Prepare, Blend, and Analyze HCL Domino Data in Alteryx Designer

The CData ODBC driver for HCL Domino enables access to live data from HCL Domino under the ODBC standard, allowing you work with HCL Domino data in a wide variety of BI, reporting, and ETL tools and directly, using familiar SQL queries. This article shows how to connect to HCL Domino 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 HCL Domino data in Alteryx Designer due to optimized data processing built into the driver. When you issue complex SQL queries from Alteryx Designer to HCL Domino, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to HCL Domino 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 HCL Domino data using native Alteryx data field types.

Connect to HCL Domino Data

1. 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.
   
   

   Connecting to Domino

   To connect to Domino data, set the following properties:

   • URL: The host name or IP of the server hosting the Domino database. Include the port of the server hosting the Domino database. For example: http://sampleserver:1234/
   • DatabaseScope: The name of a scope in the Domino Web UI. The driver exposes forms and views for the schema governed by the specified scope. In the Domino Admin UI, select the Scopes menu in the sidebar. Set this property to the name of an existing scope.

   Authenticating with Domino

   Domino supports authenticating via login credentials or an Azure Active Directory OAuth application:

   Login Credentials

   To authenticate with login credentials, set the following properties:

   • AuthScheme: Set this to "OAuthPassword"
   • User: The username of the authenticating Domino user
   • Password: The password associated with the authenticating Domino user

   The driver uses the login credentials to automatically perform an OAuth token exchange.

   AzureAD

   This authentication method uses Azure Active Directory as an IdP to obtain a JWT token. You need to create a custom OAuth application in Azure Active Directory and configure it as an IdP. To do so, follow the instructions in the Help documentation. Then set the following properties:

   • AuthScheme: Set this to "AzureAD"
   • InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to avoid repeating the OAuth exchange and manually setting the OAuthAccessToken.
   • OAuthClientId: The Client ID obtained when setting up the custom OAuth application.
   • OAuthClientSecret: The Client secret obtained when setting up the custom OAuth application.
   • CallbackURL: The redirect URI defined when you registered your app. For example: https://localhost:33333
   • AzureTenant: The Microsoft Online tenant being used to access data. Supply either a value in the form companyname.microsoft.com or the tenant ID.

     The tenant ID is the same as the directory ID shown in the Azure Portal's Azure Active Directory > Properties page.

   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.

2. Open Alteryx Designer and create a new workflow.
3. Drag and drop a new input data tool onto the workflow.
4. Click the drop down under Connect a File or Database and select the Data sources tab.
5. Navigate tot he end of the page and click on "ODBC" under "Generic connection"
6. Select the DSN (CData HCL Domino Source) that you configured for use in Alteryx.
7. 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 HCL Domino, 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 HCL Domino data you want .

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

Perform Self-Service Analytics on HCL Domino Data

You are now ready to create a workflow to prepare, blend, and analyze HCL Domino 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 HCL Domino 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 HCL Domino data with Alteryx.