Looker–Tableau BI Connector

The Looker–Tableau BI Connector lets you use Tableau Desktop to connect to data from a Looker Explore. The Looker–Tableau BI Connector is built upon the Looker Open SQL Interface, which allows access to LookML models and Explores for applications that use JDBC to connect to data sources. See the Open SQL Interface documentation for more details.

Note: If you were part of the Looker–Tableau BI Connector Private Preview, see the Upgrading from the Looker–Tableau BI Connector Public Preview section.

Before you begin

Your Looker instance must meet the following requirements to make use of the Looker–Tableau BI Connector:

• Running Looker 24.14 or later.
• Enabled for the Tableau Desktop BI connector. A Looker admin must enable the Tableau Desktop toggle on the Looker BI Connectors page.
• Contains a LookML project that uses data from a Google BigQuery connection:
  • The LookML project must be configured so that the Allowed Connections field is set to the Only these connections option with at least one Google BigQuery connection selected. See the Accessing and editing project information documentation page for information on configuring a model and seeing the allowed connections for the model.
  • The LookML project must have a model file that specifies a BigQuery connection in its connection parameter.

In addition, each person using the Looker–Tableau BI Connector must have a Looker account with a user role that includes the explore permission on the LookML model that they want to access from Tableau.

Setting up Tableau Desktop to connect to Looker

Once all of the requirements are satisfied, you can set up Tableau Desktop to connect to Looker data.

Note: This procedure assumes that you already have Tableau Desktop installed on your computer.

Each user who wants to access the Looker–Tableau BI Connector must download the avatica-<release_number>-looker.jar file and the packaged Tableau connector (.taco) file, and then save the files in specific directories on their computer. The following sections provide instructions for downloading these files and where to put them on your computer:

• Download and save the Tableau Connector (.taco) file
• Download and save the JDBC driver (looker.jar) file

Tableau connector (.taco) file

The Tableau connector file is called looker_v1.0.0.taco. Each user must download the .taco file and save it to their computer using the following steps:

1. To download the Tableau connector file, click the following link: looker_v1.0.0.taco

2. When the download is completed, move the looker_v1.0.0.taco file to the Connectors subdirectory of the My Tableau Repository directory. Here are the default directory paths:

   • Windows:

     C:\Users\\Windows user\Documents\My Tableau Repository\Connectors
     

   • MacOS:

     /Users/Mac user/Documents/My Tableau Repository/Connectors
     

     Note: In case your setup doesn't use the default location for the My Tableau Repository directory, you can get the actual location by selecting File > Repository Location from the Tableau Desktop app on your computer.

JDBC driver (looker.jar) file

The JDBC driver is called avatica-<release_number>-looker.jar. Each user must download the looker.jar file from GitHub and save the file to their computer by following these steps:

1. Go to https://github.com/looker-open-source/calcite-avatica/releases.
2. Download the latest version of the avatica-<release_number>-looker.jar file.

3. Save the avatica-<release_number>-looker.jar file to each user's computer in the following location:

   • Windows: C:\Program Files\Tableau\Drivers

   • MacOS: /Library/JDBC or ~/Library/JDBC

     Note: For macOS, manually create the JDBC directory if it does not already exist.

Connecting to Looker data from Tableau Desktop

After you have downloaded and saved the looker_v1.0.0.taco and the avatica-<release_number>-looker.jar files, you can use Tableau Desktop to connect to data from your Looker instance by following these steps:

1. In Tableau Desktop, from the left-side Connect pane, in the To a Server section, select the More... option.
2. In the search box, enter Looker by Google.
3. Select the Looker by Google option.
4. In the dialog window, enter these parameters:
   • Server: Enter your Looker instance URL without the https://. For example: example.cloud.looker.com
   • Port: 443
   • Authentication: OAuth
   • OAuth Instance Url: Enter your full Looker instance URL with the https://. For example: https://example.cloud.looker.com
5. Select Sign In. Tableau will open a browser window to connect to your Looker instance and authenticate your account with OAuth.
6. If prompted, log in to Looker. If you are already logged in, you will see a message in the browser window that Tableau used the browser window to authenticate into Looker and that you can now close the browser window.
7. After you have authenticated into Looker, Tableau will open a Data Source page with a connection to your Looker instance.
8. Use the Schema drop-down menu to select a Looker model with the data that you want to view in Tableau Desktop. Tableau will populate the Table list with the Looker Explores from the Looker model that you selected.
9. To start exploring the data, select and drag an object from the Tables list to the canvas.

Identifying Looker–Tableau BI Connector queries in the Looker UI

Queries from Tableau are made through the Open SQL Interface. Looker admins can use the Looker UI to identify which queries originated from the Open SQL Interface, as described in the Open SQL Interface documentation.

Queries from the Looker–Tableau BI Connector have a Source value of "sql_interface" or "Sql_interface".

Things to consider

When you're exploring Looker data with Tableau Desktop, note the following considerations:

• The Looker–Tableau BI Connector is built upon the Looker Open SQL Interface, and it has the same LookML limitations and SQL limitations as the Open SQL Interface. See the Open SQL Interface documentation for more details.
• Tableau automatically queries the database whenever a change is made to the query, including when fields are added and removed using the Looker–Tableau BI Connector. You can turn off automatic updates in Tableau: Refer to the Tableau documentation for more information.
• You cannot use Tableau to join two Looker Explores. If you want to join Explores, use Looker to create the joins in your Looker model. See the Looker documentation pages Working with joins in LookML and join parameters for information on using joins in Looker.
• The Looker–Tableau BI Connector is designed to work with a live connection in Tableau. Tableau's data extract mode extracts Looker measures with a value of "null" and therefore won't produce accurate results. If you want to use extract mode, you can create aggregate fields in Tableau directly off the Looker dimension fields instead of using Looker measures.

Upgrading from the Looker–Tableau BI Connector Public Preview

If you were part of the Looker–Tableau BI Connector Public Preview, your existing setup will continue to work as-is. However, we recommend that you upgrade to the latest Looker–Tableau BI Connector version.

To upgrade to the latest Looker–Tableau BI Connector version, a Looker admin must perform the following tasks:

1. Verify that the Looker instance meets the requirements.
2. On the Looker instance, enable the Tableau Desktop toggle on the BI Connectors page.

After a Looker admin enables the Tableau Desktop toggle on the Looker instance, your Looker instance users can do the following to use the latest Looker–Tableau BI Connector:

• Download and save the Tableau Connector file
• Download and save the JDBC driver (looker.jar) file

After a user downloads and saves both the Tableau Connector file and the JDBC driver file, the user can connect to Looker data from Tableau Desktop. Users will need to authenticate into their Looker account in the upgraded Looker–Tableau BI Connector.

Once all your Looker instance users have upgraded to the new Looker–Tableau BI Connector, you can follow the procedure to remove the Tableau OAuth app that you added to your Looker instance as part of the setup for the Public Preview.

Note: Once you remove the Private Preview version of the Tableau OAuth app from your Looker instance, your users will need the latest version of the Tableau Connector file to connect to data from your Looker using Tableau Desktop.

Removing the Tableau OAuth app (optional)

This procedure is not required. However, once all your Looker instance users have upgraded to the looker_v1.0.0.taco Tableau connector file, you can remove the Private Preview version of the Tableau OAuth app from your Looker instance by performing the following steps:

Note: Once you remove the Private Preview version of the Tableau OAuth app from your Looker instance, your users will need the latest version of the Tableau Connector file to connect to data from your Looker using Tableau Desktop.

1. Open the Looker API Explorer (see the Using the API Explorer page for information).
2. In the API Explorer's Search field, enter Delete OAuth Client App.
3. In the search results, click Delete OAuth Client App.
4. On the Delete OAuth Client App page, click the Run It button.

5. In the Request tab of the Run It dialog, enter the Tableau OAuth app's client_guid value. For the Public Preview Looker–Tableau BI Connector version (v0.2.0), the client_guid value is:

     35FBB268-0CB0-4822-AFE3-28638C1C6269
   

6. Select the checkbox for I understand that this API endpoint will change data.

7. You can verify that you successfully removed the Tableau OAuth app by using the Get OAuth Client App method in the API Explorer:

   • In the API Explorer's Search field, enter Get OAuth Client App.
   • Click Run It.
   • In the client_guid field, enter the Tableau OAuth app's value: 35FBB268-0CB0-4822-AFE3-28638C1C6269

   If you successfully removed the Tableau OAuth app, the Response tab will return empty body values.