Looker Connector: Overview

Alation Cloud Service Applies to Alation Cloud Service instances of Alation

Customer Managed Applies to customer-managed instances of Alation

Applies from release 2020.4

To download the Looker OCF connector package, go to the Alation Connector Hub available from the Customer Portal. Go to Customer Portal > Connectors > Alation Connector Hub. Only Alation users with access to the Customer Portal can access the Alation Connector Hub. If you don’t have access to the Customer Portal, contact Alation Support.

This connector should be used to catalog Looker as a BI source in Alation. The connector catalogs Looker objects such as folders, dashboards, and reports. It enables end users to search and find Looker objects from the Alation user interface.

Team

The following administrators are required to install this connector:

  • Alation Server Admin/Linux Administrator:

    • Installs the connector

    • Creates a Looker BI source

    • Provisions Alation API tokens

  • Looker Administrator:

    • Provisions Looker API tokens

    • Provides access to Looker Objects

Scope

The table below shows what features are covered by this connector:

Feature

Scope

Availability

Looker Instance

Catalog Looker instance as a BI Source.

Yes

Folders

Catalog Folders and Sub-Folders in Looker

Yes

Filter Folders

Ability to include or exclude certain Folders

Yes

Reports

Catalog reports in a Folder

Yes

Report Objects

Catalog report objects such as charts and tables

Yes

Report object dimensions, measures, expressions

Catalog dimensions, measures, and measure expressions of a report objects

Yes

Report object data sources

Catalog data sources used by report objects

Yes

Report object lineage

Catalog the lineage of a report object.

Yes* **

Filter Reports

Ability to include or exclude certain reports

No

Report Owner

Owners or Authors who created a report

No

Dashboards

Catalog dashboards in a Folder

Yes

Dashboard object Measures & Dimensions

Catalog dimensions and measure of a dashboard object

Yes

Explores

Catalog Explores as data sources

Yes

Image Preview

Ability to show a thumbnail image of reports and dashboards

Yes

Popularity

Popularity of Dashboards & Reports

No

Security Replication

Replicate access control to reports and dashboards

No

* Report object lineage is available only if the underlying data source is cataloged in Alation and fully qualified SQL and table information is available from the Looker APIs.

** The dialects selected in the Looker while creating a connection should be a part of the supported datasources mentioned below:

MySQL, SQL server, Snowflake, Oracle, PostgreSQL, Amazon Redshift, Databricks and Google BigQuery.

Looker Object Hierarchy in Alation

The following image shows the hierarchy of Looker objects in Alation:

../../../_images/Looker_01.png

The following image shows the lineage between Looker objects in Alation:

../../../_images/Looker_02.png

Object Mapping

The connector version 2.1.0 or later catalogs LookML Model as BI Folder, Explores as Datasource, and Looks fields. Each Explore is cataloged as a datasource and has its own Fields and Connections.

Looker Object

Alation Object

Type

Models

BI Folders

LookML Model

Explores

Datasource

Explore

Dashboards

Reports

Dashboard

Looks

Reports

Look

Dimensions

Fields

Dimension

Measures

Fields

Measure

Visualizations

Reports

Report

Looker APIs

The following table lists the Looker APIs used by this connector to extract metadata from Looker. Looker API version 4.0 is supported.

Type

API Endpoint

Description

Authentication

<api-url>/api/<api-version>/login

Fetches the access token.

Folders

<api-url>/api/<api-version>/folders

Gets folders from Looker.

Child folders

<api-url>/api/<api-version>/folders/<folder_id>/children

Gets child folders for a given folder.

Data sources

<api-url>/api/<api-version>/connections

Gets data source from a folder.

Dashboards

<api-url>/api/<api-version>/dashboards

Gets dashboards from Looker.

Dashboard

<api-url>/api/<api-version>/dashboards/<dashboard_id>

Gets a dashboard by ID.

Explores

<api-url>api/4.0/loookml_models/<lookml_model_name>/explores/<explore_name>

Get explores from the looker. Explores are extracted to map the reports from which it is made of.

Reports

<api-url>/api/<api-version>/looks

Gets looks from Looker.

LookML models

<api-url>/api/<api-version>/lookml_models/<model>

Gets LookML models from Looker. Models are extracted to map reports and data sources.

Dimension and Measures

<api-url>/api/<api-version>/lookml_models/<model>/explores/<view>

Gets BI dimensions and measures from Looker.

Merge queries

<api-url>/api/<api-version>/merge_queries/<merge_result_id>

Gets a query with the given result id from looker.

Query

<api-url>/api/<api-version>/queries/<query_id>

Gets the query from query ID.

Query SQL

<api-url>/api/<api-version>/queries/<query_id>/run/sql

Gets a raw query from Looker.