Similar to the post from @MarqueeCrew here: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Product-Ideas/In-Database-Update-and-or-Delete/idc-p/72744#..., there is a need to increase the ETL functionality of Alteryx to allow this to serve the needs of an enterprise BI audience.
Specifically:
- Bulk file sync. Similar to SSIS, the abilty to very quickly bring a file in a staging area up-to-date with the latest in the source
- Dimension update. Built in macros to make dimension update (especially for slowly changing dimensions) easier - these would take care of the various time-dimensions, and checking for surrogate keys - and also add in translation tables
- Central registry: register a central list of shared dimensions, shared fact tables, etc
- Symantic layer: where several teams use different identifiers for a particular concept, such as customer. By marking a particlar field as "Customer", the Alteryx engine can make more intelligent decisions about how to normalise these to a confirming dimension
- Simpler logging of ETL errors (similar to the ETL logging recommended by Kimball)
A focus on large-scale BI & ETL applications like this will really help to allow Alteryx to bridge from point solutions to a broader spectrum of opportunities in large-scale enterprise BI.
