Alteryx Excel Sheet Input with Invalid Characters

[Yupei]

I am trying to read in a sheet from an excel with the sheet name "Prep Info & Run Data".

I pass this string to my dynamic input:

R:\Excel.xls|||Prep Info & Run Data$

The error I get back is:

Error: Dynamic Input (8): Error opening table: Microsoft Access Database Engine: 'Prep Info & Run Data$' is not a valid name. Make sure that it does not include invalid characters or punctuation and that it is not too long.\3125 = -537199594

Error: Dynamic Input (8): Error opening table: Microsoft Access Database Engine: Invalid bracketing of name ' Prep Info & Run Data$'.\3126 = -530252778

Is there anyway around this? Renaming the sheet is out of the question because there are 1300 excels named this way that I need to read in.

Thanks!

[Thableaus]

Hi @Yupei 

Could you take a screenshot of your workflow?

Are you selecting the option to change the Entire File Path in the Dynamic Input?

Cheers,

[Yupei]

Screenshots attached.

[Thableaus]

@Yupei 

Try to add the Sheet Name without the dollar sign ($)

Your full path being:

R:\Excel.xls|||Prep Info & Run Data

Cheers,

[Yupei]

@Thableaus 

Same issue

[Thableaus]

@Yupei 

How are the original names of the sheets of these files?

Are the files opened?

R:\YC\STRIKES\Year 2016\16-001\16-001.xls
R:\YC\STRIKES\Year 2016\16-003\16-003.xls

Watch out for the template file as well, it's important to check this out.

Cheers,

[danilang]

Hi @Yupei 

I've try to recreate your error with no success.  Can you post a copy of your excel file?  Replace all the data with dummy data, but leave the tab names the same.

Dan

[CharlieS]

I just tested the Dynamic Input tool reading from sheets that contain "&" and "$" successfully. This worked when updating just the sheet name and when composing the entire file path in the same format that appears in the images attached by @Yupei .

Can you share the Excel file? There may be something else unique about this file. 

[Thableaus]

@Yupei 

Looking up this error on the Internet I found that this could also be due to runtime failure.

Maybe checking if the files are opened and restarting the application could solve the issue.

Cheers,

[Yupei]

@danilang

@CharlieS 

@Thableaus 

Copy of file attached.

Files are not open during runtime.

If I go in and manually change the sheet name, and have my workflow look for just

[FullPath] + '|||Prep Info Run Data$' I have no errors. The inclusion of the & symbol is throwing the errors.