Learn how to power KPIs in BSC Designer with data from Snowflake, enabling real-time updates and seamless performance monitoring using data stored in your cloud data warehouse.
What is Snowflake?
Snowflake is a cloud-based data platform that enables organizations to store, manage, and analyze large volumes of structured and semi-structured data. It provides a scalable, secure, and high-performance environment for powering analytics, business intelligence, and data-driven decision-making.
Set Up a Connection to a Snowflake Warehouse
Follow these steps to connect to your Snowflake warehouse and access its data.
Creating a New User
It’s a good practice to create a dedicated user for external data access. To do this, navigate to Work with data → Projects → Worksheets.
Create a new role by executing:
CREATE ROLE APP_JAVA_READER_ROLE;
Create a new user:
CREATE USER app_java_reader
PASSWORD = 'StrongP@ssword123'
DEFAULT_ROLE = APP_JAVA_READER_ROLE
MUST_CHANGE_PASSWORD = FALSE
COMMENT = 'Service user for webbsc JDBC app';
Assign the required rights to the user:
GRANT ROLE APP_JAVA_READER_ROLE TO USER app_java_reader;
Important: Assign user rights on the warehouse:
GRANT USAGE ON WAREHOUSE COMPUTE_WH TO ROLE APP_JAVA_READER_ROLE;
Output user setup for debugging purposes:
DESCRIBE USER app_java_reader;
Getting Access Data
Navigate to Manage → Admin → Accounts → Active Account → … → Manage URLs:
Find the current URL in the Manage URLs dialog:
This will be the host you need to use for the connection.
Configure the Data Source in BSC Designer
- Log in to your administrator account.
- Navigate to Settings > Integrations and click “Add” in the Datasource section.
- Enter a name for the new data source.
- Select “Snowflake” as the Database type.
- Paste the host from the previous step into the Server field (e.g.,
gghecco-md11559.snowflakecomputing.com). - Enter the warehouse in the Catalog field (e.g.,
?warehouse=COMPUTE_WH). - Enter the created username in the login field.
- Enter the defined password in the password field.
Querying Data for a KPI
You can now create queries to access data from your Snowflake tables.
- Use the supported parameters to customize your query based on the selected indicator and the internal calendar.
BSC Designer is strategy execution software that enhances strategy formulation and execution through KPIs, strategy maps, and dashboards. Our proprietary strategy implementation system guides companies in practical application of strategic planning.