Ready to get started?

Learn more about the CData ODBC Driver for Active Directory or download a free trial:

Download Now

Prepare, Blend, and Analyze Active Directory Data in Alteryx Designer

Build workflows to access live Active Directory data for self-service data analytics.

The CData ODBC Driver for Active Directory enables access to live data from Active Directory under the ODBC standard, allowing you work with Active Directory data in a wide variety of BI, reporting, and ETL tools and directly, using familiar SQL queries. This article shows how to connect to Active Directory data using an ODBC connection in Alteryx Designer to perform self-service BI, data preparation, data blending, and advanced analytics.

The CData ODBC drivers offer unmatched performance for interacting with live Active Directory data in Alteryx Designer due to optimized data processing built into the driver. When you issue complex SQL queries from Alteryx Designer to Active Directory, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Active Directory and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations (often SQL functions and JOIN operations) client-side. With built-in dynamic metadata querying, you can visualize and analyze Active Directory data using native Alteryx data field types.

Connect to Active Directory Data


    To establish a connection, set the following properties:




  2. Open Alteryx Designer and create a new workflow.
  3. Drag and drop a new input data tool onto the workflow.
  4. Click the new input data tool and under Connect a File or Database, select Database Connection -> New ODBC Connection.
  5. Select the DSN that you configured for use in Alteryx.
  6. In the wizard that opens, select the fields you wish to include in your query. Where possible, the complex queries generated by the filters and aggregations will be pushed down to Active Directory, while any unsupported operations (which can include SQL functions and JOIN operations) will be managed client-side by the CData SQL engine embedded in the driver.
  7. If you wish to further customize your dataset, you can open the SQL Editor and modify the query manually, adding clauses, aggregations, and other operations to ensure that you are retrieving exactly the Active Directory data you want.

With the query defined, you are ready to work with Active Directory data in Alteryx Designer.

Perform Self-Service Analytics on Active Directory Data

You are now ready to create a workflow to prepare, blend, and analyze Active Directory data. The CData ODBC Driver performs dynamic metadata discovery, presenting data using Alteryx data field types and allowing you to leverage the Designer's tools to manipulate data as needed and build meaningful datasets. In the example below, you will cleanse and browse data.

  1. Add a data cleansing tool to the workflow and check the boxes in Replace Nulls to replace null text fields with blanks and replace null numeric fields with 0. You can also check the box in Remove Unwanted Characters to remove leading and trailing whitespace.
  2. Add a browse data tool to the workflow.
  3. Click to run the workflow (CTRL+R).
  4. Browse your cleansed Active Directory data in the results view.

Thanks to built-in, high-performance data processing, you will be able to quickly cleanse, transform, and/or analyze your Active Directory data with Alteryx.