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Alteryx Designer Desktop Discussions

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Is it possible to output directly to a text input tool?

HW1
9 - Comet

Just as the question says, is it possible?

Right now, my workflow involves copying the output from any node using the browse tool and then paste the same to a text input tool for further use downstream which works fine if there are a few tens of rows but when I have upwards of 100, the process is pretty slow and worse when upwards of 1000s of rows.

Hence, I am wondering if I can directly use the browse tool output as text input. Is it possible?

5 REPLIES 5
Qiu
20 - Arcturus
20 - Arcturus

@HW1 
I dont think it is possible.
But maybe can output to a yxdb file then use it as a replacement of Text Input?

ericsundby
Alteryx
Alteryx

It's not possible to output directly into a text input tool, since the text input tool does not have an input anchor. However, you can right click any record within the results window of the browse tool and copy all records. Subsequently, you can use the text input tool and paste all of the records you just copied from the browse tool. 

Do you mind sharing your workflow and a little more context as to what the end goal is? There might be a better way to accomplish this than manually copy and pasting records.

HW1
9 - Comet

@ericsundby The goal is to speed up the process and possibly eliminating the copy-paste process as sometimes the use case for a text input tool is warranted. This is a general purpose query hence there is no 'one workflow' I can provide. Generally any node output can be copy-pasted into a text input tool. However, if the records exceed 1000 rows, the process is very slow as Alteryx populates every cell sequentially. I can use the solution that @Qiu provided however, it still is not a very 'automated' process.

@Qiu I use this method currently. Thank you for the quick and unfortunate 😅 resolution to my query..

ericsundby
Alteryx
Alteryx

If this is more of an ad-hoc requirement, then the next best solution would probably be to simply output to an Alteryx database file (.yxdb) and use that as the input downstream. 

Ben_H
11 - Bolide

Hi @HW1,

 

I suppose I don't quite understand what's being asked here.

 

I don't understand why you need to copy-paste anything - if you need data from a node upstream, just connect that node directly to the downstream one instead of copying it and inserting a text input.

 

If this is "general purpose" then any workflow where it happens would do as an example for us to look at.

 

I assume I'm missing something from your description!

 

Regards,

 

Ben

 

 

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