No Data Returned - Export to Excel

[Bonediggler]

Experts -

If a workflow is set up to export to Excel but no data is returned, will Alteryx still export a file with column headers and no data or not export anything at all?

Thanks in advance!

[LordNeilLord · Accepted solution]

Hey @Bonediggler

It will just export an empty xlsx file with just the header

Neil

[MarqueeCrew]

@Bonediggler,

What do you want it to do?  @LordNeilLord described the nominal use case.  There is a way to output the file only in the event that data is present in the incoming data stream.

Cheers,

Mark

[Mose]

My workflow does not write the excel file if there is no data to be outputted? How can i change this, I want the file to be created even when there is no data to be exported... 

[mohit9garg]

@MarqueeCrew @LordNeilLord 

Hi,

Please advise in below scenario how can I get only "headers" in output. 

Since there is no data in filter, hence file name is also not getting generated, Please guide me if any workaround is possible.

Thanks,

Mohit

[JPSeagull]

That is true, but the file still has the same size as if had the data.

In my case, my customer wants an entire month of data which exceeds the Excel max row capacity. So the solution was to split the month into two Excel files - 1-15 and 16-EOM. So when the first 15 days run, the Excel file for that period is fine, but there is also a 16 to EOM generating every day from the 1st to the 15th and it only has the headers, but it's the same file size as the 1st to the 15th. When I open it and delete all the blank rows, it saves down to 11KB (from around 17 to 200MB).  I cannot figure out how to stop this file from running until the 16th or at least make sure it's not creating large Excel files that only have headers. 

Any advice would be great!