File Management tools (copy, rename, delete)

[rob_cottrell]

I have many use cases that involve one or more of the following:

• moving or renaming a file after importing it
• deleting a file after importing it
• moving or copying a file after successfully exporting it
• writing a temporary file (i.e. batch file for RunCommand tool), then deleting it when finished

A complete suite of file management tools (Copy, Delete, Move/Rename) would make this much easier.

[Aash]

+1 please!

[DSnyder1]

+1

[ChrisTX]

+determining if a file is locked (so an attempted read or write will fail)

[dcoelho-nhld]

4 years later and this still hasn't been added?

[cam_w]

Hi @dcoelho-nhld -

While you're waiting for implemenation of this 'idea', perhaps check out custom solutions that others have built. I created a sample python tool during BUILD2 this year that you're welcome to look at to see if it would benefit your use case:

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Engine-Works-Blog/BUILD2-Learning-to-Pilot-the-SnakePlane/bc-p/4507...

It needs some improvements to be ready for production use, but it proves the 'use case'.

[dcoelho-nhld]

@cam_w I appreciate the suggestion, but this needs to be production ready, so unfortunately that probably wouldn't work. It is nice to see that at least someone is trying to solve this issue though. 

[KylieF]

Thank you for posting to the Alteryx Community! Our product team is interested in this idea, however we're unable to fit this idea on the current road map. However, we'd like to keep it in mind for future features and we'll update the status once we know if or when we can include this feature.

[ssjl]

I'd appreciate it if there were more integrity exercised here.  Don't hold out a false hope of bringing these tools to life after 4 years with a vague "Revisit."  Kill it outright or keep it but stop with the lukewarm response.

[KylieF]

Hi @ssjl,

I apologize for any frustration created with this status change. The goal of the Revisit status is truthfully to provide more visibility and integrity to our Product Teams intentions so users aren't 'strung-along' by an idea staying in the 'Under Review' or 'New Idea' statuses for several years. Our product team does plan on reviewing all ideas set to the Revisit status regularly, however as we build our road maps out for large stretches of time we decided it was not fair to the customer to provide no feedback on their idea as the product team during this time. 

As we greatly value our customer's feedback, our product idea boards have also recently been going through a large number of updates and changes to allow customers better visibility into the status of their ideas on to get more direct feedback from the Alteryx teams. These changes include updated statuses and insuring ideas that meet review criteria will not go un-reviewed for the same length of time as in the past. I apologize if some of these updates didn't hit the mark however, and I appreciate your feedback on the new 'Revisit' status.

[jcabrough]

Upvote @ChrisTX suggestion of determining if a file is locked

I'd go one further and ask for changes to the Input tool to allow a read of a locked Excel data by copying it to a temporary store.