Find out which workflow (YXMD) created my YXDB file?

[jasperlch]

Hi all, 

Since I have quite a large number of workflows running regular, sometimes, I might lose track of which workflows created which YXDB files.

I would like ask if, given a YXDB file, it is possible to find out the name/directory of the workflow created it?

One method I could think of is to output the name/directory of the current workflow as a new field in the YXDB files. But it is still not an ideal solution as I have to add this new column every time when I am exporting a YXDB file. 

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Jasper

[derekbelyea · Accepted solution]

Hi Jasper

Here are some ideas:

1)  Embed a code in each YXDB file name that can be indexed back to the source workflow.

2)  Add an OUTPUT DATA tool to your workflow that appends to a log of  YXDB file creation events with the time, date, file name and workflow name.

3)  Place the workflow name or identifier in a user constant, use the FORMULA tool to add a column with the user constant as the value and then output the YXDB file with the constant as the suffix.  If you uncheck the box [Keep Field in Output] then the column is not in the output.

[BenMoss · Accepted solution]

I'd actually create a workflow to do this.

Workflow XML is relatively straight forward to parse and there is a small example of how you can input and work with workflow XML within the sample workflows.

Sample Workflows > Use Scripting and Automation Tools > Build a macro > Identify tools and macro's used in a workflow.

Someone else asked a very similar question recently and my colleague has built out a sample workflow solution to find all the input and output files given a directory with a series of workflows.

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Read-Input-and-Output-of-flows/m-p/191...

You'd have to come up with some methodology to getting the workflow files from the Alteryx Server but that's definitely possible.

Ben

[jasperlch]

Hi @derekbelyea and @BenMoss, thanks for the solutions!

I was actually hoping there are some sort of meta-data within the YXDB file for us to easily check which workflow created it. However, I believe this is not yet available in the latest Alteryx version. But the solutions proposed by you are nice too anyway. Thanks!

Jasper