Prepare, Blend, and Analyze Blackbaud FE NXT Data in Alteryx Designer

Alteryx is a software platform that allows people to work with data more easily. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, Alteryx provides instant access to Blackbaud FE NXT data from your data automation processes. This article demonstrates how to connect to Blackbaud FE NXT using Connect Cloud and work with Blackbaud FE NXT data in Alteryx.

CData Connect Cloud offers a dedicated SQL Server interface for Blackbaud FE NXT, facilitating data querying without the need for data replication to a native database. With built-in optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect Cloud efficiently directs all supported SQL operations, including filters and JOINs, straight to Blackbaud FE NXT. This harnesses server-side processing to rapidly retrieve the desired Blackbaud FE NXT data.

Configure Blackbaud FE NXT Connectivity for Alteryx

Connectivity to Blackbaud FE NXT from Alteryx is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Blackbaud FE NXT data from Alteryx, we start by creating and configuring a Blackbaud FE NXT connection.

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
2. Select "Blackbaud FE NXT" from the Add Connection panel
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Blackbaud FE NXT.

   Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate using OAuth, you will need to create an app to obtain the OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL connection properties.

   See the Getting Started guide in the CData driver documentation for more information.

4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Blackbaud FE NXT Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Connect to Blackbaud FE NXT from Alteryx

Once you establish a connection to Blackbaud FE NXT in Connect Cloud, you are ready to work with Blackbaud FE NXT data in Alteryx. To begin, download the ODBC Driver for CData Connect.

1. In the ODBC Driver for CData Connect, select OAuth and click Test Connection. Then enter your CData Connect Cloud Credentials and Sign in.
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 to the end of the page and click on ODBC under Generic connection.
6. Select the DSN 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 your data source, 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.

To further customize the 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 data desired.

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

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