Getting Started
Introduction Input Data Designer Interface
Data Preparation
Selecting Data Data Type Conversion Cleaning Data Exercises
Filters & Joins
Documentation Filters Join Types Inner Join Outer Joins
Formulas & Aggregations
Formulas Aggregating Data
Sort & Output
Sorting Data Output Data
Other Tutorials & Content
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Output Data Tool - Writing Your Data to Excel

Finally we are at a stage where the data we have processed and blended is ready to be output to a file. Alteryx gives us many options for exporting data to both files and databases including popular options such as csv, Excel, Tableau TDE and SQL servers. In addition, this list is increasing all the time increasing the utility Alteryx can bring to our data pipelines.

Alteryx Output Data Tool

To output data in Alteryx we use the Output Data Tool located in the In/Out tab of the tool pallet.

Alteryx Output Data Tool

For our workflow we are simply going to output the data to an Excel file. Let’s get started.

Step 1:

Let’s begin by dragging the Output Data Tool into the workspace and connecting the input to the output of the Sort Tool.

Alteryx Add Output Data Tool

Step 2:

In the configuration window click the drop down in the “Write to File or Database” option and select “File…”.

Alteryx Output Data Tool File

Step 3:

Now navigate to where you would like to save the file (in our case we are going to save to the Desktop). Name the file “sales_report”, select “Microsoft Excel (*.xlsx)” from the Save as type dropdown and click Save.

Alteryx Save File

Step 4:

You should now be presented with pop-up asking you declare a name for the table or worksheet. This is just the name that the worksheet or tab that will be given in our Excel file that will be generated. Let’s simply name this sales_report and click OK.

Alteryx Output Data Tool Name Worksheet

Step 4:

The final step is to find the Output Options dropdown in the Data Output Tool configuration window and change this to “Overwrite Sheet (Drop)”. Selecting this option allows us to run the workflow as many times as required and the latest output will overwrite anything that is already in the Excel file.

Alteryx Output Data Tool Overwrite Worksheet

Finally let’s run the workflow. Once this has completed you should be able to see the Excel file that has been created in the location specified in the previous steps with the data from our workflow

It’s worth noting that we can add as many Output tools to our workflow as required and we can connect them to any tool in the workflow. For example we may wish to have one output tool writing to an Excel file and another writing to a Tableau TDE file to feed a dashboard.

That’s it; you’ve made it through our Learn Alteryx for Beginners tutorial. We hope you are now confident in using Alteryx to build your own workflows for processing and blending data. We’re happy to receive feedback on every our content or requests for new tutorials and you can follow us on twitter for any future updates.