Book Image

Data Engineering with Alteryx

By : Paul Houghton
Book Image

Data Engineering with Alteryx

By: Paul Houghton

Overview of this book

Alteryx is a GUI-based development platform for data analytic applications. Data Engineering with Alteryx will help you leverage Alteryx’s code-free aspects which increase development speed while still enabling you to make the most of the code-based skills you have. This book will teach you the principles of DataOps and how they can be used with the Alteryx software stack. You’ll build data pipelines with Alteryx Designer and incorporate the error handling and data validation needed for reliable datasets. Next, you’ll take the data pipeline from raw data, transform it into a robust dataset, and publish it to Alteryx Server following a continuous integration process. By the end of this Alteryx book, you’ll be able to build systems for validating datasets, monitoring workflow performance, managing access, and promoting the use of your data sources.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
1
Part 1: Introduction
5
Part 2: Functional Steps in DataOps
11
Part 3: Governance of DataOps

Accessing more data sources with custom connections

When outputting your data, you may want to save it in a web application. Usually, this is not possible with file output or ODBC connections. If the web application does have an API, there is the option to load data by calling the API directly. You can use some of the skills mentioned in Chapter 4, Sourcing the Data, using the POST HTTP verb.

For many web services, such as Google Sheets and Tableau Server, Alteryx has created custom connectors for interacting with these services. Below is a screenshot of Alteryx Gallery, a community collection of Alteryx-curated connections:

Figure 6.8 – The Browse by Category pane of the Alteryx Community Gallery page

On the Alteryx Community Gallery page, the top section shows the featured tools created by the community. Below that, and identified by box 1 in the screenshot, is a series of links to curated tool categories. By selecting the Data Connectors link in...