In DB Tools - Do They Modify the Tables?

[myastarling]

Hi All,

I'm learning how to use in DB tools and found this document here to work off of: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Knowledge-Base/FAQ-How-Do-the-In-Database-tools-Wo...

What worries me is that it says that it needs read *and* write capabilities. I would like to modify a date field using a Formula In-DB tool taking the TIMESTAMP and modifying it for reporting purposes (e.g. move Saturday dates to Friday, move Sunday dates to Monday).  Is it make a change to the database table?
I can't find anywhere that says whether these tools modify the original table or now.
What are the In-DB tools actually doing? Are they modifying the data source? Are there any of these tools I need to be careful with so I don't modify the original data source?

Thanks!

[Adrian_T · Accepted solution]

Hey @myastarling,

In-DB tools do not modify your existing data unless you explicitly write your logic back into your data tables. In-DB tools serve as a visual way of pushing down queries to run in-situ your databases. (Think SQL queries on your database - they do not modify your data)

The tool you would be mindful of is the Write Data In-DB Tool which creates or updates a table directly in your database.

In your use case of modifying timestamp for reporting purposes, you would be looking at using In-DB tools to query the necessary data from your database before using a Data Stream Out Tool to stream that queried data into Alteryx to modify the timestamps and format your report through standard Alteryx tools.

Here is a good documentation on In-DB tools in Alteryx and what each tool does: https://help.alteryx.com/20221/designer/database-overview