Alteryx Designer Desktop Knowledge Base

Some users have reported a problem when importing and exporting macros within the Alteryx Designer when the Regional Settings for the machine are not set to English (United Kingdom) or English (United States) (see screenshots below).

  On Alteryx version 10.1, if you try to schedule a workflow to to run from its original location on disk and the workflow path starts with a digit, for example C:\1testpath\workflow.yxmd, the workflow will fail to run on the Scheduler. When the job fails, you will see the job at the bottom of the Results view within the Scheduler window and the job date is January 01 0001 12:00:00 AM - this indicates a corrupt job. All other combinations work as expected.          This is a known issue that is being addressed. The workaround is to rename the folder so that the path does not start with a digit, for example C:\a1testpath\. Alternatively, you can schedule the job to run a copy of the workflow stored in the scheduler DB. 

Unable to find the dll: "OCI.dll" Within Alteryx this error will be prompted due to a mismatch between 32/64 bit drivers and the Alteryx bit version. This error may also appear if you do not have the drivers installed. One way to troubleshoot this is to find out what drivers you have installed! You can use an input tool in the Alteryx Designer, go to Other Databases and select either ODBC/OleDB (64-bit) or 32-Bit Database Connections -> ODBC/OleDB. In the next pop out window it will populate with the available drivers for those connections. If you have no drivers in this pop out window this means you do not havethe correct drivers for 32 bit or 64 bit connection dependent upon which one you chose. Links to drivers are available from within individual data source pages here. This will take you away from the Alteryx website and onto the driver provider’s pages. Please consult with your IT to find the correct drivers for your environment.

‘Alteryx has stopped working’ - APPCRASH   Scenario: You are running a workflow and all of a sudden Alteryx becomes unresponsive and a windows prompt opens and says ‘Alteryx has stopped working’ with options to close the program. Once you click on problem signature properties it references 'Problem Event Name: APPCRASH'. This error can be due to several factors however there a few troubleshooting steps which have resolved this error for several of our clients in the past.   Are you on the latest version of Alteryx? If possible being on the latest version of Alteryx can help ensure any known bug fixes have been resolved and the software is up to date. To find the latest version of the Designer please click on this link Downloads   Limit the number of Browse tools Every time you add a Browse Tool to the canvas it caches the data locally, therefore if you have a large workflow this can sometimes cause memory issues on your machine (dependent upon your machine environment). This can be adjusted by changing the default sort/join memory, however taking advantage of the Browse Everywhere is highly recommended! Before removing all browses you can also 'Disable All Browse Tools' in the runtime configuration settings to test this theory.        Have you tried the block until done tool? When Alteryx becomes unresponsive it can be due to constraints on the processing power of the machine. More often than not you may receive an error relating to an ‘inbound pipe error’ (also memory related). The Block Until Done Tool (found in the developer category) allows all the pre-processing to occur before passing data downstream (e.g. writing out through an output tool). This often makes it an easier process when writing out to a database.   Adjust your sort/join memory The sort/join memory is one of the most underestimated elements of the designer. Because Alteryx is designed to use all the resources it possibly can, it tries to balance and use as much CPU, memory and disk I/O as possible. There are great tips on how to achieve the right balance here: http://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Knowledge-Base/What-is-the-Sort-Join-Memory-Setting/ta-p/1302 Again, as always if this error persists after trying these troubleshooting steps, please do not hesitate to reach out at support@alteryx.com  

The improvements in our salesforce connectors have been astronomical over the last year and now it is easier than ever to navigate the UI configuration screen and connect to your Salesforce Data!

You may be trying to install the Alteryx Designer or Server and receive an error saying: There was an error downloading "AlteryxInstallx64_VersionX.exe...."

Having trouble reading or writing Microsoft Access files? No worries - Client Services is here to help!

Sometimes you may want to stop a workflow if certain conditions are met! Luckily within Alteryx we have the combination of the Test Tool and Workflow Properties to stop the workflow.

Errors from the R tool, and macros using R, such as the Association Analysis tool, can be a challenge to troubleshoot.

Getting the error: "not enough fields in record" from the Input Data Tool

getting an error that says "Type mismatch in operator +" in my formula

Occasionally you may see one of these errors from the Join Multiple tool. It is a result of Cartesian joins.

Why am I getting the error "InvalidArgument=Value of '0' is not valid for 'itemIndex'. Parameter name: itemIndex" when trying to load an Excel file in and Input tool?

Within an Alteryx workflow you may have instances where you have to hard code a value or only want to run workflows which have a certain field schema.   Both of these cases may cause errors in the workflow when the value or schema differ to that expected. Fortunately, there are two methods you can use to try and circumvent potential errors.    Option 1 - Conditional macros – CREW Macros Within the CREW macros pack there will be the conditional runner macro. This macro will allow you to set off another workflow if a workflow fails or succeeds. Therefore, if you are running a list of workflows from a Directory Tool and you want all the workflows to run even if a workflow fails, you can use the conditional runner to manage and continue the flow of workflows if one of them errors.   Option 2 - Expecting a set number of records or values?  You can use a combination of the Filter Tool and the Message Tool to look for patterns in the various records or files you are reading in. An example could be you are using a batch macro to read a list of files in. In each of these files you want to ensure a number of fields are included, so you transpose the data giving you a NAME & VALUE. Based on the NAME field you can use a Filter Tool and Count Records Tool to ensure you have the correct number of fields. In the false node you can have the records which didn't meet the expected value in the filter go into a Browse Tool or Output Data Tool so you can check out that file with more detail. Those records which did have the correct field headers you can crosstab the data back and continue that file through the process.    This is just a quick two ways you can look to avoid errors in a workflow, but I encourage those community members who can think of other alternatives and use cases please post below. this topic can be highly valuable for workflow conitnuity so learning more techniques can only help 🙂   Best,  Jordan Barker Solutions Consultant 

Every so often we get questions about a .tde (Tableau Data Extract) file that is being output from Alteryx that has a file size of 30k when the original data is much larger. When the file is opened in Tableau this error sometimes comes up: An error occurred while communicating with data Source ‘yourfilename.tde’

When using Excel spreadsheets in Alteryx, sometimes there may be difficulty in reading the data. Viewing the spreadsheets in XML format is an excellent way to check for encoding or formatting issues.

Error connecting to Office 365 using the Sharepoint Input tool - "The sign-in name or password does not match in the Microsoft Account system", when the user tries to connect to Sharepoint from the Alteryx Designer

Troubleshooting the Error: The sheet "[sheet_name]" already exists in file "[file_path]". Select a new sheet or file for output, or select an overwrite output option for the current file.

The error message appears when using System Settings in Alteryx Designer.

Troubleshooting the error: Data source name not found and no default driver specified when connecting to a database in Designer.

If you are unlucky while rendering a map in Alteryx with a Carto base map, you may encounter the error message Error: AGG error loading font (C:\WINDOWS\fonts\C:\Program). This article explains the cause of this error, and how to resolve it.