Preserving formatting on excel Overwrite not working

[aldoacosttaa]

Hello Alteryx community,

I was wondering if anybody knew why the excel output in my dataflow is not preserving the format from before after I overwrite it. I clicked the preserve formatting on overwrite (range required) in the configuration window for my output but still no success. I want it to output into a table format on excel

let me know if anybody had had this same issue or potential clues to solve this..

Thank you so much

[LindonB]

Hi there,

I've not experienced that issue exactly, but I've encountered cases where the formatting can't be maintained. While things like formatting the cells to be numeric or in some other format should be maintained, other tasks like cell color often get moved around - especially as the shape of the data (such as length) changes. 

I'd first start by making sure you have everything configured correctly. Make sure you can a file location with the range of cells to override defined as "C:\\Users\\Folder Name\\Subfolder Name\\MyExcelFile.xlsx|||Sheet1$A1:Z99". Then make sure that you preserve the formatting. 

If it's still not working, you can also use conditional formatting in Excel as a way to maintain some column formatting even with the data changing. Additionally, let us know what kind of formatting is being overwritten or provide an example, and I can dive deeper.

[apathetichell]

can you share what is your fullly qualified excel range you are sending to your output data tool - and excel before and after screen grabs? 

[aldoacosttaa]

2 inputs in my workflow, one is raw data, the other is pulling a single column from the previous weeks final workflow output for comments.

the first raw data range is 52 columns and 10k rows down w headers first row.

second input is 7 columns around 20 rows down w headers first row.

final workflow output is much smaller only 7 columns and 20ish rows down w headers first row.

I am working on building an analytic app to eventually publish this to a public gallery,  but for this I tried making a template for the output to overwrite the data into the specified a range within the output file (ateryx output template.xlsx|||Sheet1$A1:G1000) w/ the preserve formatting on overwrite (range required) option. but still no luck :(

I attached a blurred version of both the second input and final outupt (the table format is the attempted template and the squished column excel is the final output of workflow)

[aldoacosttaa]

Hey LindonB thanks for the reply.

I responded to another similar reply below. Please take a look at it as I more details and attached blurred screenshots of what I want the format to look like and what it produces. I appreciate the help, let me know if I can clarify anything else 

[apathetichell]

if you want this fixed: post a workflow and a sample input file. These screenshots aren't going to cut it. Core is you are doing something wrong. It probably ties into how you are creating your range - but it could be in your template - or it could be that your sheet name is off. I don't know...