Metabase MongoDB Integration: 2 Easy Methods

The process of integrating Databases with BI (Business Intelligence) tools has been gaining popularity day by day. Integration between different tools and technologies helps companies use the advantages of various tools and implement them on a single system in order to gain valuable insights from their customers. One such type of process is the Metabase MongoDB Integration.

MongoDB is a popular NoSQL database developed by MongoDB Inc. It is a source-available cross-platform document-oriented database program that uses JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)-like documents and optional schemas to store your data. Metabase is a popular open-source BI tool developed by Metabase Inc in 2014. It helps you ask questions about your data and displays that data according to your format.

In this article, you will learn how to set up Metabase MongoDB Integration. You will also get an overview of Metabase and MongoDB to better understand these technologies individually. Read along to find out how you can integrate Metabase and MongoDB for your organization.

Prerequisites

• Access to Metabase cloud or on-premise instance with an admin account
• Access to a MongoDB database
• Basic understanding of Databases and Business Intelligence tools.

What is Metabase?

What is Metabase? It’s an open-source business intelligence tool that helps users ask questions about data and visualize the results. Metabase provides an intuitive interface that allows even people unfamiliar with SQL to exploit its power. It can generate alerts and reports based and predefined configurations.

Organizations that use application databases, like MongoDB, or Data Warehouses often need to analyze the accumulated data to make business decisions. Metabase supports MongoDB natively and is an excellent choice for running analytics over MongoDB.

What is MongoDB?

MongoDB is a popular NoSQL database that can be installed as an on-premise instance or accessed via cloud instance based on subscriptions. NoSQL databases are different from relational databases in the sense that there is no hard schema. This makes them an excellent option for applications where the data attributes are not completely known beforehand or are not valid for all the rows.

MongoDB is a document-oriented database where data is stored as JSON documents. It can be scaled horizontally by using MongoDB clusters. It allows complex nested structures for storage as well as querying. Easily composable queries permit nesting to any level helping developers work with data as they do with code. The recent version of MongoDB is fully ACID compliant and even supports transactions.

To learn more about MongoDB, click this link.

Methods to Set up Metabase MongoDB Integration

There are 2 methods you can use to set up Metabase MongoDB Integration:

• Method 1: Manual Metabase MongoDB Integration
• Method 2: Using Hevo Data to Set Up Metabase MongoDB Integration

Method 1: Manual Metabase MongoDB Integration

Since MongoDB is a NoSQL database, no hard schema is followed by every row. This makes connecting a business intelligence tool tricky because most tools need schema information to make sense of the data. Metabase works around this problem by scanning the first 200 rows of every collection and deriving a schema based on that.

Setting up Metabase MongoDB Integration is simple because Metabase has native support for MongoDB. You will begin this by heading to the additional data section and following the below steps.

• In the ‘Add Your Data‘ section, select MongoDB from the drop-down list as shown below.

• Metabase will ask you for the details required to connect to your MongoDB instance. This includes the host, port, database name, username, password, etc. If you are using a MongoDB Atlas instance, ensure that you enable the DNS SRV checkbox.
• The next step is to configure parameters for the periodic data sync. Metabase allows one to schedule hourly sync and even specify the time of sync. This is shown below.

• The next step is to configure when the fitter values are synced. This is especially important in the case of MongoDB since fields can be added on the fly and Metabase may miss the additional fields and will not display them in the filter criteria. Click the ‘Regularly, on schedule’ option as below.

• Click Save changes and your connection to MongoDB is now complete.
• You can now start working with MongoDB data by clicking on ‘Ask Question’ and navigating to the database you connected as shown below.

That’s it! You have successfully set up Metabase MongoDB Integration using the manual method!

Although it was an intuitive process that was completed in a few clicks, there are some disadvantages in following this approach.

Some of the limitations of this method are:

• As mentioned earlier, the Metabase automated scanning mechanism can miss the filed changes from MongoDB since applications can add fields on the fly.
• This method only allows you to synchronize data in its original form to Metabase. It does not support transforming data before connecting to Metabase.

If any of the above-mentioned caveats are a deal-breaker for you, you can use Hevo’s No-code Data Pipelines. Check out the next method to understand how Hevo can help you integrate Metabase and MongoDB within minutes.

Method 2: Using Hevo Data to Set Up Metabase MongoDB Integration

Hevo Data, a No-code Data Pipeline, helps you directly transfer data from MongoDB and 150+ other data sources to databases, Data Warehouses, BI tools such as Metabase, or a destination of your choice in a completely hassle-free & automated manner. Hevo is fully managed and completely automates the process of not only loading data from your desired source but also enriching the data and transforming it into an analysis-ready form without having to write a single line of code. Its fault-tolerant architecture ensures that the data is handled in a secure, consistent manner with zero data loss.

Hevo takes care of all your data preprocessing needs and lets you focus on key business activities and draw a much powerful insight on how to generate more leads, retain customers, and take your business to new heights of profitability. It provides a consistent & reliable solution to manage data in real-time and always have analysis-ready data in your desired destination. 

Hevo focuses on three simple steps to set up Metabase MongoDB Integration:

• Extract: Connect Hevo with Generic MongoDB and various other data sources by simply logging in with your credentials and extract information seamlessly.
• Integrate: Consolidate your data from several sources in Hevo’s Managed Data Warehouse Platform and automatically transform it into an analysis-ready form.
• Visualize: Connect Hevo with your desired BI tool such as Metabase and easily visualize your data to gain better insights.

Check out what makes Hevo amazing

• Secure: Hevo has a fault-tolerant architecture that ensures that the data is handled in a secure, consistent manner with zero data loss.
• Schema Management: Hevo takes away the tedious task of schema management & automatically detects the schema of incoming data and maps it to the destination schema.
• Minimal Learning: Hevo, with its simple and interactive UI, is extremely simple for new customers to work on and perform operations.
• Hevo Is Built To Scale: As the number of sources and the volume of your data grows, Hevo scales horizontally, handling millions of records per minute with very little latency.
• Incremental Data Load: Hevo allows the transfer of data that has been modified in real-time. This ensures efficient utilization of bandwidth on both ends.
• Live Support: The Hevo team is available round the clock to extend exceptional support to its customers through chat, email, and support calls.
• Live Monitoring: Hevo allows you to monitor the data flow and check where your data is at a particular point in time.

Conclusion

This article gave you a step-by-step guide on setting up Metabase MongoDB Integration. It also gave you an overview of both Metabase and MongoDB along with their features. Overall, Metabase MongoDB Integration can be set up using either using the manual method or by using Hevo, but if you want to synchronize different forms of data from MongoDB to Metabase or cater to all the fields in MongoDB, using automated data platforms like Hevo can help you to set up Metabase MongoDB Integration seamlessly!

In case you want to integrate data from data sources like Generic MongoDB into your desired Database/destination and seamlessly visualize it in a BI tool of your choice like Metabase, then Hevo Data is the right choice for you! It will help simplify the ETL and management process of both the data sources and destinations.

Want to take Hevo for a spin? Sign up here for a 14-day free trial and experience the feature-rich Hevo suite first hand.

Share your experience of setting up Metabase MongoDB Integration in the comments section below.