During my time with Alteryx, I've largely been able to accomplish all of my data processing jobs using the in-database toolset.
One exception is when it comes to window functions/multi-row formulas. When window functionality is needed, an Alteryx approach ends up looking something like this:
- Stream data out of database to an intermediate table
- Run a pre-written window function over dataset
- Store results into another intermediate table
- Load intermediate table into separate Alteryx workflow to continue further processing
While it may be possible to use a self-join as a workaround, it results in a bottlenecked, inefficient process. The same could be said for streaming the dataset out of database to use the non-in-database multi-row formula built in to Alteryx.
If anyone knows of an existing solution, please let me know - otherwise I believe many users would greatly benefit from this added functionality.