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Create Dashboards and Visualize Live Snowflake Data in Geckoboard
Use CData Connect Cloud to connect to live Snowflake data and create dashboards for real-time monitoring and visualization in Geckoboard.
Geckoboard is a business intelligence tool that simplifies the visualization of key performance indicators (KPIs) by creating live dashboards. It allows teams to consolidate data from various sources - such as Salesforce, Snowflake, Google Analytics, and spreadsheets - and display it in a visually engaging and easy-to-understand format. Designed for simplicity and clarity, Geckoboard helps businesses monitor performance, track goals, and make data-driven decisions.
When used with CData Connect Cloud, you gain instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Snowflake data from Geckoboard for dashboards, monitoring, visualizations, and more. This article explains how to connect to Snowflake and create visualizations using Snowflake data in Geckoboard.
About Snowflake Data Integration
CData simplifies access and integration of live Snowflake data. Our customers leverage CData connectivity to:
- Reads and write Snowflake data quickly and efficiently.
- Dynamically obtain metadata for the specified Warehouse, Database, and Schema.
- Authenticate in a variety of ways, including OAuth, OKTA, Azure AD, Azure Managed Service Identity, PingFederate, private key, and more.
Many CData users use CData solutions to access Snowflake from their preferred tools and applications, and replicate data from their disparate systems into Snowflake for comprehensive warehousing and analytics.
For more information on integrating Snowflake with CData solutions, refer to our blog: https://www.cdata.com/blog/snowflake-integrations.
Getting Started
CData Connect Cloud offers a seamless SQL Server, cloud-to-cloud interface for Snowflake, enabling you to effortlessly create dashboards and visualizations using live Snowflake data in Geckoboard. While building visualizations, Geckoboard requires SQL queries to retrieve the necessary data. With built-in optimized data processing, CData Connect Cloud pushes all supported SQL operations (such as filters and JOINs) directly to Snowflake, utilizing server-side processing for fast and efficient data retrieval of Snowflake data.
Configure Snowflake connectivity for Geckoboard
Connectivity to Snowflake from Geckoboard is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Snowflake data from Geckoboard, we start by creating and configuring a Snowflake connection.
- Log into Connect Cloud, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
- Select "Snowflake" from the Add Connection panel
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Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Snowflake.
To connect to Snowflake:
- Set User and Password to your Snowflake credentials and set the AuthScheme property to PASSWORD or OKTA.
- Set URL to the URL of the Snowflake instance (i.e.: https://myaccount.snowflakecomputing.com).
- Set Warehouse to the Snowflake warehouse.
- (Optional) Set Account to your Snowflake account if your URL does not conform to the format above.
- (Optional) Set Database and Schema to restrict the tables and views exposed.
See the Getting Started guide in the CData driver documentation for more information.
- Click Create & Test
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Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Snowflake Connection page and update the User-based permissions.
Add a Personal Access Token
When connecting to Connect Cloud through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect Cloud. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.
- Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect Cloud app to open the settings page.
- On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
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Give the PAT a name and click Create.
- The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.
With the connection configured and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to Snowflake data from Geckoboard.
Connect live Snowflake data in Geckoboard
Follow these steps to establish a connection from Geckoboard to the CData Connect Cloud Virtual SQL Server API.
- Log into Geckoboard
- Add a custom dashboard name and click Add widget
- Search for "Databases" in the Connect your data search bar
- Select SQL Server as the Database type
- Fill in the connection details:
- Connection name: enter a name for the connection to CData Connect Cloud
- Host: enter the Virtual SQL Server endpoint: tds.cdata.com
- Port: : enter 14333
- Database name: enter the Connection Name of the CData Connect Cloud data source you want to connect to (for example, Snowflake1)
- Username: enter your CData Connect Cloud username. This is displayed in the top-right corner of the CData Connect Cloud interface. For example, [email protected]
- Password: enter the PAT you generated on the Settings page
- Click Connect
After successfully configuring your connection, you can query and visualize your Snowflake data.
Visualize live Snowflake data in Geckoboard
To visualize live Snowflake data in Geckoboard, follow these steps:
- Write an SQL query to select the specific Snowflake data needed for visualization in Paste your SQL query compiler screen
- Choose the visualization type (Line Chart, Bar Chart, or Column Chart) that best suits your business requirements
- The selected chart will be displayed on Geckoboard
- Click the menu (three dots in the top-right corner of the graph) and select Edit to modify the SQL query or set a refresh interval for the chart
Depending on your use case, you can also generate the desired SQL query using the AI Generator or Query Builder features of CData Connect Cloud
Live access to Snowflake data from cloud applications
At this stage, you have established a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Snowflake data in Geckoboard. This enables you to create dashboards to monitor and visualize your data seamlessly.
For more details on accessing live data from over 100 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources through cloud applications like Geckoboard, visit our Connect Cloud page.
