Customise the error messages

[Linas]

If a tool fails, there should be a way to customise the error message. Currently a way to do it: log all messages in a file, read that file with another workflow, then customise the messages (Alteryx workflow error handling - Alteryx Community). However, there should be a more convenient solution. We should be able to:

- Find/replace parts of a message.

- Specify, which tools messages to modify.

- Change the message type.

- Change the order of the messages in the results window, to prioritise the critical ones.

- Pick which messages cannot be hidden by "xxx more errors not displayed".

This would especially help for macros, as sometimes we have a specific tool failing within a macro and producing a non-user friendly message.

[cgoodman3]

When you say you want to change the error message is it to change the wording of the current messages being produced? As you can add a message tool and write a custom expression. 

There is also an option to display all macro messages which is helpful to check the macro is performing as intended.

These tool mastery posts might be helpful.

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Knowledge-Base/Tool-Mastery-Message/ta-p/36308

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Knowledge-Base/Tool-Mastery-Error-Message/ta-p/892...

[Linas]

Hi @cgoodman3 , thanks for your suggestion, but I still don't see a way to solve our problem. For example, we are calling cURL with arguments using Run Command tool and the request returns an error which is not user friendly. In Alteryx neither the message tool nor the error message tool seem to be able to overwrite the error message coming from the Run Command. Yes, we could change the error message coming from source, but this would require much more effort, as the source is not controlled by us.

[cgoodman3]

What sort of responses are you getting from cURL? Would it not be things like "HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden" and you would then want the message to the user to be "Check that the access token provided is valid"?

How I've dealt with this in the past is to filter the response using filter tools, and then building out an understandable error message in the formula tool and then displaying that result in the message tool.

[marcusblackhill]

@Linas I feel your pain about that. I'm not sure, but I think it might be hard to add that as a new feature, but I'd also like to see it happen.

I think that's hard because Alteryx calls the CMD to run your cURL on its own, and then when that's done, it goes back to the alteryx application. Alteryx should also be able to check the CMD responses and bring the information to the Designer so that error messages can be sent if there are any problems with the CMD run.

[JagdeeshN]

@Linas  Although the pain is understandable i doubt if it is realistically possible to redo how the error messages come out.

The approach(s) suggested by @cgoodman3  would be the best way to work around it and build your own customization.

[Linas]

@cgoodman3 I get an error message and no output from the tool (this macro just has a Run Command tool inside, to which we pass the arguments). As far as I understand, your solution would work if the message was coming out as a record in the output, which is not the case here...