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Problem with Unions in workflow

FelipeDamasceno
5 - Atom

Hi, my workflow has about 24 input files and many unions in between. The files change constantly, so sometimes one column is removed from the file and because of that my unions bugs and I get errors where I should not get an error. I understand if the column removed was being used in a formula, but the columns where not used anywhere, I only wanted it there because it was needed in the output file. I think that if the column is not there anymore, the union should just erase the column and it is done, but for some reason, the order ends up changing so the output file has a column that was supposted to be addresses together with phone numbers. Is there a way to solve this problem? Did it ever occour to any of you before? By the way, I set the matching columns manually.

1 REPLY 1
taylor_butler
Alteryx
Alteryx

Hi @FelipeDamasceno , 

 

I've run into this error a number of times myself. Based on the Union tool help documentation (Union Tool | Alteryx Help), it is recommended that the option to "Manually Configure" fields not be used if the configuration could change; however, the option to Auto Configure Based on Name or Position would be the recommended approach. By using Select tools prior to the Union, you can give similar fields the same naming or move them to the same position so that the Auto Configuration option will stack the inputs properly. There is an option to indicate how the tool should react when fields change between runs and you can select "ignore" or provide a warning instead of hitting a hard error. 

 

Union.png

 

Hope that helps!

 

Taylor

 

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