Unable to detect excel sheet name

[Joon]

Hi, I am a new user with Alteryx. I have a bunch of system generated excel files as input files. Each file contains only 1 sheet and the sheet name are something like "#_of docs&abcd; deadlinedate" (i.e. starts with #, may contain characters like & ; , sheet name length is about 20 to 30 characters in length).
After selecting the file via Input, the sheet name is not displayed for selection. All I see is <List of Sheet Names>. If I continue and run the workflow, I see the error message "Field: "Sheets Names" is 0 length".
How to overcome this problem short of renaming each sheet first in Excel?

[Inactive User]

Have you select XLSX as an input but the input is actually a CSV? This can happen because most people have CSVs appear as Excel icons on their desktop which can mislead them. I say this because I was able to pull in a sheet with 31 full characters (Excel max for a sheet name) with many of the different symbols you listed below. 

[Joon]

Hi Ryan, I've checked the excel file extension. It is XLSX. Just discover that if I change File Format to Microsoft Excel Legacy (*.xlsx), it is able to pick up the sheet name. However, now the option to "Start Data Import on Line" option is no longer available. How can I get Alteryx to pick the data head from row 5 of the excel?

[CiaranA · Accepted solution]

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@Joon wrote:

Hi Ryan, I've checked the excel file extension. It is XLSX. Just discover that if I change File Format to Microsoft Excel Legacy (*.xlsx), it is able to pick up the sheet name. However, now the option to "Start Data Import on Line" option is no longer available. How can I get Alteryx to pick the data head from row 5 of the excel?

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Use the sample tool to skip first four rows, then the Dynamic Rename to take field names from first row of data?

[Joon]

Thanks CiaranA. Tried your suggestion and it works.