Alteryx Training: How to Export Data to Excel

Alteryx is a powerful tool for data preparation and analytics. With Alteryx, you can connect to various data sources, clean and transform data, and perform analysis.

Once your data prep is complete in Alteryx, you'll often want to export the output to Excel for additional analysis and reporting. Excel provides robust charting and visualization capabilities that complement Alteryx.

In this guide, you'll learn how to seamlessly export Alteryx data to Excel during your Alteryx training. This guide is part of JBI Trainings Alteryx Course

 

Overview of Exporting Alteryx Data to Excel

Exporting data from Alteryx to Excel provides several benefits:

• Perform further analysis like pivot tables, charts and dashboards in Excel
• Tap into Excel's visualization capabilities
• Easily share data with colleagues and stakeholders who use Excel
• Schedule and automate the export process using Alteryx workflows

The key steps to export Alteryx data to Excel are:

1. Prepare and output data in Alteryx Designer
2. Configure export settings like file name, type
3. Map fields from Alteryx to Excel
4. Run workflow to generate Excel file
5. Analyze in Excel using charts, pivots etc.

Now let's look at each step in more detail with examples.

Step 1 - Prepare Data in Alteryx

First, you need to get your data into the required shape and structure in Alteryx.

As an example, here are some key data preparation tasks you might perform:

• Connect to data sources like CSV file or database
• Cleanse, validate and transform data as needed
• Add calculations, custom formulas
• Join data from multiple sources
• Aggregate data to the required level

Your data is now ready to be exported.

Data preparation in Alteryx before export

Step 2 - Configure Export Settings

Next, you need to configure where and how to export the data. This is handled by Alteryx's Output Data tool:

• Set the output location as a new Excel file
• Specify the file name and path
• Choose file type as Excel Workbook

You can also parameterize the file name and path to make them dynamic.

Configuring Excel export settings in the Output Data tool

Step 3 - Map Fields to Excel

Next, you need to map the data fields from your Alteryx workflow to the Excel output:

• Connect the Excel output file to the Alteryx workflow
• Select the worksheet you want to output to
• Map the data fields from Alteryx to the desired columns in the Excel sheet
• Optionally toggle whether to include headers

This will ensure the data aligns properly when exported.

Mapping data fields from Alteryx to Excel

Step 4 - Run Workflow to Export

With the export configuration in place, running your Alteryx workflow will generate the Excel output.

To export the data:

• Validate the workflow to check for errors
• Run the workflow
• Verify that the Excel file is created as expected
• Open the file to inspect the exported data

Running the Alteryx workflow to export data to Excel

Step 5 - Analyze in Excel

With your data now in Excel, the real fun begins!

Perform further analysis like:

• Charts - Create charts to visualize trends
• Pivot tables - Summarize and group data
• Dashboards - Build interactive reports
• Formatting - Apply custom styles and formatting

This enables in-depth analysis beyond just Alteryx.

Further data analysis and reporting in Excel

Recap and Next Steps

Let's do a quick recap of the end-to-end process:

1. Prepare data in Alteryx
2. Set up export configuration
3. Map fields from Alteryx to Excel
4. Run workflow to generate Excel file
5. Analyze further in Excel

By following these steps, you can seamlessly integrate Alteryx and Excel to get the best of both worlds.

Some tips for effective Alteryx to Excel exports:

• Only export the fields you need to avoid large files
• Parameterize configurations to make it reusable
• Automate export workflow with schedules

Next up, dive deeper into Excel analytics, create insightful visualizations and share with stakeholders!

FAQs

How do I export large volumes of data from Alteryx to Excel?

For large data volumes, best practice is to summarize or aggregate in Alteryx before exporting to avoid slow Excel performance. You can also split across multiple Excel files.

What are the pros and cons of exporting from Alteryx vs Excel output?

Excel output allows dynamic file naming and sheet handling but requires an intermediate CSV. Direct Excel export avoids the CSV step but has less flexibility.

How can I customize the Excel formats, styles and layouts when exporting from Alteryx?

You can create a template Excel file with styles, and then point your Alteryx workflow to output to that file. This will apply the formatting.

What is the maximum number of rows Alteryx can export to Excel?

Alteryx allows export of up to 1,048,576 rows per worksheet. You may hit other Excel limits based on file size before the row limit.

Summary

Exporting Alteryx data to Excel enables powerful analytic capabilities through both platforms. Follow the steps to output, configure, map, run and analyze.

Now you have a solid framework to export Alteryx data to Excel! If you found this article useful you might like to read the following articles or consider training in one of our courses. 

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