How to create Excel with grouped Rows - Similar to the Excel Group function

[cdushel]

Hello!

I am looking to create an excel output of my data where the data is grouped by rows. I can't seem to find this functionality in alteryx the same way excel handles it. I want to take the current Alteryx output of my data:

And transform it in Alteryx to output this:

So when collapsed it should look like this:

I want to assume row1 is the headers and the rows are grouped by employee ID, with the first record of the ID displaying as the "sample" line. Is there anyway to do this in Alteryx?

Thank you!

[CharlieS]

Hi @cdushel 

That group formatting feature is not supported in the Alteryx Reporting tools. It may be possible to add that formatting after you have written the file using VBS, Cscript.exe, and the Run Command tool, but this could get very complex. 

[cdushel]

Is there possibly a series of tools you could use to arrive at the same solution? Even though there isn't one button or function for it?

[jacob_kahn]

@cdushel 

What I would do is insert a Summarize tool before you are ready to output and Group by ALL of your fields (columns)  

It's a great feature of the Summarize tool to quickly sort. 

[trevorwightman]

@CharlieS Since it has been two years since this question was asked, is this still the case where this functionality is unavailable? If so, is the best way to just perform this grouping/collapsing directly in Excel?

[CharlieS · Accepted solution]

@trevorwightman 

That's correct, adding the grouping functionality is not a supported function. However, there have been some developments in Excel support. Mainly, the "Preserve Formatting on Overwrite" is available when writing to a specific range of cells in Excel. This means that if you are updating a range of cells that has grouping enabled and the arrangement of your data is identical, it should retain that function in Excel.*

https://help.alteryx.com/20214/designer/file-format-options

*I have not tested this myself, Let me know how it goes!