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Alteryx Designer Desktop Discussions

Find answers, ask questions, and share expertise about Alteryx Designer Desktop and Intelligence Suite.

Macro - Inaccurate Errors Before Running

elsastark
10 - Fireball

Hello Community!

 

I have a macro that I am going to be sharing with others - but it doesn't look very professional that when I send it over and someone puts it in their workflow, it looks like it is erroring out. Once the workflow runs, the errors don't exist - they are basically pre-checks that Alteryx is doing but they aren't actually accurate.

 

The two errors it is showing:

  • A field doesn't exist - There is an API response that is then put through a Cross Tab tool to make the field - the field doesn't exist before the API call. In my example, it is the access_token field - once the workflow is ran, the access_token field will exist. 
     elsastark_0-1674854685954.png
  • A file doesn't exist - During this process, I am creating a temporary file that is stored in %Engine.TempFilePath% - that file doesn't exist until I run the workflow. Since that temporary file is used later on in the process, I get an error about the file not existing even though the workflow will be creating that file. 

 

Again, the functionality of Alteryx is working fine. I just find these errors to be inaccurate and would like Alteryx to stop guessing if there is going to be an error before I run it - especially when the errors are dependent on if the workflow has ran or not. 

 

Any ideas?

 

 

5 REPLIES 5
binuacs
20 - Arcturus

@elsastark have you tried to run with the AMP Engine unchecked? 

 

binuacs_0-1674855750931.png

 

32bit
8 - Asteroid

Hi @elsastark I can't provide any example files because of corporate upload controls and lack of home version, but hopefully this will help. 

 

Missing field: my best practice with crosstab is to ensure fields are created if they are relied upon downstream. If the field is missing, no column would be created and formulas for blank checks would fail because of missing column. One way to do this is Text Input tool to add columns with no rows -> Select tool to shape data type -> union tool no warnings to merge with data stream. Hence columns always exist but no interference with data.

 

File doesn't exist: Package the macro with a blank file and point to that. Use batch macro command fields to update to live file name at runtime.

elsastark
10 - Fireball

HI @32bit and @binuacs - I will try both of these and update this post - thanks!

elsastark
10 - Fireball

@32bit That idea worked for the missing field:

elsastark_0-1675106921930.png

 

elsastark
10 - Fireball

@32bit - In regards to the File Doesn't Exist problem, that solution won't work since this macro is going to be sent in a way where we can't control where things are saved. For example, we have some people who will be storing this macro in a repository - others may have it stored in their Downloads. I wouldn't want it to be something where if they send it to another person (after unpackaging) they would need to know about this blank file that is sitting around.

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