Output tool

[SudhaGupta1]

Hi All,

I have 1 file which has 5 sheets in it. These 5 sheets are being used in one or other sheet through join tool. Now I want that all my changes made should be saved in respective sheets. I am using block until too.. but it's giving me an error Output Data (319) Unable to open file for write: - Can't open file: The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process. (32)

[rzdodson]

@SudhaGupta1 that error typically occurs because Alteryx is attempting to perform a data overwrite process while the program is already writing data (i.e. Alteryx is attempting to write to multiple sheets). As a program, it cannot perform both overwrite procedures at the same time.

Instead, what I would recommend is creating separate streams where we overwrite data one sheet at a time. You can accomplish this by using the Block Until Done then a Formula tool.



Depending on the level of complexity with the data set, you can simplify this as an iterative macro as well. Will post that solution soon,

[rzdodson]

@SudhaGupta1 here is the iterative macro approach I mentioned above. What occurs in this use case is that we are still creating a dynamic file output path (Formula Tool 3) for each person in the data set. Then, I am getting a list of all file paths (Summarize 4), assigning a RecordID to the data set (Record ID 5) which will be used to support the iterative macro. We then join those two tables together on Name to get bring in the RecordID field in to the original data set before starting the iterative process.

In the iterative macro, we are iterating through the RecordID field (start with 1, then go to all records with a "2" in the RecordID" field, etc.).

Hope that helps!