Outputting files per different manager

Question

Hi all

I've attached a test excel file of something I'm working on. I'll have a dataset of employees and want to output different files per each different manager and senior manager, so each have their own employee's information only. Is that possible? What would be the best way to approach this?

What's not in the test file but something I will also have, is extra tabs with pivots analysing the data.

Test Utilization Draft.xlsx

OllieClarke · Answer

@kcoleman

The preserve formatting option is if you're writing into a range (named or otherwise) in an already existing excel. If you're creating the excel with this workflow then there won't be any formatting to preserve (unless you create it yourself using reporting tools)

There's more info here: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Formatting-Excel-Output-File/td-p/686734

If you want to keep everything, then you could run a batch script to copy the file and paste it into the new location. You would then overwrite the sheet which has the relevant data after this copy process has run so the files are left with just the relevant data.

There's more info on the run command tool here: https://help.alteryx.com/20213/designer/run-command-tool and here: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Knowledge-Base/Tool-Mastery-Run-Command/ta-p/31548

Hope this helps,

Ollie

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kcoleman · Answer

Thanks Ollie, this is absolutely spot on.

Couple of other quick points - I've ticked the preserve formatting box but what range would I need to make this work, considering the files are being divided out and the initial input will have a much larger range than the output?

And what's the best way to piece back together other tabs into each file? Like I said, I'll have multiple tabs with various excel pivots that will need to remain in all of the outputs so the managers can play around with their data.

I'm sure this is all basic Alteryx stuff - but bear with me, I'm learning on the job 😆

OllieClarke · Answer

Hey @kcoleman you can use the normal output tool with a bit of pre-processing to do this:

Once you've pivoted your values to get a single column of your managers,

you can create a filepath (you can then output these to multiple locations or wherever you want based on their name and logic you have in place). In the output tool at the bottom you can then use the filepath you've created to update where the files are being written.

Hope that helps,

Ollie

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