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I use Looker to manage my data stored in Amazon RedShift database. Though Looker has dash-boarding capabilities, I would like to use Tableau for better visualization. Is there a way I can connect Tableau to Looker database.
(P.S: I don't wish to connect Tableau to RedShift/ S3 directly as this exposes my data to Tableau server). Thank you.

Nandini Chakladar
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    I don't believe that's possible, though I'm not sure. You could always build a customer connection potentially depending on looker's APIs. I don't quite understand the issue with connecting directly to the data source. Do you have your own tableau sever instance or are you using a free/public Tableau license? Using tableau desktop to connect to a datasource and create visualizations does not involve tableau server, they are can be two independent products. – tyvich Oct 16 '17 at 22:52
  • @tyvich - I have my own Tableau server instance and I want people to collaborate and make edits, hence the need for the Server. Also, the data models built on Looker do not necessarily get stored in the Amazon RedShift Server, and also there are privacy concerns. – Nandini Chakladar Oct 17 '17 at 00:44

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Looker connects to your Amazon Redshift database directly via JBDC connection. If you would like to visualize queries generated from Looker you'd be best to utilize the API to generate a result set to access via Tableau. The API will allow you to generate result sets in a number of different formats (JSON, CSV, HTML, TXT,...). Looker connects directly to the underlying datasource via JDBC connection and only stores the application metadata (users, saved content, etc.) in it's application Database.

Looker is also releasing custom visualizations to compliment the existing visualization options. This will allow the development of javascript visualizations that render alongside the out of the box options provided by Looker.

*full disclosure I work for Looker

joshuamoskovitz
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You want to get connected to Looker Database ? Does that mean, you want to get data extracted from looker views and use same data in Tableau ? or You want to use looker Metadata ?

I don't think you can directly connect to the data fetched by looker but you can get all the metadata used by all looker views and models using Looker API.

Metadata will have all data base, schema, table , underlying fields from table or fields created in looker.

This can be achieved by 1) generating API3 keys 2) Connect to looker with restful API and load received data to a file 3) Use the file as part your tableau dashboard.

https://discourse.looker.com/t/writing-a-simple-data-dictionary-to-csv-using-the-looker-api-and-the-python-requests-library/3920

Try if Same process can be used to get table data via looker.

Visualising looker itself is a good option as we get easy drill details and flexibility.

sateesh
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