Pulling Data from Capital IQ

Question

Hello,

To preface, I'm fairly new to using Alteryx. With that said, I currently use the Capital IQ excel plug in to import data directly into a spreadsheet. This process works fine, however, it slows and makes working in the spreadsheet very difficult. I've read up on other connectors on here but can't even begin to process the solutions.

My question is, could someone please share with me a step by step process on how to go about building this connector or if possible, what other tools I can use to directly import the data?

BrandonB · Answer

You have a couple of different options when working with something like CapIQ. Your first option avoids the need for a connector completely. You can kick off an event "before workflow run" to execute VBA code that refreshes the data in the spreadsheet to update the file prior to your workflow executing. This is a nifty little hack if you don't want to get into API calls. In fact, learning how to run VBA from an Alteryx workflow is a handy skill in general as some like to use it for conditional formatting with the final state of their data: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Knowledge-Base/Alteryx-Run-Command-Executing-Excel-Macros-VBA/ta-p/471551

The link above goes through the general concept. For the actual VBA if you don't know how to write it yourself you might want to reference what someone else has already but together on the internet for the refreshing of the sheets. Something like this will point you in the right direction: https://docplayer.net/47410076-Custom-capital-iq-macros-for-the-vba-environment.html

Now if you want to get really fancy and make an actual API call to avoid Excel spreadsheets as an input completely, you will want to start here at the Capital IQ API documentation: https://www.spglobal.com/_assets/documents/marketplace/solution-docs/spglobal_api-brochure_letter_fd.pdf

I'm not sure if your company can access the API depending on your subscription, but I would reach out to the Capital IQ support team to see if the endpoints are accessible. If they are, you can build an API call using the download tool and other required information to pass to the endpoint and return the data that you need. Here is an example of how to make an API call in Alteryx: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Knowledge-Base/APIs-in-Alteryx-cURL-and-Download-Tool/ta-p/31522

I also saw that Capital IQ provides data via Snowflake as well: https://www.marketplace.spglobal.com/en/solutions/snowflake-(983a69eb-bcae-4289-9eb5-d1c95705cc8e). I'm not sure if this is an option for you, but this is just a database connection that could be queried via an Input Data tool. Snowflake is one of our supported data sources: https://help.alteryx.com/current/designer/snowflake

Hopefully this helps point you in the right direction with a few different avenues! Happy to elaborate if needed.