In Excel you can use an Indirect function to create strings to return a valid cell reference.
For example if in column A you have a list of sheet names e.g.
A1 = New York
A2 = Paris
A3 = London
Then you could create a formula which is Indirect(A1&"!B2") to reference the cell B2 in the New York tab.
An example of where I'd want to use this in Alteryx is to create a dynamic value based on a variable field.
For example based on this data:
I write [car make]+"_"+[car model] in the formula it will return the following
Volkswagen_Golf
Pontiac_Firebird
Audi_TT
Subaru_Outback etc.
However if I want it to be dynamic in an app or macro to allow the user to choose a suffix via a drop down this is not straight forward.
If I set up the tooling in this way:
What I get is the [#1] will bring in the field name and not the field value. So it would come through as Volkswagen_car model.
So my suggestion is that you have the ability to something like
[car make]+indirect("["+[#1]+"]") which would evaluate to [car make]+"_"+[car model] when car model is selected in the drop down.
The current workaround with help from @JonathanSherman is to use a dynamic select where [Name] = [#1] then join that onto the original dataset and use a dynamic rename create a new dynamic suffix field that can then be used.
Which while a nice design pattern, isn't as intuitive as indirect for those coming from a strong Excel background.
