Alteryx Designer Desktop Discussions
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Hi @rohit782192
Certainly it is harder to assist or help you when you share so little information about your issue, let's see if I GUESSED what you want, here we go.
- I haven't seen any Alteryx Documentation detailing the structure of workflow files, e.g. yxmd, all what we know is they are written as XML files, and that we can open with a text editor, but nothing else.
- YXMD files are version based workflow files, so whatever we write to read them should be updated each time Alteryx release a new version, as new structures could be included, creating strong dependencies with whatever tool we use to read them.
I am writing these notes for member of the community that happen to visit this thread-topic. I am basing these notes on the following workflow, it volutered for this investiagation 😀
It is a simple workflow with 4 tools, and their tool's ID is shown above; Alteryx save the XML of these tools to the yxmd, organizing each one of them as nodes!
- The yxmd's Nodes tree:
- The yxmd file contains a Nodes tree, each tool has an entry in this tree, each tool with its own set of XML attributes defining how it was configured by the user at the designer, all these XML attributes are subject to change.
- The screenshot shows the ToolID 1, which is the Input Data tool, inside the XML file its node is defined by a lot of attributes, like GuiSetting, Properties, Configuration, Annotation and much more, depending on each tool scope.
- We also notice that ToolID 3 follows, as it appears in the screenshot, Tool 3 is the second tool in the workflow, a select with its own set of properties.
- By default a workflow reading a yxmd file returns all the nodes, e.g. all the tools contained in the workflow, nothing else.
- The Input Data tool reading the yxmd was configured to handle a file format XML and the Return Child Values and Return Outer XML options are enabled.
- With this configuation the Input Data tool reads all the <Node ToolID nodes from the yxmd file, although it does not include all the details of each tool configuration, we may see we get the top level details for each tool.
- The workflow processing this very simple workflow, looks like:
- It is obvious that each Node contains specific Alteryx tools with particular parameters, e.g. the complexity of the workflow increase exponentially.
The Connection Tree
- The yxmd's connection tree is not returned by the Input Data tool used above, we need an Input Data with a different configuration.
- This is the data returned by the Data Input above, it includes the Connections_OuterXML allowing us to parse the connection.
- Now the solution node contains sort of a connection matrix for all the tools on the canvas, as shown:
- The Connections matrix likely contains N-1 entries, depending on the complexity of the workflow.
The attached workflow process the yxmd's XML for the file defined at the Input Data, the workflow is far from complete to process complex workflows with many tools, node at its very top-level is easier, detailing each node properties is way to complex.
Procesing the Connection in the workflow highlights how to retrieve this information, perhaps a macro with this concept could process complex workflows.
Attaching:
- Sample workflow: Xml_to_Excel.yxmd.
- Get_Workflow_Out_2_Excel.yxmd - this process the XML_to_Excel Alteryx workflow, it is a very raw version.
hth
Arnaldo
The workflow shared with you read Alteryx yxmd files, e.g. workflow, you had not provide a clear description of the file type you are reading.
Your sample file's workflow is shown below:
None of the Alteryx's tools on its canvas are supported by the top half of my workflow, Alteryx has over 100 tools, I just coded logic for two or three of them, don't expect us to expend days coding all of them just for you 🤣
When ran using your workflow as data, the DbFileInput and Alteryx Select returned errors on empty data streams, once again, you should code the logic for the new tools.
Now this part processing the Connection tree should be expanded because your workflow includes more tools and obviously it has more connections between them, enhancing this module of the workflow is basically cut and paste. Note: This is not the most efficient way to handle this, a macro will do better, something you could do.
Arnaldo
