Error with Google Sheet Input Tool -> The field "[Column]" is missing.

[Elias_Nordlinder]

Hello,

I have an error that is coming up in my workflow that I think is connected to the Google Sheet Input Tool.

The error I am getting is "The field "[Column]" is missing. Compare the tool configuration with the input stream.

This is coming up for most of my joins that are connected to the Google Sheet Input Tool.

I can run the workflow normally and do not get the error message then.

But the error message is coming up randomly in between my runs of the workflow. But as I can run the workflow normally on my local machine, the main problem is that the error is also coming up when I try to publish my Workflow to our Alteryx Gallery. This means that I cannot publish this workflow at the moment.

I wonder if anyone have had similar problems connected to the Google Sheets Input tool, where it looks like some columns are missing randomly in the join tool, and the error of the missing fields from the Google Sheet input Tool makes it impossible to publish the Workflow to the Server?

Below are the Error Messages I am getting when I try to publish the workflow to the Server.

Here is the error that randomly comes up in the Join Tool (Where it looks like it is missing).

//Thanks in Advance
Regards

[danilang · Accepted solution]

Hi @Elias_Nordlinder 

It looks like this error is related to metadata.  When a workflow is first opened, the metadata for the fields, fieldnames, types, etc, is populated from the fields that are saved in the workflow itself along with along sources that Designer built in support for, i.e. excel files, common databases, etc.   For these sources, Designer "peeks" at the data to populate the metadata.  It looks like Designer can't query Google to get the metadata for the sheet until the workflow is actually run.   That's why the error disappears after you run the workflow the first time.  Similar things happen with other sources as well.  Calls to API's and FTP sites, workflow with multiple crosstab tools, among others, also exhibit this behaviour.   

When saving to the gallery, the gallery server performs a similar process.  For sources that can't be "peeked", you receive an error.  Since this is fairly common, it doesn't stop your workflow from being uploaded to the galley.  It's just a message saying that the Server can't perform its regular metadata checks and there may be an issue when the workflow is run.  If you log onto the gallery, you'll see that the workflow is there.  If it runs properly in Designer, it will probably run correctly on the Gallery as well.

Try running on the gallery and see. 

Dan

[Elias_Nordlinder]

Hello @danilang

Thank you very much for your answer.

That is actually very interesting how it works in the background with the Meta Data, I had not idea that it worked like that.
And it seems like this is exactly what was happening for me.

When I was running the workflow in the Gallery as you suggested, it did work now without any errors.
I did not think about that it could work without error in the server, when there looked like there were errors when I was publishing the workflow. But that is great news as this solves my problem.

//Have a great day
Elias