Advent of Code is back! Unwrap daily challenges to sharpen your Alteryx skills and earn badges along the way! Learn more now.

Alteryx Designer Desktop Discussions

Find answers, ask questions, and share expertise about Alteryx Designer Desktop and Intelligence Suite.
SOLVED

Column Error and Duplicates

KevinQVo
7 - Meteor

Hi, 

 

I hope you are all doing well! Can someone please offer me some advisement on this? In the images attached, I tried doing the vlookup method using the tools provided. The output was a duplicate of the input file. In the second image, you can see that it pasted the information below the "null". Is there a way to translate the data, so it can be adjacent with the prior columns? 

 

Thank you all for your help, and please let me know if I can offer more information! 

 

-Kevin 

6 REPLIES 6
CoG
14 - Magnetar

It does not seem like the Union Tool is in the right place. Just looking at the image, it's hard to tell for sure, but I'll bet those two rows that got pasted below "null" came from the join and everything else came from your input file to the Union Tool via input #1. If you are looking to see what values are shared in common then you want to Union (in this particular case) the 'L' and 'J' outputs of the Join Tool. This is because the 'L' output contains all data from your 'L' input (which in your case is the main input file) that didn't match your criteria, and the 'J' is everything that matches from both the input file and the text input your joining to.

 

If you still need the formula tool with Today's Date, that can be placed after the 'L' output as well before going into the Union Tool.

 

Edit: Adding a sample workflow as example, please provide more information about your specific needs if this does not work for you.

KevinQVo
7 - Meteor

Let me give it a try. Thank you for the response 

KevinQVo
7 - Meteor

The formatting is correct, but the output is null. Is there a fix? 

CoG
14 - Magnetar

Which output is null? It looks like the Union tool is outputting 14 records. Where exactly is this null issue occurring?

KevinQVo
7 - Meteor

Hi Andrew, I was able to figure out the issue. Thank you so much for the great assistances! 

CoG
14 - Magnetar

Fantastic! If you would kindly mark the most helpful responses as solutions to help others better find the solutions they're looking for!

 

Happy Solving!!!

Labels