Naming Tabs in an Excel Doc Using Render Tool

[seisenberg]

HI, 

I have created multiple tables, that I then union to join together and then render into an excel report with multiple tabs. There are 13 tables and each are on a different tab, thus 13 tabs. I would like to be able to name the tabs as they currently output as Sheet1, Sheet2, etc. I have added a formula tool with the name I would like for the tab to each table prior to the union tool. However, in the render, there is no option to choose Sheet Name as the tab name ... any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[CharlieS]

The trick is to use a Layout tool to set up before the Render tool. The only problem with naming sheets is that you cannot control the order of sheets -- they will be output in alphabetic order no matter the input order. I suggest keeping this in mind while naming your sheets if order is a concern. For example: "1-Summary","2-2018 Results", "3-2017 Results","4-Appendix", etc.

In the Layout tool:

- Set the mode to "Each Group of Records" and select your sheet name field to group by

- Configure the orientation to "Vertical with Section Breaks". The section breaks are used as sheet breaks when outputting to an Excel file.

- Set the sheet name field in the "Section Name" field that appears at the bottom. 

In the Render tool:

- Set the separator to "Insert Section Breaks Between Records" to use those sheet breaks you set in the Layout tool.

Check out the attached example and let me know if you have any questions. 

[seisenberg]

Thank you. This was helpful and did the trick.

Sarah Eisenberg
Analyst, Industrial
Strategic Consulting, Logistics & Industrial

[craigja]

When I try this the per section configuration bit on the render tool is greyed out - what am I doing wrong?

[CharlieS]

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@craigja wrote:

When I try this the per section configuration bit on the render tool is greyed out - what am I doing wrong?

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Could you share a screenshot of what you're referring to? 

[craigja]

Figured it out - but cant remember what I did other than make it look more like the example!

[CmVls]

Thank you @CharlieS  !

What if I have more than 10 tabs though? I noticed Alteryx was classifying it in not alphabetical order (1-10-2-3... for instance)

Is there a trick for activating the dictionary order ?

Thanks!

[CharlieS]

It's purely a string sort, so you'll need to pad 0's to get numeric sheets to order correctly.

01

02

03

and so on.

[CmVls]

Really nice, thanks for the help! 😄

[Lanougue]

Hi everyone,

Thank you very much for sharing this solution. It helped me a lot. 

However, I am still stuck at some point. 

I have to Union some tables. Each table represents one country and has a set of products. For each products I have first the English name and then the local language name. Except the local language name, all my column names are similar in each table.

Therefore, after the union, the local language name column is sent to the very end of the table.

Is there a way I could decide the order of this column for each table ?

Thank you very much in advance for any support! 🙂

Have nice day.