Connect to any REST API from Alteryx without writing any code

Introduction

Alteryx is a self-service data analytics platform that can help you to prepare/clean, blend, enrich and analyze data at scale. For a data analytics platform like Alteryx, the first step in your workflow is getting the data from different data sources. With the API economy at an all-time high, one can find themselves having their data accessible only via REST API. Unfortunately, connecting to REST API can be a bit tricky, requiring you to invest time and coding to connect to it. With Progress DataDirect Autonomous REST Connector for ODBC, you will be able to connect to any REST API from Alteryx without writing code. Point the Autonomous REST Connector towards the endpoint, set your Authentication and you will be able to access the data in the REST API by running SQL queries from Alteryx.

In this tutorial, we will walk you through on how you can connect to a REST API from Alteryx, to be specific AlphaVantage API, which provides you with real-time and historical stock data.

Download and Install Autonomous REST ODBC Connector

Download and install the Autonomous REST Connector for ODBC. We recommend you download the 64-bit version.
Install the connector by running the setup executable file on your machine.
After you have finished installation, you should find the Autonomous REST connector at the below default path, unless you have chosen to install it at a different location.

Configure Autonomous REST Connector for ODBC

Before we configure the REST connector, copy the configuration below and save it as AlphaVantage.rest

{

"StockIntraday":"https://www.alphavantage.co/query?function=TIME_SERIES_INTRADAY&symbol=MSFT&interval=5min&outputsize=full",

"StockDaily":"https://www.alphavantage.co/query?function=TIME_SERIES_DAILY&symbol=MSFT&outputsize=full",

"StockWeekly":"https://www.alphavantage.co/query?function=TIME_SERIES_WEEKLY&symbol=MSFT",

"StockMonthly":"https://www.alphavantage.co/query?function=TIME_SERIES_MONTHLY&symbol=MSFT",

"StockSearchSymbol":"https://www.alphavantage.co/query?function=SYMBOL_SEARCH&keywords=sony"

}
Now, go to the Alphavantage website and get your API key.
Open ODBC Administrator (64-bit) and click on Add. Choose the driver DataDirect Autonomous REST Connector.
Enter a datasource name and for REST config file, browse and locate the AlphaVantage.rest file as shown below.
Go to Authentication tab, set the below:
1. Authentication Method: UrlParameter
2. Auth Param: apikey
3. Security Token: <Alphavantage API Key>
Click on Test Connect and you should be able to connect to the API.

Importing REST API data in Alteryx

In Alteryx, drag Input Data in to the workflow. In the configuration, go to the Data sources tab and choose Generic ODBC and click on ODBC.
Choose the AlphaVantage ODBC Connection in the window as shown below.
Choose a table, for this tutorial you can choose Timeseries5min which has stock data for MSF in a 5 minute interval.
Once you have the data, you can build your rest of workflow to clean, transform, enrich the data, and create your reports.

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