Changing parameters in Google Drive Tools with Interface connection

Has anyone had success on changing the Google Drive Parameters (changing Drive folders) with interface tools? I'm interested in trying via workflow data or directly entering through text box. The folder I've tried to replace is the /01/. I've tried replacing the entire string and just the folder name. I've tried in the Path Attribute and the Folder Path Attribute

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apathetichell

o.k. - did this for writing files. it took 5 distinct parts of the gdrive tool to be updated in order to do it... and that's without changing any formatting or filetypes. The values you need to change (for writing) are:

path - this should be formatted to match something like: /test/this_is_a_gdrive_test.csv - which test is your directory name.

FolderName - as bove this would be test

FolderIdsArr - this is key value pair like [{"name":"test","{{my unique folder id"}]

FolderId - value- this is the {{my unique folder id}} from above

NewFileName- value - this is a new filename value - in my case it was this_is_a_gdrive_test.csv...NOTE IF YOU DO NOT SEE THIS AS AN ENTERABLE FIELD - START AGAIN.

you will need to configure your gdrive with a specific file/format in your macro.

Note - writing 4 one line files took close to 50 seconds - so if I had this in production I'd either cry, use python/jwt or figure out some other workaround. Not Alteryx's finest moment.

CMason_tpa_bay

@apathetichell @Carolyn This is somewhat embarrassing. Apparently if you use the google drive app (https://www.google.com/drive/download/) you can map your google drive folders to your PC to be seen on File Explorer (example G:/ drive). You can then use the standard addresses with your workflows like any share (G:\Shared drives\Alteryx\Test\TestOutput.xlsx|||Sheet1), and make address change with interface tools as standard. It looks like the Drive tool up/downloads to your cloud pretty quickly. I would guess there's some standard issues with collaboration sharing so it would be important to use the web GUI when opening files that have that potential sharing.

I haven't run into any issues yet on my PC, but haven't been able to test it on an Alteryx Server yet. An IT guy at my company turned me on to this download. Good Stuff!

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Qiu

@CMason_tpa_bay
I have not used this tool and just a blind shoot, how about adding the Quotation marks at the beginning and the end?

CMason_tpa_bay

I've tried everything that I can think of doing:

No quotes,

single quotes,

double quotes,

just changing the '01',

changing the whole string,

trying to change the attribute below it [FolderPath]

changing both the [Path] attribute and the [FolderPath] one below,

ccanterman

Yeah, that doesn't seem to work. I was just playing with it and changing the File Path and FolderPath. Even if I changed it to garbage data (for ex, via the App, I told it to look for Folder Path "asdf" which doesn't exist), it still looked at the one that was set in the main workflow.

The Google Drive Tools aren't as robust as some of their other tools, so I'm not surprised that this functionality is missing. Any time I run into unexpected behavior, I log a Case and they have fixed a number of my issues. I would suggest logging a Case with Alteryx Support so they can look into this and potentially route it to Engineering to address.

CMason_tpa_bay

Thanks for checking Carolyn. I started to look into all of the other fields and noticed the FolderId attribute which has a 32character ID. That ID is different from the other folders in the same lineage. Maybe I'll poke around a bit more, thanks for the idea to log a case.

ccanterman

If you remember, can you post an update here? I haven't run into needing that yet, but I likely will in the future

apathetichell

combining the the gsheets and gdrive tools was "odd." it's also "odd" that Alteryx hasn't invested more in making a useable tool. are you updating both FolderID and DriveID in the tool or Path and FolderPath? You need at least two action tools.

apathetichell

path - this should be formatted to match something like: /test/this_is_a_gdrive_test.csv - which test is your directory name.

FolderName - as bove this would be test

FolderIdsArr - this is key value pair like [{"name":"test","{{my unique folder id"}]

FolderId - value- this is the {{my unique folder id}} from above

NewFileName- value - this is a new filename value - in my case it was this_is_a_gdrive_test.csv...NOTE IF YOU DO NOT SEE THIS AS AN ENTERABLE FIELD - START AGAIN.

you will need to configure your gdrive with a specific file/format in your macro.

Note - writing 4 one line files took close to 50 seconds - so if I had this in production I'd either cry, use python/jwt or figure out some other workaround. Not Alteryx's finest moment.

CMason_tpa_bay

Thx @apathetichell

I haven't had time to mess with it, but if it worked as an output for you it should work as an input. I'll give it a shot when I get some time.

CMason_tpa_bay

So this works, basically you'll have to pre-map the before and after and make an interface entry for every attribute that changes. In my example, I changed the input from one folder to another (under the same subfolder) and used a identical filename. I had to change Path, FolderPath, FolderId, FolderName, FolderIdsArr, and SelectedIndex. In the end it's probably not worth it, unless there's absolutely no work around.

apathetichell

@CMason_tpa_bay for fields which have related structures (path/folderpath and folderid/folderidsarr) you could make an inner/outer batch macro set up where your app - takes in the variables and then the outer macro parses the 3 entries to create the 5 needed in the action tools. but yup - this is a pain. I'd recommend something python in the long run. and in production - I'd recommend using a .jwt to auth versus the oauth/browser auth Alteryx supports.

CMason_tpa_bay

I haven't run into any issues yet on my PC, but haven't been able to test it on an Alteryx Server yet. An IT guy at my company turned me on to this download. Good Stuff!

apathetichell

@CMason_tpa_bay - 100% - that's what we use. It just won't work on Server or with Gsheets.

ccanterman

@CMason_tpa_bay - Fun fact - the spot where you enter the G:\ address in the GDrive Input Tool didn't work until 2 GDrive Tools versions ago. I submitted a bug to get that fixed and working Also, you can use wildcards in it and they work now - also my doing.

I'm glad you asked the question to begin with since I'm excited to try out @apathetichell 's solution for our workflows on Server (since I never would have figured this out on my own)

apathetichell

@CMason_tpa_bay to map a gdrive locally on server (ie use the G drive trick) the server would need a specific google workspace identity and be signed in. Usually this doesn't exist. For server setups you'd use an oauth connection secured by JWT/service acocunt key - which would require using the Ggdrive tool.

No idea why Alteryx split up the Gsheets tool but It's not a decision I would have made...

OscarHL

Hi all, I can only agree here with the compatibilty issue. So much that I'm thinking of converting all files to csv/xlsx first in the workflow, has anyone done this before creating an output containing all merged files from a directory?

So basically, converting a bunch of gsheet files to csv or xlsx.

Thanks in advance.

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