Looker

Looker is a business intelligence software and big data analytics platform that helps users explore, analyze, and share real-time business analytics easily.

Using Weld to build a data warehouse ensures that all your company's systems data is centralized, transformed, and ready for analysis within Looker.

How to connect to Weld

Connect your data in Weld to Looker through a direct connection between your data warehouse and Looker.

Connect Looker to BigQuery

Connecting Looker to Google BigQuery is a step-by-step process. Here's how you can do it:

Create a BigQuery Project: If you haven't already, create a project in the Google Cloud Console. Remember the Project ID, as you will need it later.
Enable BigQuery API: In the Google Cloud Console, make sure that the BigQuery API is enabled for your project.
Create a Service Account: In the Google Cloud Console, navigate to IAM & Admin > Service Accounts and create a new service account. This service account should have the appropriate permissions to access your BigQuery data.
Create a JSON Key: Once your service account is created, create a JSON key for the service account. You'll need to upload this to Looker later, so save it in a secure location.
Configure Looker Connection: In Looker, navigate to the Admin section and select Connections. Click New Connection and fill in the details:
- Name: Give your connection a name. This can be anything you like.
- Dialect: Select Google BigQuery Standard SQL.
- Project ID: Enter your Google Cloud Project ID here.
- JSON Keyfile: Upload the JSON key file you created for your service account.
- Database: Optionally, you can specify a default database (BigQuery dataset) for this connection.
Test and Save the Connection: Click Test These Settings to make sure that Looker can connect to your BigQuery project. If everything is set up correctly, you should see a message saying that the connection is successful. Click Add Connection to save your new connection.

You've now successfully connected Looker to Google BigQuery! You can start exploring your data using Looker's data modeling language, LookML, and creating dashboards and reports.

Connect Looker to Snowflake

To connect Looker to Snowflake, you'll need to follow a similar process. Here are the steps:

Gather Your Snowflake Account Details: You'll need your Snowflake account name (the portion before snowflakecomputing.com), username, password, database name, warehouse name, and schema name.
Configure Looker Connection: In Looker, navigate to the Admin section and select Connections. Click on New Connection and fill in the details:
- Name: Give your connection a name. This can be anything you like.
- Dialect: Select Snowflake.
- Host: Enter your Snowflake account name here followed by .snowflakecomputing.com. (for example: xy12345.us-east-1.snowflakecomputing.com)
- Username: Enter your Snowflake username.
- Password: Enter your Snowflake password.
- Database: Enter the name of your Snowflake database.
- Schema: Enter the name of your Snowflake schema.
- Warehouse: Enter the name of your Snowflake warehouse.
Test and Save the Connection: Click on Test These Settings to ensure Looker can connect to your Snowflake account. If everything is set up correctly, you should see a message that the connection is successful. Click Add Connection to save your new connection.

You've now successfully connected Looker to Snowflake! With this connection, you can explore your Snowflake data using Looker's powerful BI tools. Remember to always handle your data responsibly and be aware that querying large volumes of data frequently can incur additional costs, depending on your Snowflake plan.