Write file to folder than retrieve updated and export

[ZoeM]

Afternoon Community.

So I have an issue and I know you will be able to help me solve.

1. I have a SharePoint Site where I retrieve data using Alteryx.

2. I would like to save a subset of those fields with new fields created in Alteryx to a Shared folder.

3. A user will update the created fields and save the file. 

4. Alteryx will pick up the file and send for export to a visualization tool.

Is this possible?

In essence, based on the data coming from the SharePoint Site, there is some calculation being done in Alteryx, then the need for comments to be added to the file when saved in the Shared Drive and then uploaded back to the workflow to be sent to the visualization tool. 

Hopefully I have tried to explain that well. 

Thanks!

[PhilippK]

Hi @ZoeM ,
did you already establised the connection SharePoint-Alteryx?
It works if you have a sync client in place:

With that you can sync SharePoint files to work with them directly in your File Explorer and access them even when you're offline.

In case you only can access the SharePoint files via your browser, it becomes tricky..

 

Which visualization tool do you use? Alteryx has connectors to Tableau, Qlik, PowerBI etc:
https://help.alteryx.com/current/designer/data-sources

Does this help you? If you need support you could leverage our Virtual Solution Center:

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Virtual-Solution-Center/tkb-p/vsc

Best regards

Phil

[danilang]

Hi @ZoeM 

There is no way to have a workflow pause while a user updates a file and then continue with the same workflow.  You best option here is to have one workflow generate the file on the shared drive and then another the reads the updated file and pushes it to your viz package.  The first workflow can be  manually launched or scheduled if you have Alteryx Server.  The second workflow can be triggered in 1 of 2 ways

1. manually launch after the user updates the workflow.  (easiest)

2. scheduled(using Alteryx Server) to run at a certain interval i.e. hourly.  This will check to see if the file has been modified since the last time the workflow was run and will update the viz if it has.

Dan

[ZoeM]

Thanks PhilippK.

I have established the connections to SharePoint.

Our visualization tool is QlikView. 

I think I may lean on your Virtual Solution center to see what the capabilities are available.

[ZoeM]

Hi Dan.

Yes, the workflow is on a server that runs on the hour. 

The user updating the file would be making their updates during the hour. 

I am thinking I will need two tabs in the file. The first tab would be what Alteryx produces and saves on the Shard Drive. The second tab would be what is updated and Alteryx picks up and sends to QlikView. 

I may need to figure this out probably using Excel functions to get updates from the Alteryx produced tab to the manually updated tab.

Unless Alteryx has the ca[ability I need. 

[danilang]

Hi @ZoeM 

Do you need to preserve the changes that the user makes from one run to the next?  

Dan

[ZoeM]

Absolutely!

The below is what I am hoping to accomplish and not sure if Alteryx can do this?

 

[danilang · Accepted solution]

Hi @ZoeM 

You can probably get this into a single workflow that runs hourly.  

In this one have Alteryx read the info from SP and the current file on the SD.  Send the current file info to ClikView.  Then Merge the 2 inputs, probably by joining on Make and Model and add any new rows coming from SP.  Write this merged info back the SD file.  This will keep the file up to date and add new info from SP as it becomes available.  

If you're reading/writing from Excel file, you'll probably hit a case where the user has the file open when the WF tries to read it.  If you can afford to wait until the next run, just have the workflow stop on error to avoid writing older data to ClikView.  If you can't, add an event on error that sends a reminder to the user to close the file and make sure he has permission to run the workflow manually

Dan 

[ZoeM]

Thanks Dan.

I will take a look and see if this would be a possibility. Will mark as the answer as it does provide an alternative way of getting the results.