Add Option to Import Excel As Text

[mcarrico]

This one may be a slightly niche request, but it has popped up a couple of times in my work so I thought I would submit.  When importing multiple sheets from an Excel workbook using either the Dynamic Input or wildcard in the Input Data tool, I sometimes get an error that the schemas don't match.  While this initially seems like the headers may be different, it can often occur because Alteryx is casting the columns as different data types (as I understand it, based on a sample of the incoming data).  While this is often helpful, in this case it becomes problematic.  

This has been asked several times on the discussion board including here and here. To workaround this issue, I have gone the batch macro route, but this could be solved more simply for the end user by adding an additional checkbox to the Input Data configuration when an Excel file is selected that imports all fields as strings (similar to the standard CSV input).  Then the schema could be specified using a Select tool by the user once all of data is brought in.

I'm not sure if this would be valuable for other input data types where a schema is more explicitly specified, but for any where Alteryx is guessing the schema, I feel like it could be helpful to give the user a bit more control.

[hoffm413]

This would be very helpful! I am running into the same issue with dynamic input