Confusion about the dynamic input tool

[wumbo1]

I've recently been going through sample workflows on designer, but for some reason, I can't seem to understand the purpose of the dynamic input tool. I somewhat understand its purpose in regards to SQL queries (It works similar to that of a vlookup/join), but when it comes to using it with a directory, I'm having trouble understanding its purpose. I understand that the directory tool looks up all files in a desired path, but I can't seem to understand what changing the entire file path with the full path does. Does anyone know of an example that would make this easy to understand? 

[Matthew]

i use the dynamic input tool mostly for SQL. it lets me change the "where" clause to filter queries that would otherwise be too gigantic to run.

but for changing filepaths... imagine if you recieve a report every month, and you want to import that new report every month.. BUT the person who generates that report puts it in a new folder every single month

...\reportfolder\2022-01\report.xlsx

...\reportfolder\2022-02\report.xlsx

...\reportfolder\2022-03\report.xlsx

[Matt_D]

Hi @wumbo1 this is easily one of the most powerful tools in Alteryx. When it comes to building robust dynamic automation it's a legend.

You can essentially dynamically change the workflow input in so many ways, the directory example is a union of three files but tomorrow that could be 5 files, the day after 2, etc. There are limitations to this if the file specification changes though. You can also change SQL statements on the fly, even create a brand new one via the formula tool and feed that into the workflow.

A simple example is I want to automate my workflow on server to return yesterdays data from a DB everyday that it runs - Date Time Now tool, -1 day with formula tool, feed that into my WHERE clause of my SQL statement via Dynamic Input, job done. :)

https://help.alteryx.com/20221/designer/dynamic-input-tool

[wumbo1]

1

[wumbo1]

I see. So in this case, the template would be an example of that report and the tool would just look for any instances of that report in the folder and sub-directories? So, in your example, you're saying that the tool can gather all the reports even though someone is putting them in folders grouped by the month?

[messi007]

@wumbo1,

You can take a look on the example provided by Alteryx :

Hope this helps!

Regards

[Matthew]

you'll need to tell it which folder to read (either dynamically or a fixed location) but yes. any files that match a filename format, or match a template format (in that specific folder) will be brought in by the tool, even if there are multiples