How to get selected rows from Excel Sheet

[febinjs6]

Hi,

I have a requirement in which we need to get user selected row from an opened excel sheet, then i need to create a new excel file with the selected data from opened excel sheet mention before. I have done lot of try but didn't get a solution. Can anybody let me know how to resolve the same?

Thanks,

Febin

[NicoleJohnson]

You will not be able to do this dynamically based on the selected row in an opened sheet, primarily because Alteryx will not read the data from a sheet that is currently opened... but you could implement an app, and use Select Records tool. See attached for an example. The Select Records tool allows you to specify a certain row, or a range of rows, in your data. So the user could pick the row they'd like to use and then that row will be output to another file. Alternatively, you could add a column in your Excel sheet where the user could put an "x" in the row they'd like to use, save & close the spreadsheet, and then Alteryx can filter the sheet to only output row(s) that have an "x" in them?

Hope that helps! 

NJ

[jdunkerley79 · Accepted solution]

I hesitate to post this as it will be delicate and I agree with @NicoleJohnson in general.

However, it is possible to read the active selection of Excel on the same desktop as Alteryx.

Basically using PowerShell and the Excel Automation API it is possible to write out the current selection to a temporary file and read into Alteryx.

The attached workflow should do it (it does on mine at least). But automation of desktop applications is always delicate.

[NicoleJohnson]

... I should probably just always footnote any reference to "this cannot be done in Alteryx" with "unless you are @jdunkerley79, in which case you will always find a way!!" :)

NJ