Connect from external business intelligence applications

While Imply Polaris includes built-in visualization capabilities, you can integrate Polaris with your existing business intelligence tools to explore, query, and share your data from those tools. This topic describes how to connect Polaris to Tableau Desktop and Looker.

Prerequisites

To establish a connection to Polaris, you need the following:

  • Project ID of your Polaris environment. See the Query API for a sample GET request to obtain your project ID.
  • Bearer token of your OAuth client. See Authenticate API requests to obtain an access token.

Tableau Desktop

Tableau provides a platform for analyzing, visualizing, and building reports from data. You can access your Polaris data from Tableau by establishing a JDBC connection between them. To connect Tableau Desktop to Polaris, follow these steps:

  1. Download the Avatica JDBC driver available from Imply.

  2. Place the JAR file in the appropriate folder for your operating system. For example on a Mac, place the file in ~/Library/Tableau/Drivers. See the Tableau documentation for more details.

  3. Create a file named polaris.properties in a location accessible by Tableau. In the polaris.properties file, add a password property set to the OAuth token. For example:

    password=eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsInR5cCIgOiAiSldUIiwia2lkIiA6ICJzYk4wXzY2ZUVWZkpWM...

  4. Start Tableau Desktop. On the Connect pane, under To a Server, select Other Databases (JDBC).

  5. Set the following options:

    • URL: Specify the following JDBC connection string: jdbc:avatica:remote:url=https://PROJECT_ID.jdbc.api.imply.io/druid.
      Replace PROJECT_ID with your Polaris project ID.
    • Dialect: Select SQL92.
    • Username: Leave this field blank.
    • Password: Leave this field blank.
    • Properties File: Select the file you created containing the OAuth token, polaris.properties.

  6. Click Sign In. If the button is grayed out, verify that you entered the correct JDBC connection URL. Tableau directs you to the data source page when it successfully makes the connection.

  7. On the left pane, under Database, select druid.

  8. For Schema, select druid.

  9. Tableau displays the tables available in Polaris.

Looker

Looker is a business intelligence tool that helps you explore and share your data. Connecting Looker to Polaris enables you to query your data directly from Looker. To connect Looker to Polaris, follow these steps:

  1. In the Admin section of Looker, navigate to Database > Connections > Add Connection.

  2. Set the following options:

    • Name: Assign a label to your connection.
    • Dialect: Select Apache Druid, Apache Druid 0.13+, or Apache Druid 0.18+.
    • Host: Specify the hostname in format PROJECT_ID.jdbc.api.imply.io. Replace PROJECT_ID with your project ID.
    • Port: Enter port number 443.
    • Database: Specify database name druid.
    • Username: Assign any string.
    • Password: Pass in your bearer token.

    Specify the other fields as desired, or leave them at the default values.

  3. Click Test These Settings to verify a connection. If you get an UnknownHostException, check that you have the correct project ID in the hostname.

  4. Click Add Connection to save these settings.

  5. Test the connection in SQL Runner. Navigate to SQL Runner, and select your connection and the druid schema. You should see your Polaris tables in the Tables menu.

    If you get error "Couldn't Load Tables" due to authentication failure, verify that you have a valid access token in the Password field of the Looker connection.

Token revocation

If your application becomes compromised, contact Polaris Support to revoke access tokens and remove the API client.

Learn more

← Query dataConnect over JDBC →