Scheduler & Sharepoint

I receive mutiple Excel files to my Outlook inbox every day that I then use within a few Alteryx workflows. I currently have these Excel files automatically moving from my Outlook inbox to a location within our company network, however this requires me to be logged in to my PC to function properly.

To get around having to keep my PC on, I've set up a Microsoft Flow to move these attachments to our Sharepoint Online site. I can connect to the files on Sharepoint when working in Designer via either the directory tool or the input tool, but when I open my workflow in Scheduler the connections are broken (Invalid Directory), and I cannot determine how to fix them.

Is Alteryx Scheduler able to read Excel files from Sharepoint? Any workarounds for this?

I've tried OneDrive and run into the same problem.

Scheduler

Sharepoint

Accepted answers

KevinP

@vscreame at this time we only support connections to SharePoint via the SharePoint List Input and SharePoint List Output connectors included with Designer. As such connections to SharePoint Document Libraries (files and folders) are not supported. This limited support is due to authentication issues that are outside of our control when accessing files resources hosted on SharePoint. These authentication issues typically do not effect manually run workflows, but will cause workflows run from Scheduler or Gallery to fail with an authentication, file/folder not found, or file/folder not accessible error. The root cause of the issue is due to SharePoint incorrectly prompting for credentials even though credentials are provided when accessing the UNC path for the file/folder. To clarify further Scheduler/Gallery runs the workflow as part of the service in session 0 which is a non-interactive session. As such when SharePoint requests credentials in this manner the authentication automatically fails because the credential prompt can't be rendered to the screen or responded to. Based on the information you provided this is the exact issue you are encountering, and the only supported solution to this issue is to store the files you are attempting to access on a standard Windows file share instead of using SharePoint to host the files.

All comments

KevinP

casperkeilstrup

Really annoying that this is not possible yet! But Thanks for the good answer.

Jared_Durer

I am also running into this issue. I need the server to be able to pull the data from living excel documents on SharePoint on a scheduled basis. Is Alteryx any closer to including this capability?

Derangedvisions

Hi @Jared_Durer @vscreame @casperkeilstrup

We resolved this issue by mapping the Sharepoint drive on the VM that the Alteryx server is on. We then use SyncToy 2.1 to “Echo” the files from the networked drive to a folder on the VM.

So as an example:

Map the Sharepoint drive on the VM to X:/sharepoint/examplefilename
once you have installed SyncToy on the Virtual Machine THEN create a “New Folder Pair” in SyncToy

Left Folder:

X:/sharepoint/examplefilename

Right folder: (select somewhere the Alteryx Server can access)

\examplefilenameecho

Action: Echo

The Echo will duplicate the files from the Sharepoint drive to a location where the Alteryx Server can “see” it.

Create a bat file to run it(to create a bat file- open notepad and type the following code (or change it to wherever SyncToy is saved)

cd "C:\Program Files\SyncToy 2.1\"

SyncToyCmd.exe –R

Save this as a “.bat” file
Use Task Scheduler (on your server- it's a standard application on the server) to schedule how often you want your bat file to “echo”.

Task Scheduler setup:

Triggers: set up how often you want it to run

e.g. Daily, at 11A.M, Check the box repeat task every 5 minutes for a duration of Indefinitely. Make sure the Enable box is also checked

Actions: select “Start a Program”

Program/Script: select the location you saved the bat file

I hope that makes sense? it's all we could come up with as we use Sharepoint for everything and don't use lists at all. if anyone comes up with anything better- let me know!

so basically when building workflows- i connect to the "D:\examplefilenameecho" (the right folder) which has a duplicate of the files we need in it, and then the scheduler is able to locate them as well.

Jared_Durer

Thank you DerangedVisions!

It will take some jumping through hoops with our IT department to try this, but your solution looks very promising!

Derangedvisions

@Jared_Durer @vscreame @aoxomoxoa @casperkeilstrup

We've actually figured a better way to solve this issue- by using the UNC path as your input/output file location.

to find the UNC path:

go to the "properties" section of your mapped Sharepoint drive (right click mapped drive--> properties) in the description field it actually contains the UNC path eg. \\sharepoint\DavWWWroot\Sites\yoursitename\foldername\insertyourfilenamehere

by using this as an input (or output) (it will connect to the Sharepoint site directly)

After testing it I have been able to read/write to Sharepoint - eliminating the need for Synctoy or any other workarounds- to use scheduler you must input run as credentials in the workflow for the schedule to work.

T_Willins

@Derangedvisions

Do you have a sample workflow you can share? I can get the UNC path to work with SharePoint for Developer run workflows, but I am having issues with getting the workflows to run on Server.

JerseyJack

Dear KevinP,

Is it still the case that Alteryx server Workflows cannot access a Share Point Document library directly?

If it can't, is this something that has been pursued with Microsoft?

We are a heavy Share Point shop so this is a deal breaker for us regarding the Server version and thus the entire product

Thanks

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