How to Setup ThoughtSpot Snowflake Integration: 8 Easy Steps

Many organizations are moving their data from Traditional Data Warehouses to Cloud Data warehouses. This makes it easy for the organization members to access their data anytime they want regardless of their location. Cloud Data Warehouses are also flexible as they can scale well with your growing storage needs. They also offer adequate security for your sensitive data.

Snowflake is a Data Warehousing platform built specifically for the cloud. It supports both structured and semi-structured data, scales well, and supports secure data sharing. Snowflake can become easier to use when integrated with a platform such as ThoughtSpot, a Data Analytics tool. ThoughtSpot helps individuals to get answers to their questions from data using a Google-like search interface. A ThoughtSpot Snowflake integration will help you to query your Snowflake tables from ThoughtSpot. In this article, you will learn how to effectively set up a ThoughtSpot Snowflake Integration.

What is Snowflake?

Snowflake is a Data Warehouse-as-a-Service Platform developed for the cloud. It has a data architecture that uses the scalable, elastic Azure Blobs Storage as the internal storage engine, and Azure Data Lake for storage of unstructured, structured, and on-premise data ingested via the Azure Data Factory. 

Snowflake provides security and protection of data using Amazon S3 Policy Controls, SSO, Azure SAS tokens, and Google Cloud Storage access permissions. Thus, when you use a Snowflake data warehouse to store your data, you will enjoy scalability, security etc.

What is ThoughtSpot?

ThoughtSpot is a Search and AI-driven Data Analytics platform. It provides its users with a search box like the one provided by Google or Bing where they can type their questions and get precise answers. It also provides its users with different types of visualizations that they can use to analyze data, build dashboards, and generate reports without depending on IT. 

It has a powerful search feature that gives users easy and faster access to insights. It uses AI to discover hidden insights from your data. It also has a search-based analytics feature powered by Natural Language Processing (NLP).

What are the key features of ThoughtSpot?

• Create new insights at the speed of thought.

You can search using a natural language query (NLQ) to create a new insight. No prior knowledge of SQL or table relations is required.

• Analyze billions of rows at a sub-second speed.

With ThoughtSpot, you can examine billions of rows in your cloud data warehouse in the blink of an eye. Not only fast speed, but ThoughtSpot enables you to get the most granular insights into your questions.

• Fast execute complex queries at scale.

ThoughtSpot provides you with an intelligent query generation that allows anyone to search across complex schemas using natural language. This feature of ThoughtSpot gives 100% accurate results of the input query.

• Create personalized interactive dashboards.

ThoughtSpot enables you to create interactive visualizations. You can take the guesswork out of creating charts as an AI-driven NLP-supported feature will take care to build charts as per your given input.

Why Integrate ThoughtSpot Snowflake?

ThoughtSpot brings the power of search and AI to gain insights into Snowflake’s zero management built for cloud data warehouses. All you need to do is connect, select your data and start the search. You don’t have to write complex queries. ThoughtSpot provides click-and-run query functionality.

The key benefits of integrating ThoughtSpot and Snowflake can be understood with the below points:

• Fine-grained insights at the speed of thinking: Search for direct analysis with Snowflake’s high-performance zero management built for the data cloud. 
• Quick response with live query: Eliminates the need of moving data from the data warehouses to specific environments. You can perform queries directly in Snowflake and get up-to-date answers.  
• Start searching in seconds: If you have set up an account on ThoughtSpot, you can easily connect to the Snowflake and get the answer in a few easy steps.

How to Set up ThoughtSpot Snowflake Integration?

If you have not set up your ThoughtSpot account yet, you can set it up with this link. To perform a ThoughtSpot Snowflake connection, follow the steps given below:

• Step 1: Log into your ThoughtSpot account.
• Step 2: Click on the “Embrace” tab present on the top, then click on the “+Add connection” button shown on the right. 
• Step 3: Give the Thougthspot Snowflake connection a name, and a description, then select “Snowflake” for the connection type. 

• Step 4: Choose the authentication type for your Snowflake database, whether through OAuth or ServiceAccount. If you choose OAuth authentication, do the following:
  • Enter the Account name, OAuth Client ID, OAuth Client Secret, and Database.
  • To provide the optional and additional key-value pairs for the Thoughtspot Snowflake connection, jump to step 5 and complete the procedure. If not, simply click the “Continue” button. 
  • Once the Snowflake login screen shows up, enter your Snowflake login credentials and click on the “Login” button. You can also use the Single-Sign-On option.
  • Grant ThoughtSpot access to your Snowflake account by clicking the “Allow” button.

If you choose the service account authentication type, do the following:

• Enter the Account name, User, Password, Role, Warehouse, and Database.

• Step 5: Enter any additional key-value pairs that you need to use in setting up the Thoughtspot Snowflake Connection. However, this is an optional step. Just do the following:
  • Click on the “Advanced Config Menu” option to see the Key and the Value fields. 
  • Enter the values for the key and value.
  • If you need to add more keys and values, simply click on the “+”  symbol, and you will be prompted to enter them.

Note that the key-value pairs that you enter should be known in Snowflake, i.e., they should be defined.

• Step 6: Click on the “Continue” button.
• Step 7: Select the tables that you are targeting on the left and the columns for each table on the right, then click on the “Create Connection” button. You will see a message on your screen that tells you the number of tables and columns to be added to your connection. 
• Step 8: Click on the “Confirm” button.

Once the ThoughtSpot Snowflake connection has been established, you will be able to search for data from your Snowflake database. You simply have to click on the “Search now” button shown in the upper right corner of the screen. 

To connect to your new ThoughtSpot Snowflake, go to “Data” and then select “Connections.” Then when you click on the name of a connection, you will be able to see the tables that are imported-including columns and any joins from external tables. You can also run live queries on linked tables and columns, although the first results are likely to be slow because ThoughtSpot directly queries the external data source without caching.

One of the major challenges faced during ThoughtSpot to Snowflake integration is the complexity involved in maintaining data transformations. This process requires significant manual effort and maintenance to ensure that the data is securely transferred from source to destination.

To overcome all these challenges, use automated pipeline platforms that help you seamlessly integrate data from source to destination, ensuring data security.

Hevo is also an example of an automated pipeline that helps you to effortlessly integrate your data from source to destination in an effective manner. Here are some key benefits of Hevo:

• It is a no-code platform that can help you to integrate your data easily without any technical knowledge.
• Provides real-time data replication, which helps various organizations stay updated.
• Provides documentation and 24/5 live chat support, making it easy for users to find the information they needed quickly.

Hevo does not support Thoughtspot to Snowflake integration, but you can check various sources and destinations that Hevo supports for seamless data integration.

Conclusion

The article covers the setup for the ThoughtSpot Snowflake Integration, which has thrown light on several features of Snowflake, which encompasses Cloud Data Warehousing and Architecture. With real-time data transfer and sharing, Snowflake can be easily integrated with organizations. ThoughtSpot integration would further strengthen powerful analytics and real-time insights to aid growth with high volumes of customers.

Hevo Data, a No-code Data Pipeline, can efficiently transfer your data from a collection of sources into your Data Warehouse. Try a 14-day free trial to explore all features and check out our unbeatable pricing for the best plan for your needs. 

Frequently Asked Questions