Pull .tsv file into analytic app

Question

I'm trying to pull a .tsv file into my analytic app.  I've tried the File Browse tool with multiple configurations but continue to get this error:

Action (112): The Action "ToolId:112" has an error: The file "C:\Users \OneDrive\Data\Exports\ 20240603100949.tsv" is not a known format. (2)

My latest config is using the Arbitrary File Specification option with

Tab-Delineated Text Files (*.tsv)|*.tsv|All Files (*.*)|*.*

Any ideas?

NeoInfiniTech · Accepted Answer

Hello @liztarnold, the method I'm going to share below will only work if you first set the input tool to read a provided file as a CSV and configure the delimiter, encoding, field lenth etc. settings once, provided you will only read in TSV files with the same format:

1. Connect a File Browse tool to Input Tool, ensuring the Action tool appears between these two tools.

2. Change the arbitrary file specification to following: Tab Delimited Text File (*.tsv)|*.tsv (therefore you ensure that users can only select TSV files and not other, which could cause an error)

3. Change the Action tool setting to "Update Value"

4. You will now see a list of all the parameters regarding the Input Tool. You will need to highlight the part that says File - value = "samplefilename.tsv". Do not check the checkbox at the bottom that says "Replace a specific string" as we want it to be dynamic.

Why does the Action tool need to be configured like this instead of the default settings which is to select which file is going to be read in?

Because the Input Tool is extension sensitive and expects to see a format that is recognized as valid by Alteryx Designer. Designer can only recognize the text files as CSV. When you input a TSV file and configure the Input Tool to read it as a CSV file (which is essentially the same file format with just a different extension), it becomes possible to work around the "file extension not recognized" issue (in addition to Action tool changing the full path to another TSV file while Input Tool still thinks you are providing a CSV file to it).