Connections

Using Connections, you can perform live queries on external databases.

If your company stores source data externally in data warehouses, you can use ThoughtSpot Connections to directly query that data and use ThoughtSpot’s analysis and visualization features, without moving the data into ThoughtSpot.

You can establish direct connections to the following external databases:

Amazon Redshift logo
Azure Synapse logo
Databricks logo
Denodo logo
Dremio logo
Google BigQuery logo
Oracle logo
PostgreSQL logo
Presto logo
SAP HANA logo
Snowflake logo
Starburst logo
Teradata logo
Trino logo

How it works

You create a connection to the external database, choosing the columns from each table that you want to explore in your live query. Primary key and foreign key relationships are imported along with the primary and foreign key tables. If there are any joins in the tables of your connection, they are also imported. After your connection is complete, it becomes a linked data source in ThoughtSpot that allows you to query the external database directly. It’s easy to apply transformations and filter the data also.

Users with can manage data or admin privileges can now 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.

Key benefits

  • Set up and deploy ThoughtSpot faster by connecting directly to the external database.

  • Eliminate the need to move data into ThoughtSpot for analysis.

  • Centralize data management and governance in the external database.

  • Save significant time and money by avoiding ETL pipelines.

  • Connect to multiple external databases.

Limitations

ThoughtSpot does not support joins across connections.

Feature availability

The following matrix compares the features that are available in our internal high-performance database, Falcon, and the ones available through Connections:

Feature Name Falcon Connections

Simple Search and Complex searches: Versus, Inline Subquerying, Growth

Search Suggestions for column names and values

Headlines that summarize tables

All chart types and configurations

Spot IQ: Analyze

Table and Column remapping through TML files

Custom calendar

Materialized view

Additional specific exceptions

The following list captures the specific limitations across the different databases supported through Connections. Databases not listed here have full support.

General for all databases
Sample values

ThoughtSpot does not internationalize sample values in tables.

Google BigQuery
Join support

Google BigQuery does not support PK-FK joins. Therefore, when using Connections, you must create joins explicitly in ThoughtSpot.

Partitioned tables

When running a query on a partitioned table with the Require partition filter option enabled, you must specify the WHERE clause. Without a WHERE clause specified, queries generate an error. To ensure that the query on such tables honors the partition condition, you must create a worksheet filter in ThoughtSpot.

Azure Synapse

Azure Synapse supports up to 10 IF THEN ELSE statements in a single query.

Azure Synapse does not support foreign keys, so no PK-FK joins can be defined in Synapse.

Teradata

Teradata does not support the function AGGREGATE_DISTINCT.

Teradata does not support the following data types: JSON, INTERVAL, VARBYTE, BLOB, CLOB, PERIOD, XML, GEOSPATIAL.

SAP HANA

SAP HANA does not support the following functions: PERCENTILE, AGGREGATE_DISTINCT, SPELLS_LIKE, EDIT_DISTANCE.

SAP HANA does not support the following data types: BLOB, CLOB, NCLOB, TEXT, POINT.

SAP HANA does not support calculation views with mandatory input parameters. If you need to use calculation views in ThoughtSpot, you must remove the mandatory parameter requirement.

Next steps


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