How to select column names with the Prior and latest date

[lumjingbki]

Hi I have a the below data set which has 7 days sales details I want to select only the latest  20231013_1 and the previous latest date 20231010_1 column. Can someone please suggest how to go about 

Products	Shope Code	20231003_1	20231006_1	20231007_1	20231008_1	20231009_1	20231010_1	20231013_1	Total sales	Last Sales	Target	Notes
Apple	App	1,198.00	113,810.00	125.00	250.00	1,198.00	89,850.00	225.00	206,656.00	0	23000	Highest sales
Apple	Ppa							1,198.00	1,198.00	0	19000	Low sales
Apple	Ral							500.00	500.00	0	60000
Mango	sqw	225.00	6,075.00	225.00	14,400.00	500.00	30,000.00	1,198.00	52,623.00	0	23000
Orange	ree	1,198.00	67,088.00	225.00	3,375.00	1,198.00	107,820.00	1,198.00	182,102.00	0	23000
Orange	rew	500.00	30,000.00	58.50	5,616.00	500.00	14,500.00	1,198.00	52,372.50	0	23000
Orange	wqe	1,198.00	89,850.00	500.00	25,000.00	58.50	936.00	500.00	118,042.50	0	19000
Pineapple	wsx	1,198.00	107,820.00	1,198.00	43,128.00	500.00	14,000.00	1,198.00	169,042.00	0	60000
Banana	sde	1,198.00	38,336.00	225.00	225.00	225.00	3,375.00	1,198.00	44,782.00	0	23000
Banana	cde	500.00	30,000.00	225.00	225.00	58.50	5,616.00	500.00	37,124.50	0	23000	medium sales
Banana	vfr	1,198.00	107,820.00	58.50	58.50	225.00	3,375.00	1,198.00	113,933.00	0	23000
Banana	bgt	500.00	14,500.00	500.00	500.00	58.50	5,616.00	500.00	22,174.50	0	19000
Banana	nhy	500.00	40,500.00	1,198.00	1,198.00	225.00	3,375.00	1,198.00	48,194.00	0	60000
Mango	mju	1,198.00	41,930.00	500.00	500.00	58.50	5,616.00	500.00	50,302.50	0	23000

[niklas_greilinger]

Hello,

here is one way of doing this. Take the metadata from the columns and sort by the column name. Then Change the description of the latest columns and only keep these columns. WF shows how to do it.

[caltang]

Like so:

This method is dynamic to your data. Whatever data you throw inside, it will always get you the Max and Max-1, and it returns it to its original shape of the data. 

If you just want the max and max-1 columns, just add a Select tool near the end to get what you want by dropping the rest and choosing "Dynamic".

Hope this helps @lumjingbki 

[AndrewDMerrill]

Another more simplified version that is still dynamic, although this workflow does assume that dates columns' names will be formatted to have 8 characters: yyyyMMdd_1, and that no other columns will have 8 consecutive digits in their column name.