XLSM vs XLSX parsing differences if Office is Installed or Not?

[slcorey]

Hi Community Members,

I am having an odd issue in version 2022.1 where a workflow I have inherited hits a website, downloads an XLSM file, does some column parsing and renaming, and compares with another data set.  The behavior that is odd is the workflow runs absolutely fine on my desktop (which contains a valid Excel install via O365) but the column renaming is not functioning on the server, which does not have Excel installed.  I am trying to save the file as XLSX, but it looks like it needs to be opened and converted to behave the same way it does on my desktop environment.

Has anyone noticed this type of problem with Excel parsing?  Installing Excel on the enterprise server is not an option in my case.

Thank you!

Stephen

[DanM]

@slcorey,

If you are using a dynamic rename that using an external template or you have sent the file to the server that is used to rename the fields is not a best practice. It shouldn't matter that the server doesn't have excel  or office on the server since we transform the file from excel into html so that Alteryx can read it. However, in cases where users want to utilize files, I would recommend saving these files to a network drive and having the server read that file from there. You will have to make sure that the server user can read from that network directory, but it's much easier for the server to read and gives you an easier way to manage that file in case of changes to the data etc. Some others may have other or better ideas, but I typically save any static inputs to a network drive and read from there.

Hope that helps

[slcorey]

Thank you for the response Dan.  The file gets created via download from an https curl call and gets saved on a local drive.  I am taking that file and comparing it to another excel file (xlsx) that is located on the server, but is accessible via network share.  I am attempting to move the workflow from the desktop environment into the enterprise gallery, but noticed the difference in behavior.  I will try a few more options out and see where it leads.

Thanks,

Stephen

[apathetichell]

are you downloading to a location - and how are you mapping that location to the dynamic input? My hunch is the problem is that your dynamic input isn't receiving the correct location for the file on the server (vs on your desktop).

I'd also recommend (as always) using a batch macro vs dynamic input whenever possible (or even a nested batch macro)... To error check where you are - you can add an output of some sort (report tool/render pcxml/output data etc) after your download tool to make sure that your file is being received by the server- and see where on the server the file is being written.

[slcorey]

Thank you apahetichell.  The location is using a relative path leveraging %temp% variable - eg - %temp%file.xlsm.  This is possible, let me try to use a hardcoded path to see if that helps.  I agree batch macro should be used, but this is a fairly old workflow that I am trying to avoid a major re-write of, if possible.

Thanks for the tips!

Best,

Stephen

[slcorey]

It turns out, I corrupted the workflow files somehow.  I don't know exactly what I did, but it had something to do with using dynamic paths (the built-in _externals subdir).  To resolve, I went back to the original workflow on the desktop, exported a copy of it to a new file, and copied that workflow file to the server.  I imported it successfully and modified all of the references to the _externals locations in the workflow with fully qualified paths.  The workflow is now running on the desktop and the server and giving the same results.  Thank you for your inputs!