Looker

In this section, we provide guides and references to use the Looker connector.

Configure and schedule Looker metadata and profiler workflows from the OpenMetadata UI:

If you don't want to use the OpenMetadata Ingestion container to configure the workflows via the UI, then you can check the following docs to connect using Airflow SDK or with the CLI.

To run the Ingestion via the UI you'll need to use the OpenMetadata Ingestion Container, which comes shipped with custom Airflow plugins to handle the workflow deployment.

The first step is ingesting the metadata from your sources. Under Settings, you will find a Services link an external source system to OpenMetadata. Once a service is created, it can be used to configure metadata, usage, and profiler workflows.

To visit the Services page, select Services from the Settings menu.

Visit Services Page

Find Services under the Settings menu

Click on the Add New Service button to start the Service creation.

Create a new service

Add a new Service from the Services page

Select Looker as the service type and click Next.

Select Service

Select your service from the list

Provide a name and description for your service as illustrated below.

Service Name

OpenMetadata uniquely identifies services by their Service Name. Provide a name that distinguishes your deployment from other services, including the other {connector} services that you might be ingesting metadata from.

Add New Service

Provide a Name and description for your Service

In this step, we will configure the connection settings required for this connector. Please follow the instructions below to ensure that you've configured the connector to read from your looker service as desired.

Configure service connection

Configure the service connection by filling the form

Once the credentials have been added, click on Test Connection and Save the changes.

Test Connection

Test the connection and save the Service

Connection Options

  • Host and Port: URL to the Looker instance.
  • Client ID: Specify the Client ID to connect to Looker. It should have enough privileges to read all the metadata.
  • Client Secret: Client Secret to connect to Looker.
  • Environment: Looker Environment.

In this step we will configure the metadata ingestion pipeline, Please follow the instructions below

Configure Metadata Ingestion

Configure Metadata Ingestion Page

Metadata Ingestion Options

  • Name: This field refers to the name of ingestion pipeline, you can customize the name or use the generated name.
  • Dashboard Filter Pattern (Optional): Use to dashboard filter patterns to control whether or not to include dashboard as part of metadata ingestion.
    • Include: Explicitly include dashboards by adding a list of comma-separated regular expressions to the Include field. OpenMetadata will include all dashboards with names matching one or more of the supplied regular expressions. All other dashboards will be excluded.
    • Exclude: Explicitly exclude dashboards by adding a list of comma-separated regular expressions to the Exclude field. OpenMetadata will exclude all dashboards with names matching one or more of the supplied regular expressions. All other dashboards will be included.
  • Chart Pattern (Optional): Use to chart filter patterns to control whether or not to include charts as part of metadata ingestion.
    • Include: Explicitly include charts by adding a list of comma-separated regular expressions to the Include field. OpenMetadata will include all charts with names matching one or more of the supplied regular expressions. All other charts will be excluded.
    • Exclude: Explicitly exclude charts by adding a list of comma-separated regular expressions to the Exclude field. OpenMetadata will exclude all charts with names matching one or more of the supplied regular expressions. All other charts will be included.
  • Database Service Name (Optional): Enter the name of Database Service which is already ingested in OpenMetadata to create lineage between dashboards and database tables.
  • Enable Debug Log (toggle): Set the Enable Debug Log toggle to set the default log level to debug, these logs can be viewed later in Airflow.
  • Override Current Owner(toggle): Set the Override Current Owner toggle to override current owner with new owner, if that is fetched during metadata ingestion For first time of metadata ingestion, kindly make sure to keep it enabled to get the owner.

Scheduling can be set up at an hourly, daily, or weekly cadence. The timezone is in UTC. Select a Start Date to schedule for ingestion. It is optional to add an End Date.

Review your configuration settings. If they match what you intended, click Deploy to create the service and schedule metadata ingestion.

If something doesn't look right, click the Back button to return to the appropriate step and change the settings as needed.

Schedule the Workflow

Schedule the Ingestion Pipeline and Deploy

After configuring the workflow, you can click on Deploy to create the pipeline.

Once the workflow has been successfully deployed, you can view the Ingestion Pipeline running from the Service Page.

View Ingestion Pipeline

View the Ingestion Pipeline from the Service Page

If there were any errors during the workflow deployment process, the Ingestion Pipeline Entity will still be created, but no workflow will be present in the Ingestion container.

You can then edit the Ingestion Pipeline and Deploy it again.

Workflow Deployment Error

Edit and Deploy the Ingestion Pipeline

From the Connection tab, you can also Edit the Service if needed.

Still have questions?

You can take a look at our Q&A or reach out to us in Slack

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