Prevent Alteryx from changing data when loading excel sheet

[Uchiha_Itachi]

I am trying to input this excel sheet attached below into Alteryx. Some values in the column "Last Week / Weeks on List" are getting converted into a date format when loaded in Alteryx. Please see attachments below. I need it to remain in the same format so I can split per delimiter before analysis. Thanks

[apathetichell]

No. Alteryx read in the cell as a date. It read in the column as a vstring. The column is a vstring because there are multiple field types included in the column and vstring is the base. The underlying cell though is a date/numeric. If this is an ETL - perhaps you can get this via an API directly into Alteryx? 

To reiterate - your problem is with Excel - not with Alteryx. Alteryx is correct here. This isn't an Alteryx problem. It's reading what you have in Excel. I call out issues with Alteryx all the time - this isn't one.

[Uchiha_Itachi]

That's a very good point. I does happen something. I. might have to go back to the original source and redownload just to be sure. Thanks.

[Uchiha_Itachi]

I absolutely agree that the problem is with the data coming in, absolutely. However, one of the use functions of Alteryx or any data cleaning tool is to take problematic data and clean it, parse or execute whatever analysis is required. I understand what you are saying but if I loaded this in google sheets, excel, python, tableau prep or r there would be no problem reading in the data as "it looks", I have already tried this with most of these methods. My apologies not trying agrue with you, sorry we seem to be going back and forth on this, just hoping you see my point. 

[jdminton]

@Uchiha_Itachi Alteryx can make it work, but you would need to identify the values that have been set as date format and use a formula tool to essentially undo. I.e. you can Regex match to identify \d{4}-\d\d-\d\d in the field and convert that. See attached.  

[Uchiha_Itachi]

@jdminton I haven't tried that yet. Will do and revert. Thanks