Snowflake External Tables are not showing in the Alteryx Visual Query Builder tab

[gtorres8]

Environment Details

Snowflake External Tables are not showing in the Alteryx Visual Query Builder tab.


The highlighted tables are Snowflake External tables that are visible in the Tables tab.
 

The External Tables do not show up when browsing for objects in the Visual Query Builder tab.



 

• Alteryx Designer
  • Version 2020.3+
• Snowflake ODBC Drivers
  • Version 2.21.07+
• Snowflake
  • External Table objects

Cause

The query that runs in the background for the Visual Query Builder only focus to show table objects, whereas the Tables tab runs a more comprehensive query to show objects.

• Query in the Tables tab runs: 

  show objects /* ODBC:TableMetadataSource */in account

• Query in the VQB runs:

  show tables /* ODBC:TableMetadataSource */in account

Resolution

Vote "thumbs up" to the following Alteryx Designer Idea to have External Tables to be visible in the Visual Query Builder. Higher voted ideas are more likely to be considered for enhancement.

Workaround
 

Use the aid of the Tables tab to pull an initial query to pull data and/or use the Editor tab to place custom queries. For more information, please see the "How to Build Queries without using the Visual Query Builder" article.

Note
 

Writing to an External table using the Output Data tool is not supported. If trying to do so will create a normal table within Snowflake. Submit a new Alteryx Idea to have this feature in a future release of Alteryx Designer.