Union Tool Crashing

[mphillips27]

Hello,

I am trying to union together several (around 100) excel files into one file that I will eventually dump into a SQL table. The union tool works great but it incredibly slow. I cant even union more than 4 excel files to one tool without it taking about 10 minutes to respond (not even when I run the work flow, but just when I try to connect the input data to the union tool, once I go over four files to one tool it gets incredibly slow and I have to shut down the program).

Is there anything I should be doing differently or ways to make it run faster?

[ArnavS · Accepted solution]

hi mrphilips27,

Are you bringing in each excel file individually and then connecting to the Union tool? If so, there might be a more efficient way to do this. I would recommend checking out this article to find out 3 methods to input multiple files at once: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Knowledge-Base/The-Ultimate-Input-Data-Flowchart/t...

Hope this helps!

-Arnav

[paultno]

Have you "Enabled Performance Profiling" to make sure it is the Union tools?  

[Emil_Kos]

Hi @mphillips27,

You can also try this macro:

https://gallery.alteryx.com/#!app/Read_All_Excel_Files/58dd51b3a18e9e18fca64172

In the past, I have used it to merge hundreds of files and it worked really well.

Give it a try and start with the same 4 files you have used.

Maybe you can also try moving them to a different location? Maybe it is working slowly because they are located in a location that is slowing everything down. I remember when I used Alteryx and box it wasn't working efficiently together.

Maybe check if moving the files to your desktop would speed up the process. 

[mphillips27]

Hi Everyone! I figured out my issue (although the wildcard feature works great and is a really awesome shortcut to know!) I forgot to set a range on the excel files I was using and it was taking in hundred of unnecessary columns hence why it was so slow. Once I set a range it works fine now! Thanks!