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Engine Works

Under the hood of Alteryx: tips, tricks and how-tos.
LindaT
Alteryx
Alteryx

Input/Output Tools:

For the next release of Alteryx, I have been creating a new option for ODBC Spatial Connections. This will allow spatial objects to be added and retrieved from Netezza 4.5, SQL Server 2008, and eventually DB2 Spatial.

 

The Oracle Spatial Connection will be renamed to the Oracle OCI Connection. OCI stands for Oracle Call Interface, which is the native Oracle connection API. The reason for this is that I have expanded the current functionality to include ALL tables spatial and non-spatial. This means that there is no need to have one connection for spatial data and a separate connection for non-spatial data. The Properties choices are now the same as the current OLE DB and ODBC connections giving a consistent look and feel to all of the relational database connection types. This also gives users a single interface to retrieve their Oracle data from. The OCI connection should be the fastest option for data retrieval for Oracle users.

 

SpatialMatch/FindNearest Tools:

Because of these new additions we are also able to add new options in the Universe "Use Records from File" Browse of the SpatialMatch and FindNearest tool. The ODBC Spatial Connections will allow access to Netezza 4.5 and SQL Server 2008. The Oracle Spatial Connection will allow access to Oracle through an OCI connection and the MapInfo Table (*.tab) files are now included in the list of file types.

 

How will this help?

 

This allows the user to input a query to the native database just like the Input Tool and allows Alteryx to add a spatial filter to help reduce the number of records returned using the native databases spatial index or retrieval strategies.

 

How to get the best performance:

 

The spatial objects from the Target side are temporarily added to the Netezza and SQL Server database for comparison. So it is important that the fewest number of records should be on the Target side. It is also important that a Spatial Index exists on the SQL Server table. No index is required for Netezza.

 

- Linda