Create and execute a SQL workflow in Dataform

Create and execute a SQL workflow in Dataform

This quickstart walks you through the following process in Dataform to create a SQL workflow and execute it in BigQuery:

• Create a Dataform repository.
• Create and initialize a Dataform development workspace.
• Create a view.
• Create a table.
• Grant Dataform access to BigQuery.
  • Execute the created workflow.
• View execution logs in Dataform.
• Clean up created assets.

Before you begin

1. Sign in to your Google Cloud account. If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how our products perform in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.

2. In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

   Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

   Go to project selector

3. Make sure that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

4. Enable the BigQuery and Dataform APIs.

   Enable the APIs

5. In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

   Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

   Go to project selector

6. Make sure that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

7. Enable the BigQuery and Dataform APIs.

   Enable the APIs

Required roles

To get the permissions that you need to perform all tasks in this tutorial, ask your administrator to grant you the following IAM roles on your project:

• Dataform Admin (roles/dataform.admin) - repositories
• Dataform Editor (roles/dataform.editor) - workspaces and workflow invocations

For more information about granting roles, see Manage access to projects, folders, and organizations.

You might also be able to get the required permissions through custom roles or other predefined roles.

Create a Dataform repository

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Dataform page.

   Go to Dataform

2. Click Create repository.

3. On the Create repository page, do the following:

   1. In the Repository ID field, enter quickstart-repository.

   2. In the Region list, select europe-west4.

   3. Click Create.

Create and initialize a Dataform development workspace

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Dataform page.

   Go to Dataform

2. Click quickstart-repository.

3. Click Create development workspace.

4. In the Create development workspace window, do the following:

   1. In the Workspace ID field, enter quickstart-workspace.

   2. Click Create.

   The development workspace page appears.

5. Click Initialize workspace.

Note: Dataform initializes your workspace with a set of directories and configuration files that contain default settings for deploying workflows. You can override the default settings in the workflow settings file to best suit your needs, but it is not a requirement to deploy SQL workflows to BigQuery. This quickstart uses the default Dataform settings.

Create a view

In the following sections, you define a view that you will later use as a data source for a table.

Create a SQLX file for defining a view

1. In the Files pane, next to definitions/, click the More menu.

2. Click Create file.

3. In the Create new file pane, do the following:

   1. In the Add a file path field, enter definitions/quickstart-source.sqlx.

   2. Click Create file.

Define a view

1. In the Files pane, expand the definitions folder.

2. Click definitions/quickstart-source.sqlx.

3. In the file, enter the following code snippet:

   config {
    type: "view"
   }
   
   SELECT
    "apples" AS fruit,
    2 AS count
   UNION ALL
   SELECT
    "oranges" AS fruit,
    5 AS count
   UNION ALL
   SELECT
    "pears" AS fruit,
    1 AS count
   UNION ALL
   SELECT
    "bananas" AS fruit,
    0 AS count
   

4. Click Format.

Create a table

In the following sections, you define the table type in a SQLX file, and then write a SELECT statement to define the table structure within the same file.

Create a SQLX file for table definition

1. In the Files pane, next to definitions/, click the More menu, and then select Create file.

2. In the Add a file path field, enter definitions/quickstart-table.sqlx.

3. Click Create file.

Define the table type, structure and dependencies

1. In the Files pane, expand the definitions/ directory.

2. Select quickstart-table.sqlx, and then enter the following table type and SELECT statement:

   config {
    type: "table"
   }
   
   SELECT
    fruit,
    SUM(count) as count
   FROM ${ref("quickstart-source")}
   GROUP BY 1
   

3. Click Format.

   Note: In the preceding code snippet, the ref function refers to the data source. For more information, see Define a table.

After defining the table type, Dataform throws a query validation error because quickstart-source does not exist in BigQuery yet. This error is resolved when you execute the SQL workflow later in this tutorial.

Grant Dataform access to BigQuery

To execute workflows in BigQuery, the Dataform service account must have the following required roles:

• BigQuery Data Editor on projects to which Dataform needs both read and write access. They usually include the project hosting your Dataform repository.
• BigQuery Data Viewer on projects to which Dataform needs read-only access.
• BigQuery Job User on the project hosting your Dataform repository.

To grant these roles, follow these steps:

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the IAM page.

   Go to the IAM page

2. Click Add.

3. In the New principals field, enter your Dataform service account ID.

4. In the Select a role drop-down list, select the BigQuery Job User role.

5. Click Add another role, and then in the Select a role drop-down list, select the BigQuery Data Editor role.

6. Click Add another role, and then in the Select a role drop-down list, select the BigQuery Data Viewer role.

7. Click Save.

Execute the workflow

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Dataform page.

   Go to Dataform

2. On the quickstart-workspace page, click Start execution.

3. Click All actions.

4. In the Execute pane, click Start execution.

   Dataform uses the default repository settings to create the contents of your workflow in a BigQuery dataset called dataform.

View execution logs in Dataform

1. On the quickstart-repository page, click Workflow Execution Logs.

2. To view details of your execution, click the latest execution.

Clean up

To avoid incurring charges to your Google Cloud account for the resources used on this page, follow these steps.

Delete the dataset created in BigQuery

To avoid incurring charges for BigQuery assets, delete the dataset called dataform.

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the BigQuery page.

   Go to BigQuery

2. In the Explorer panel, expand your project and select dataform.

3. Click the Actions menu, and then select Delete.

4. In the Delete dataset dialog, enter delete into the field, and then click Delete.

Delete the Dataform development workspace

Dataform development workspace creation incurs no costs, but to delete the development workspace you can follow these steps:

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Dataform page.

   Go to Dataform

2. Click quickstart-repository.

3. In the Development workspaces tab, click the More menu by quickstart-workspace, and then select Delete.

4. To confirm, click Delete.

Delete the Dataform repository

Dataform repository creation incurs no costs, but to delete the repository you can follow these steps:

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Dataform page.

   Go to Dataform

2. By quickstart-repository, click the More menu, and then select Delete.

3. In the Delete repository window, enter the name of the repository to confirm deletion.

4. To confirm, click Delete.

What's next

• To learn more about Dataform, see Dataform overview.

• To learn more about Dataform features, see Overview of Dataform features.

• To learn more about Dataform core, see Overview of Dataform core.

• To learn how to override default Dataform settings of your repository, see Configure Dataform settings.

• To learn more about managing datasets in BigQuery, see Managing datasets.

• To learn more about managing tables in BigQuery, see Manage tables.