Alation Connected Sheets for Google Sheets

Alation Connected Sheets is available as an extension to Google Sheets.

Prerequisites

To use Alation Connected Sheets, your Alation instance must satisfy the following requirements:

• Must be an Alation Cloud Service Instance running the Alation cloud native architecture with OAuth configured. To determine if you’re already on the cloud native architecture or to request migration to it, contact Alation Support.

• Must have available Creator or Explorer licenses for all users running Alation Connected Sheets.

In the 2023.1 release, the following restrictions apply:

• Only four databases are supported—Snowflake, Postgres, MySql, Redshift—and those must be cloud instances.

Getting Started

To get started with Alation Connected Sheets for Google Sheets, do the following:

1. Open a Google Sheets document, then open Extensions > Add-ons > Get Add-ons (or visit https://workspace.google.com/marketplace/category/works-with-spreadsheet):

   

2. Select the Alation Connected Sheets extension for Google Sheets (if it is not immediately visible, search for “Alation” in the search box):

   

3. Open a Google Sheets document and launch Alation Connected Sheets from Extensions:

   

Log Into Alation Instance

Once Alation Connected Sheets is launched, you will need to log into your Alation Cloud Service instance. Enter the Alation instance name and then click Login With Alation. A new window appears. Use your Alation OAuth credentials to log in for access to the Alation catalog from Alation Connected Sheets:

The first time you log into Alation Connected Sheets, you may be asked to log into your Google account to allow Alation to access your Google Sheets.

Download Directly Into Sheets

Once you’ve signed into your Alation Cloud Service instance, click Browse Catalog to Download to view supported database instances:

The Catalog Browser dialog appears:

Navigate the catalog by clicking through the object hierarchy; data sources and queries are available. You can use search to find data objects. Search strings are applied on the Name, Title, and Description of the objects.

As you click through objects, you can view metadata information from the catalog—including any curation information such as trust check flags showing Endorsements, Warnings, or Deprecations:

When you have found a table or query you are interested in, click Next to connect to the relevant database. You are prompted to Save the Username and Password for the database:

You can preview data with filters or sort criteria before the download. You can also select the order of columns in the downloaded data. On query objects, you can apply filters only if the query supports customizable filter criteria:

You can provide a sheet name for the downloaded data set. By default, the table or query name is used. The data set will be downloaded into a new sheet by default, or you can override this by selecting “Insert into active cell”:

Manage Downloaded Data Configurations

Alation Connected Sheets provides a snapshot of all the download dataset configurations in a spreadsheet and provides easy manageability to:

• Instantly refresh data

• Schedule and manage auto-refresh for the data set

• Edit data source credentials

• Edit a downloaded configuration

• Delete a downloaded configuration

Schedule Auto-refresh

Connected sheets makes it easy to refresh data and supports the following cadences:

• Hourly: Every 2, 4, 6, 8, or 12 hours from a start time

• Daily: Every day at certain time (hour, min) of a chosen time zone

• Weekly: Every week, on one or more days at a particular time (hour, minute and timezone)

• Monthly: Every month on a specific day of month and time (hour, min) of a chosen time zone

Status of the auto-refresh schedule will be reflected in the download sheet snapshot view. You can also opt for notifications for success, failure, or both:

Edit a Configuration

When you select Edit Configuration from the options menu, you are taken to the Data Preview page, where your options are determined by whether you initially chose a table or a query. If a table, you can change the set of columns selected, their order, filters applied, and sort order. If a query, you can change filters only if the query supports customizable filter criteria.

Make your changes, and then click Update. The configuration is updated to reflect your changes.