Connecting to Sharepoint files (not lists)

[sm7746]

Hi, 

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

1. Everyone knows the world is increasingly heading towards cloud platforms (Amazon, Google, Azure)
2. Everyone knows the existing Sharepoint tools within Alteryx only work with Lists, not files. 
3. 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.  
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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:  

1. Does anyone have a more permanent workaround that doesn't involve making the username within the path dynamic?
2. 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. 

[Maskell_Rascal]

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-...

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

[sm7746]

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.  

[amilkar0417]

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.