How to override the constant output sheet in server

[Sanjana_HS]

Hi There,
I have an alteryx workflow which needs to be saved on alteryx server. The output of this workflow is excel sheet which has 3 tabs when i run the workflow on desktop it updates all the 3 tabs but when i run the same workflow in gallery/server its not giving me 1 tab output.

The output which i am not getting is the tab 1(Dashboard) which is in a specific format and needs to override the counts whatever data comes in tab 2(inbound) and tab 3 (outbound) Please let me know why i am not getting tab 1 output when i run the alteryx in gallery/server.

[Peachyco]

Your Dashboard tab looks like a table of calculations that reference data from the other two tabs. Does Alteryx generate this tab? Or does Alteryx only update the Inbound and Outbound tabs, and then the Dashboard tab just auto-updates itself when a user opens the file?

Also, when you say that "the output of this workflow is excel sheet", do you mean that the Gallery provides the user with an Excel file that they can download from the browser at the end of the workflow? Or does the workflow just update an existing Excel file in a folder location somewhere? This distinction is important to understand how your workflow works and where the issue is.

[Sanjana_HS]

@Peachyco  Alteryx only updates Inbound and outbound tab and the dashboard tab just updates itself when user opens it.

The gallery provides user with an excel file to download from the browser 

[Peachyco]

Okay, I have done something very similar, and here are my steps:

1. Create my template file in a specific folder. This is an Excel file with a highly-complex Pivot Table in Sheet 1, and the reference datasets in Sheets 2 & 3. Keeping this template file intact is important because it's where the Pivot Table is kept. If I just generate a new file each run, that new file will not have my Pivot Table.
2. My workflow updates Sheets 2 & 3 of the template file.
3. With the template file now having updated data, my workflow then copies the updated template file to a shared folder that the user can access.

Now, my Step 3 is very different to yours because you want your final file to be downloadable in the Gallery itself. That is a complex exercise that I had considered before but I never really got to tackle. I posted a similar question before, and the suggestions involved including the template file as an asset in the app that you're saving to the Gallery - you might want to check that out for some guidance.

[Sanjana_HS]

@Peachyco  Okay can you share your steps only like the way you save workflow in the desktop of user rather than in browser

[Peachyco]

@Sanjana_HS  To be clear, we're not copying to the user's desktop because it's difficult for the Gallery machine to dynamically pinpoint folders in the user's machine. Instead, we're copying to a fixed shared folder, and then the user just goes there to take the output file.

Here is the relevant portion:

1. Use the Formula tool to write the commands for the batch file (.bat) that the Run Command tool will run later. This will involve identifying the source folder, the target folder, and the file to copy. I'm using the XCOPY command. I'm also writing "exit 0" separately (this is needed to end the batch file) just so I don't lose it when editing the other commands.
2. Unite the commands and the "exit 0" line so that they're all in one column.
3. Use the Summarize tool to concatenate the commands and the "exit 0" line using "\n" (new line) as the separator.
4. Use the Output Data tool to write the batch file (.bat) in a folder that the Gallery machine can access. This can be a folder in the Gallery machine itself if you'd like. The selected file format is (.csv) but we still save the file as (.bat).
5. Execute the .bat file using the Run Command tool. This is the tool that copies the updated template file to the destination shared folder.