Connecting to Sharepoint files (not lists)

Question

Hi,

I am writing this post partly to start a discussion, and hopefully get some input from an Alteryx moderator.

* Everyone knows the world is increasingly heading towards cloud platforms (Amazon, Google, Azure)
* Everyone knows the existing Sharepoint tools within Alteryx only work with Lists, not files. 
* A quick search of Community shows users require ability to work with files. Without looking too hard, I came across this post dating back to November 2016, ie more than 4 years ago.  
* Some work arounds exist, e.g the solution to this post provided by @T_Willins and his follow up posts on the same thread relating to syncing OneDrive to your local machine.
* The main issue with syncing OneDrive is the path includes the logged on user. Unless the username is made dynamic, I can't quickly run another user's workflow.
* Making the username dynamic is possible but it would have to be done for every workflow in every tool that contains a filepath, which is a lot of extra effort.

So my questions:

* Does anyone have a more permanent workaround that doesn't involve making the username within the path dynamic?
* What is Alteryx doing about fixing this so workarounds are not required?? I repeat from above, users have been looking for solutions for at least 4 years and the world is only heading in one direction (towards the cloud). A friend referred me to KNIME Analytics Platform yesterday - in December 2020, they introduced a new file handling framework (it was previously available as a Laboratory tool), which contains connectors to all major cloud platforms including Azure / Sharepoint

I have used Alteryx for 4+ years. Right now I am exploring KNIME further b/c it does a better job of interacting with Sharepoint. I would rather be working with Alteryx than starting with a new tool from scratch.

amilkar0417 · Answer

Sometimes it looks like Alteryx is trying so hard to stay ahead in the game in aspects such as advanced machine learning, that they overlook basic aspects that have a much bigger impact in the day-to-day activities of most people using Alteryx.

sm7746 · Answer

Hey @Maskell_Rascal

Thanks for the reply.

Alteryx is lagging its competitors in this regard & unfortunately it seems I am the only one that considers this a big issue.

Maskell_Rascal · Answer

Hey @sm7746

Here is a similar topic about connecting to a SharePoint: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Unable-to-read-the-files-from-the-sub-folders-of-List-using/m-p/731469#M173604

There is currently no way to connect to SharePoint without either the complicated workaround as you call out from T Willins, or you would need to sync the SharePoint folder to your desktop as I outlined in the link provided.

If you save the workflows out on the SharePoint and make the inputs/outputs dynamic, then anyone with access and a linked SharePoint folder would be able to open and run them.

Thanks!

Phil