at me currently.

[terrence10]

Hi @BS_THE_ANALYST 

Thank you for the info! Never ran a sequential app in the interface designer before! I was able to reproduce your saving last values by running the MainApp as an application (not in designer as you mentioned)

I see the MainApp saves the run values in ParsedValuesToOverwriteXML.yxdb, then the support app manually modifies the MainApp to change these default values. Very nifty! I wish there was a way Alteryx could automatically load in these default values from a file vs. within MainApp code -- that would make running in Gallery easier.

Guess saving app run values is not the problem -- but "automatically loading these values in at runtime" is the main blocker.

Thank you again! Cool to see you can modify MainApp code