Integrate Looker with Tiger Data

Looker is a business intelligence and data modeling platform that lets you explore, analyze, and visualize data, then share governed dashboards across your organization.

This page shows you how to connect Looker to Tiger Data as a data source, so that you can model and visualize the data in your service or database.

In this integration guide, you:

• Create a dedicated Looker role and scratch schema in your service or database.
• Add the connection in Looker.
• Verify that Looker can query your data.

Prerequisites for this integration guide

To follow these steps, you'll need:

• A Tiger Cloud service, or a running instance of self-hosted TimescaleDB.

• Your connection details.

• A Looker instance, with administrator access to create connections.

Prepare your service or database

Looker connects with a dedicated database role and uses a scratch schema to materialize persistent derived tables (PDTs). Create both before you add the connection.

1. Connect to your service or database

   Connect to your service or database as a user with privileges to create roles and schemas, using your connection details.

2. Create a role for Looker

   Create a dedicated role with a strong password:

   CREATE USER looker WITH ENCRYPTED PASSWORD '<password>';

3. Grant read access

   Allow the role to connect and read your data. Replace <dbname> with your database name:

   GRANT CONNECT ON DATABASE "<dbname>" TO looker;
   GRANT USAGE ON SCHEMA public TO looker;
   GRANT SELECT ON ALL TABLES IN SCHEMA public TO looker;
   GRANT SELECT ON ALL SEQUENCES IN SCHEMA public TO looker;
   ALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES IN SCHEMA public GRANT SELECT ON TABLES TO looker;

   The ALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES statement makes sure Looker can also read tables you create later.

4. Create a scratch schema for persistent derived tables

   Create a schema owned by the looker role for Looker to write PDTs into, then set the role's search path:

   CREATE SCHEMA looker_scratch AUTHORIZATION looker;
   ALTER USER looker SET search_path TO public, looker_scratch;

   Looker uses looker_scratch for temporary and derived tables, keeping them separate from your application data.

Add the connection in Looker

Point Looker at your service or database using the role you created.

1. Open the connection settings

   In Looker, go to Admin > Database > Connections, then click Add Connection.

2. Enter your connection details

   Give the connection a name, then from the Dialect list select PostgreSQL. Enter your connection details:

   • Host: your service or database host.
   • Port: your port, usually 5432.
   • Database: your dbname.
   • Username and Password: looker and the password you set.
3. Configure persistent derived tables

   Turn on Persistent Derived Tables and set the Temp Database to looker_scratch, the scratch schema you created.

   If your service or database requires encrypted connections, enable SSL. When Looker is hosted, add Looker's egress IP addresses to your network or firewall allowlist so it can reach your service or database.

4. Test and save

   Click Test to confirm Looker can connect, then Connect to save.

   All connection tests should pass, confirming Looker can reach your service or database and use the scratch schema.

Verify the integration

To confirm Looker is working with your service or database:

1. Open SQL Runner

   In Looker, go to Develop > SQL Runner and select your connection.

2. Run a query

   Run a simple query against one of your tables:

   SELECT * FROM <table_name> LIMIT 10;

   You see rows from your service or database in the results, confirming that Looker can read your data.

You have successfully integrated Looker with Tiger Data.

Troubleshooting

• Connection test fails on PDTs: confirm the looker_scratch schema is owned by the looker role and that the role's search_path includes it.
• Connection times out: for hosted Looker, make sure Looker's egress IP addresses are allowlisted in your network, and that SSL is enabled for Tiger Cloud.

For other connectivity and authentication issues, see Troubleshoot Tiger Cloud integrations.

Next steps

Find your connection details

Locate the host, port, database, user, and password for your service or database.

Integrate Tableau with Tiger Data

Connect Tableau to your service or database to build dashboards.