Add a BigQuery connection

Before you can create a connection, you must create a custom role. For more information, see Prerequisites.

To connect to BigQuery:

  1. Select Data in the top navigation bar.

  2. Click the Connections tab in the left navigation bar, and select the BigQuery tile. Alternatively, select + Create new in the left navigation bar, select Connection, and select the BigQuery tile.

  3. Create a name for your connection and a description (optional), then select Continue.

    Add a GBQ connection

  4. Enter the connection details for your BigQuery data source using either OAuth or service account authentication.

    For OAuth authentication, do the following:

    1. Enter Project id, OAuth Client ID, and OAuth Client Secret.

      Enter connection details

    2. If you wish to provide the optional additional key-value pairs for your BigQuery connection, complete the procedure in step 5, and then select Continue. If not, select Continue.

    3. At the Google account sign-in screen, select your Google account.

    4. Allow thoughtspot.com access to your Google account by selecting Allow, and then go to step 7 to select tables for your connection.

      Using security passthrough may have implications for your Row-Level Security. See About row-level security (RLS) for more information.

    For service account authentication, do the following:

    • Enter Project id, and Service account.

      Enter connection details

      Refer to the BigQuery connection reference for more information on each of the specific attributes you must enter for your connection.

  5. (Optional) Provide additional key-value pairs that you need to set up your connection to BigQuery or customize additional JDBC parameters supported by BigQuery, by doing the following:

    1. Select the Advanced Config menu to reveal the Key and Value fields.

    2. Enter your key and value information. Refer to the GBQ JDBC documentation.

    3. To add more keys and values, select the plus sign (+), and enter them.

    Any key-value pairs that you enter must be defined in your BigQuery data source. Key-value pairs are case-sensitive.

  6. If you are connecting to GBQ using a Bridge connector, enter the following key-value pair under Advanced Config.

    • For Key, enter bridgeToken.

    • For Value, enter your bridge token value.

    The Bridge connector for BigQuery is off by default. To enable this feature, contact ThoughtSpot Support. ThoughtSpot Support will provide you with the bridge token, token secret, and "host:port" of the bridge public load balancer for your cluster. To use the Bridge connector for BigQuery, you must run a Bridge Client on a network connected to your BigQuery database.

  7. Select Continue.

  8. Select tables (on the left) and the columns from each table (on the right), and then select Create connection.

    Select tables and columns for your connection

    A message appears indicating the number of tables and columns that will be added to your connection.

  9. Select Create.

    Once the connection is added, you can search your BiqQuery database right away by selecting Search now.

    The "Connection created" screen

    Your new connection appears on the Data > Connections page. Select the name of your connection to view the tables and columns in your connection.

The connection you just created is a link to the external data source. If there are any joins in the selected tables of the external data source, those are imported into ThoughtSpot.

You can now perform a live query on the selected tables and columns of your connection. Because the selected tables and columns in your connection are linked, it may take a while to initially render the search results. This is because ThoughtSpot does not cache linked data. With linked data, ThoughtSpot queries the external database directly, which is slower than querying data that is stored in ThoughtSpot’s database.

You can modify a BigQuery connection in the following ways:

You can also Delete a BigQuery connection.

See the Connection reference for details of connection parameters.

Share a connection

Users with can manage data or admin privileges can share connections with other users or groups that have can manage data privileges. Once granted access to a connection, users can add, remove, and modify tables in that connection.

To share a connection with another user, follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to the Data tab and select Connections.

  2. Select the checkbox next to the name of the connection you want to share, and click Share.

  3. In the Share connection dialog, enter the ID of the user or group you want to share the connection with. You can use the search bar to find the user or group.

  4. Select Done.

Note that to remove share access from a connection, you must navigate to the Share connection dialog and select Remove access to the left of the user group or name.

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