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Get the Report →Prepare, Blend, and Analyze NetSuite Data in Alteryx Designer
Build workflows to access live NetSuite data for self-service data analytics.
The CData ODBC driver for NetSuite enables access to live data from NetSuite under the ODBC standard, allowing you work with NetSuite data in a wide variety of BI, reporting, and ETL tools and directly, using familiar SQL queries. This article shows how to connect to NetSuite 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 NetSuite data in Alteryx Designer due to optimized data processing built into the driver. When you issue complex SQL queries from Alteryx Designer to NetSuite, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to NetSuite 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 NetSuite data using native Alteryx data field types.
About NetSuite Data Integration
CData provides the easiest way to access and integrate live data from Oracle NetSuite. Customers use CData connectivity to:
- Access all editions of NetSuite, including Standard, CRM, and OneWorld.
- Connect with all versions of the SuiteTalk API (SOAP-based) and SuiteQL, which functions like SQL, enabling easier data querying and manipulation.
- Access predefined and custom reports through support for Saved Searches.
- Securely authenticate with Token-based and OAuth 2.0, ensuring compatibility and security for all use cases.
- Use SQL stored procedures to perform functional actions like uploading or downloading files, attaching or detaching records or relationships, retrieving roles, getting extra table or column info, getting job results, and more.
Customers use CData solutions to access live NetSuite data from their preferred analytics tools, Power BI and Excel. They also use CData's solutions to integrate their NetSuite data into comprehensive databases and data warehouse using CData Sync directly or leveraging CData's compatibility with other applications like Azure Data Factory. CData also helps Oracle NetSuite customers easily write apps that can pull data from and push data to NetSuite, allowing organizations to integrate data from other sources with NetSuite.
For more information about our Oracle NetSuite solutions, read our blog: Drivers in Focus Part 2: Replicating and Consolidating ... NetSuite Accounting Data.
Getting Started
Connect to NetSuite Data
- If you have not already done so, provide values for the required connection properties in the data source name (DSN). You can configure the DSN using the built-in Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator. This is also the last step of the driver installation. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the Help documentation for a guide to using the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure a DSN.
The User and Password properties, under the Authentication section, must be set to valid NetSuite user credentials. In addition, the AccountId must be set to the ID of a company account that can be used by the specified User. The RoleId can be optionally specified to log in the user with limited permissions.
See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for more information on connecting to NetSuite.
When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.
- Open Alteryx Designer and create a new workflow.
- Drag and drop a new input data tool onto the workflow.
- Click the drop down under Connect a File or Database and select the Data sources tab.
- Navigate tot he end of the page and click on "ODBC" under "Generic connection"
- Select the DSN (CData NetSuite Source) that you configured for use in Alteryx.
- In the wizard that opens, drag, and drop the table to be queried in the "Query Builder box." Select the fields by checking the boxes that you wish to include in your query. Where possible, the complex queries generated by the filters and aggregations will be pushed down to NetSuite, 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 connector.
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 NetSuite data you want .
With the query defined, you are ready to work with NetSuite data in Alteryx Designer.
Perform Self-Service Analytics on NetSuite Data
You are now ready to create a workflow to prepare, blend, and analyze NetSuite 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.
- 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.
- Add a browse data tool to the workflow.
- Click to run the workflow (CTRL+R).
- Browse your cleansed NetSuite 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 NetSuite data with Alteryx.