Alteryx Identifying Highlighted Rows in Input Tool

[cpearse]

Hello. I am looking to see if it is possible for Alteryx to recognize highlighted rows in the input file. In the example below, it would be helpful if I could make a note in a different column for the rows that were highlighted.

I know that Alteryx does not easily identify highlighted rows, but was wondering if there could be a workaround for this.

[Jonathan-Sherman]

Hi @cpearse,

Thinking aloud I don't *believe* there's a way to determine if they were highlighted manually, if it's done by a conditional formatting formula then you could simply build that into the workflow.

Always happy to be proved wrong...!

Kind regards,

Jonathan

[TheOC]

hey @cpearse and @Jonathan-Sherman 

I believe this may be possible by bringing the xlsx sheet into Alteryx as an Zipped file, to be able to access the XML surrounding it. I have done something similar before (documented here https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Hi-everyone-Please-help-with-the-attac...) and massively credit @danilang for his genius behind this.

I will give this a test shortly, and let you know if this works for this use-case, however it does bring through information about the cell, such as the formula behind the value as shown in the example.

Hope this helps!
TheOC

[TheOC]

I have followed this logic with the following excel spreadsheet:

And it grants the following XML:

I believe the " s="1" " part to signify that is highlighted. However this may need more experimentation.
Using that as a test however, and bringing in the dataset normally and joining it:

I have attached this as a workflow, if you want to give it a test for yourself. However, if you supply a different workflow, bare in mind that it will reset all settings in the configuration window. Take a screenshot of the configuration, so you know what to change it to, when adding a new workflow:

[danilang]

Hi @TheOC 

Here's an extract from styles.xml in your workbook

<fills count="3">
	<fill>
		<patternFill patternType="none"/>
	</fill>
	<fill>
		<patternFill patternType="gray125"/>
	</fill>
	<fill>
		<patternFill patternType="solid">
			<fgColor rgb="FFFFFF00"/>
			<bgColor indexed="64"/>
		</patternFill>
	</fill>
</fills>
<borders count="1">
	<border>
		<left/>
		<right/>
		<top/>
		<bottom/>
		<diagonal/>
	</border>
</borders>
<cellStyleXfs count="1">
	<xf numFmtId="0" fontId="0" fillId="0" borderId="0"/>
</cellStyleXfs>
<cellXfs count="2">
	<xf numFmtId="0" fontId="0" fillId="0" borderId="0" xfId="0"/>
	<xf numFmtId="0" fontId="0" fillId="2" borderId="0" xfId="0" applyFill="1"/>
</cellXfs>

The s="1"  that you mention refers to xf[1] in the <cellXfs> element list(0-based indexing).   This element has the attribute "fillId=2" which refers to fill[2] in the <fills> list

Dan

[TheOC]

hey @danilang 

Once again, reflecting your brilliance,
I'm interested in having a deeper dive into this, thanks for sharing your knowledge!

Cheers,
TheOC

[danilang]

@TheOC 

Not brilliance...just far too many years of experience.

Dan

[atcodedog05]

Once again @danilang saves another day and amazes us with the power of XML 😎