Prepare, Blend, and Analyze Snowflake Data in Alteryx Designer (Connect Cloud)


Build workflows to access live Snowflake data for self-service data analytics.

Alteryx is a software platform that allows people to work with data more easily. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, Alteryx provides instant access to Snowflake data from your data automation processes. This article demonstrates how to connect to Snowflake using Connect Cloud and work with Snowflake data in Alteryx.

CData Connect Cloud offers a dedicated SQL Server interface for Snowflake, facilitating data querying without the need for data replication to a native database. With built-in optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect Cloud efficiently directs all supported SQL operations, including filters and JOINs, straight to Snowflake. This harnesses server-side processing to rapidly retrieve the desired Snowflake data.

About Snowflake Data Integration

CData simplifies access and integration of live Snowflake data. Our customers leverage CData connectivity to:

  • Reads and write Snowflake data quickly and efficiently.
  • Dynamically obtain metadata for the specified Warehouse, Database, and Schema.
  • Authenticate in a variety of ways, including OAuth, OKTA, Azure AD, Azure Managed Service Identity, PingFederate, private key, and more.

Many CData users use CData solutions to access Snowflake from their preferred tools and applications, and replicate data from their disparate systems into Snowflake for comprehensive warehousing and analytics.

For more information on integrating Snowflake with CData solutions, refer to our blog: https://www.cdata.com/blog/snowflake-integrations.


Getting Started


Configure Snowflake Connectivity for Alteryx

Connectivity to Snowflake from Alteryx is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Snowflake data from Alteryx, we start by creating and configuring a Snowflake connection.

  1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
  2. Select "Snowflake" from the Add Connection panel
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Snowflake.

    To connect to Snowflake:

    1. Set User and Password to your Snowflake credentials and set the AuthScheme property to PASSWORD or OKTA.
    2. Set URL to the URL of the Snowflake instance (i.e.: https://myaccount.snowflakecomputing.com).
    3. Set Warehouse to the Snowflake warehouse.
    4. (Optional) Set Account to your Snowflake account if your URL does not conform to the format above.
    5. (Optional) Set Database and Schema to restrict the tables and views exposed.

    See the Getting Started guide in the CData driver documentation for more information.

  4. Click Create & Test
  5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Snowflake Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect Cloud through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect Cloud. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

  1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect Cloud app to open the settings page.
  2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
  3. Give the PAT a name and click Create.
  4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to Snowflake data from Alteryx.

Connect to Snowflake from Alteryx

To establish a connection from Alteryx Desktop to the CData Connect Cloud Virtual SQL Server, follow these steps:

  1. Set up an account in Alteryx.
  2. Drag and drop a new Input Data tool onto the workflow.
  3. While the Input Data tool is selected, click Set Up a Connection in the navigation panel. A Data connections dialog appears.
  4. Click Data sources. Select Microsoft SQL Server > **Quick connect.
  5. In the Connection Manager dialog, click New.
  6. In the New Data Source dialog, enter the following information:
    • Data Source Name: Microsoft SQL Server ODBC DSN-less.
    • Driver: select ODBC Driver 18 for SQL Server from the drop-down list.
    • Server: tds.cdata.com,14333
    • Database: enter the Connection Name of the CData Connect Cloud data source you want to connect to (for example, Snowflake1).
  7. Click Save. Then click Connect Credential.
  8. In Connections, enter the following:
    • Authentication Method: select Username and password.
    • Credential: select Create New Credential.
    • Credential Name: enter a name to identify the credential.
    • Username: enter your CData Connect Cloud username. This is displayed in the top-right corner of the CData Connect Cloud interface. For example, [email protected].
    • Password: enter the PAT you generated on the Settings page.
  9. Click Test Connection. If successful, click Create and link.
  10. Connect with your credentials.
  11. In the wizard that opens, drag and drop the table to be queried in the Query Builder box. Select the fields by checking the boxes that you want to include in your query. Where possible, the complex queries generated by the filters and aggregations will be pushed down to your data source, while any unsupported operations (which can include SQL functions and JOIN operations) will be managed client-side by the CData SQL engine embedded in the connector.
  12. To further customize the dataset, you can open the SQL Editor and modify the query manually, adding clauses, aggregations, and other operations to ensure that you are retrieving exactly the data desired.

  13. With the query defined, you are ready to work with your data in Alteryx Designer.

Get CData Connect Cloud

To get live data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your SQL Server database, try CData Connect Cloud today!

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Learn more about CData Connect Cloud or sign up for free trial access:

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