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Trouble trying to read csv or Excel files from locally-hosted Sharepoint site

myastarling
10 - Fireball

I am attempting to read either a csv or an Excel file from a locally-hosted Sharepoint site (2013) and I have tried all the methods I can find in the Community. I do not have admin rights to the SharePoint site.

One suggestion (I can't find it anymore - the solution was from @LordNeilLord) I saw was to input the file name with a text input tool, use a download tool with a dynamic input tool to get the file information -- this one I've gotten the furthest with, but when I run it, I end up with gobbleygook that is the same whether I enter my credentials into the download tool or not, whether I reference the csv or the Excel file.

 

For reference, I am able to connect to the Sharepoint site with the Sharepoint List Input tool and get a list of files.

 

Can anyone identify what I am doing wrong here that I'm ending up with a garbage file rather than the content of the Excel/csv file? Any strategies for reading from an Excel or csv file?

 

TIA

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6 REPLIES 6
LordNeilLord
15 - Aurora

Hey @myastarling 

 

You should be able to connect to it using the standard input tool...you just need to specify the site as a file path...like so:

 

\\yoursharepoint.com@ssl\davWWWRoot\sites\yoursite\Filepath to your files

 

If you're unsure about where to navigate to...if you go to SP in Internet explorer then one of the options in the menu is to open file in explorer....do this then you get the file path

LordNeilLord
15 - Aurora

Also, I don't remember that post to use the download tool....I must have been drunk at the time.

 

If you find it again let me know, I'd love to see it

myastarling
10 - Fireball

O...M...G... it worked! this is amaaaaaazing!!! The only thing that got me for a bit was a stupid error on my part where I forgot to specify the sheet name, but it's all working beautifully now.

 

You have made my month and I owe you several beers! Thank you!!!  😄

myastarling
10 - Fireball

Uggh - this was working *beautifully* on Friday. I come into work today and it throws an error - 'File Not Found'. I checked to see if the file is there and it still is. I checked the pathname and it's the same. I then used a directory tool to list all of the files in that folder and returns the error 'Invalid Directory -- Access is Denied'. Any idea what change could have happened to cause this?

myastarling
10 - Fireball

I figured it out! I can't figure out what changed, but it now works if I omit the ssl portion of the UNC pathname 😄

what's weird is the SharePoint List Input tool is still acting strangely -- as in the file index (I think that's what it's called? Where it lists the files as #1 - [Filename], #2 - [Filename] etc) is no longer displayed, so it has to be added as a redundant field to the view in order for it to be read.

myastarling
10 - Fireball

One more update -- I'm going to include this as a separate thread because it clarifies this, but also leads to a different topic, but I think I solved the instability I am seeing with this connection working.

Curiously, the @ssl portion of the UNC pathname never worked after the whole thing blew up the first time. *But* with the UNC-without-@ssl, it has been working intermittently. Enough to be crazy-making because I could not rely on it to work when I needed it to.

 

For some reason, the credentials are not being passed between SharePoint and Alteryx (not clear on what this connection is for an input tool) and that link needs to be re-established. What I finally got to work is whenever it is not able to read SharePoint files, I enter the UNC into a browser and it asks for my SSO credentials (which it shouldn't do, but that has to do with our security settings I believe). After I access the site with my credentials, if I then run my workflow then it is able to access SharePoint just fine.

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