Adding a Looker Connection

Prerequisites

In order to connect to the Looker platform, the running user will need to have access to the required Dashboards.

note

A link to the configuration template can be found here: Zeenea Connector Downloads.

Supported Versions

The connector is compatible with the SaaS Looker solution.

Installing the Plugin

The Looker plugin can be downloaded here: Zeenea Connector Downloads

For more information on how to install a plugin, please refer to the following article: Installing and Configuring Connectors as a Plugin.

Declaring the Connection

Creating and configuring connectors is done through a dedicated configuration file located in the /connections folder of the relevant scanner. The scanner frequently checks for any change and resynchronises automatically.

Read more: Managing Connections

In order to establish a connection with Looker, specifying the following parameters in the dedicated file is required:

Parameter	Expected value
name	The name that will be displayed to catalog users for this connection.
code	The unique identifier of the connection on the Zeenea platform. Once registered on the platform, this code must not be modified or the connection will be considered as new and the old one removed from the scanner.
connector_id	The type of connector to be used for the connection. Here, the value must be looker and this value must not be modified.
connection.tenant	The tenant address: In URL address, it is the name of your server before .cloud.looker.com.
connection.oauth.client_id	Token name obtained within the Looker account menu
connection.oauth.client_secret	Token secret
connection.timeout	(Optional) Customizable HTTP client timeout depending on Looker repository volume, in ms. Default value 10000 (10sec).
connection.fetch_offset_size	(Optional) Customizable offset size for the dashboard inventory. Default value is 100.
connection.port	(Optional) Port address
connection.url	(Optional) URL address
lineage	(Optional) Set to true to activate automatic lineage feature. Default value false.
proxy.scheme	Depending on the proxy, http or https
proxy.hostname	Proxy address
proxy.port	Proxy port
proxy.username	Proxy username
proxy.password	Proxy account password
tls.truststore.path	The Trust Store file path. This file must be provided in case TLS encryption is activated (protocol https) and when certificates of Looker servers (or/and configured proxy) are delivered by a specific authority. It must contain the certification chain.
tls.truststore.password	Password of the trust store file
tls.truststore.type	Type of the trust store file (PKCS12 or JKS). Default value is discovered from the file extension.

User Permissions

In order to collect metadata, the running user's permissions must allow them to access and read dashboards that need cataloging.

Data Extraction

In order to extract information from Looker, the connector will scan all Dashboards the running user has access to and transform them into Visualization objects in Zeenea. Data sources are referenced as Datasets. Fields are recreated as Field-type objects in Zeenea. For each Looker Dataset, a Data Process is created to represent the lineage with the origin Dataset.

The connector executes the following requests:

GET /api/4.0/dashboards/{dashboard-id}/search
GET /api/4.0/connections/
GET /api/4.0/folders/{folder-id}/ancestors
GET /api/4.0/lookml_models/{model-name}/explores/{dataset-name}
POST /login

Collected Metadata

Inventory

The inventory collects the list of Dashboards (along with their data sources) that the user can access.

Lineage

The Looker connector is able to retrieve the lineage between datasets that have been imported to the catalog. Datasets from other connections must have been previously imported to the catalog to be linked to the Looker dataset through a new Data Process object. This feature is available for the following systems and, for it to work, an additional parameter is needed in the source system connection as configured in the Looker connection configuration panel.

Source System	Possible value of alias parameter to be set in source system configuration file
BigQuery	BigQuery project name

note

The connector creates a data process object for each dataset from Looker to represent the link with the source dataset (even if the source dataset is not present in the catalog).

Visualization

A Visualization is a Looker Dashboard.

• Name
• Source Description: Dashboard label
• Datasets: All datasets referenced in the Dashboard
• Technical Data:
  • Creation date: Creation date
  • Parent space: space containing the Dashboard
  • Last visualization date: Last visualization date
  • Number of views by web UI: Number of views by web UI

Dataset

A dataset is a Data source used in a Looker Dashboard.

• Name
• Source Description: Dataset label
• Technical Data:
  • Explore name: Explore name Looker
  • Schema name: Schema name as it’s described in the database called
  • Model name: Model name
  • Connection name: Connection name

Field

Dataset field. Can be used as a Dashboard report data.

• Name
• Source Description: Field label
• Type
• Can be null: false (default)
• Multivalued: false (default)
• Primary Key: false (default)
• Technical Data:
  • Field type: Is the field whether a dimension or a measure

Data Process

To represent the data flow from an external source, a Zeenea Data Process will be created for each Looker Dataset.

• Name: import input/output_dataset name

Object Identifier Keys

An identification key is associated with each object in the catalog. In the case of a synchronized object (i.e., created via a connector), the identification key is generated by the connector.

More information about unique identification keys in this documentation: Identification Keys.

Object	Identification Key	Description
Visualization	code/identifier	code: Unique identifier of the connection noted in the configuration file identifier: Looker technical object identifier
Dataset	code/dataset/identifier	code: Unique identifier of the connection noted in the configuration file identifier: Looker technical object identifier
Field	code/dataset/identifier/field name	code: Unique identifier of the connection noted in the configuration file identifier: Looker technical object identifier field name
Data process	code/transformation/model name/dataset name	code: Unique identifier of the connection noted in the configuration file model name dataset name