Snowflake

To add a database connection, click on the gear icon in the top right, and navigate to Admin settings > Databases > Add a database.

You can edit these settings at any time. Just remember to save your changes.

Display name

The display name for the database in the Metabase interface.

Account or hostname

You have the option of using an account name or hostname. Your hostname is your database’s IP address or its domain name (e.g., database.example.com).

If your URL includes your database’s region, you can connect using an account name, otherwise connect using a hostname.

AWS

Connect with an account name.

Enter your Account identifier with the region that your Snowflake cluster is running on. E.g., xxxxxxxxx.us-east-3.aws. For example, if you’re running Snowflake on AWS and your account URL is https://az12345.ca-central-1.snowflakecomputing.com:

• <account_identifier>: az12345.ca-central-1.
• <cloud_platform>: aws.

You’d enter az12345.ca-central-1.aws as the account name in Metabase.

Not all regions require the cloud platform identifier. If you’re in us-west-2, you would enter az12345 as the account name. For the requirements per region, see the official Snowflake’s documentation.

app.snowflake.com

Connect with a host name.

You can get your host name by going to Admin > Accounts. The Account name will be under Accounts. Click on the account you want to use, and click on the link icon to copy the host URL: that’s your host name. In the image below, Metabot is discreetly covering sensitive info. The “Copy account URL” link on the right is what you’re looking for:

Learn more about Account Identifiers in Snowflake.

Username

The database username for the account that you want to use to connect to your database. You can set up multiple connections to the same database using different user accounts to connect to the same database, each with different sets of privileges.

On your app.snowflake.com account page, you can find Users and roles under Admin > Users & Roles.

Password

The password for the username that you use to connect to the database.

RSA private key (PEM)

Not required. You have the option of using a Local file path or an Uploaded file path. If you’re on Metabase Cloud, you’ll need to select Uploaded file path and upload your certificate.

Warehouse

Snowflake warehouse. If the user lacks a default warehouse, you’ll need to enter the warehouse to connect to.

On app.snowflake.com, you can find warehouses under Admin > Warehouses.

Database name (case sensitive)

The name of the database you want to connect to in Snowflake. On app.snowflake.com you can find databases under Data > Databases.

Schemas (optional)

You can specify which schemas you want to sync and scan. If no schema is passed, then all schema available to that user and role will be listed as folders in Metabase.

Schema options include:

• All
• Only these…
• All except…

For the Only these and All except options, you can input a comma-separated list of values to tell Metabase which schemas you want to include (or exclude). For example:

FOO,BAR,BAZ

You can use the * wildcard to match multiple schemas.

Let’s say you have three schemas: FOO, BAR, and BAZ.

• If you have Only these… set, and enter the string B*, you’ll sync with bar and baz.
• If you have All except… set, and enter the string B*, you’ll just sync foo.

Note that only the * wildcard is supported; you can’t use other special characters or regexes.

Role (optional)

Specify a role to override the database user’s default role. For example, if the database user METABASE has the roles:

• Default role APPLICATION.
• Additional role ANALYTICS.

You can enter ANALYTICS in the Role field to ensure that the METABASE user connects to Snowflake using the ANALYTICS role by default.

Use an SSH tunnel

See our guide to SSH tunneling.

Additional JDBC connection string options

Some databases allow you to append options to the connection string that Metabase uses to connect to your database.

Re-run queries for simple explorations

Turn this option OFF if people want to click Run (the play button) before applying any Summarize or filter selections.

By default, Metabase will execute a query as soon as you choose an grouping option from the Summarize menu or a filter condition from the drill-through menu. If your database is slow, you may want to disable re-running to avoid loading data on each click.

Choose when Metabase syncs and scans

Turn this option ON to manage the queries that Metabase uses to stay up to date with your database. For more information, see Syncing and scanning databases.

Database syncing

If you’ve selected Choose when syncs and scans happen > ON, you’ll be able to set:

• The frequency of the sync: hourly (default) or daily.
• The time to run the sync, in the timezone of the server where your Metabase app is running.

Scanning for filter values

Metabase can scan the values present in each field in this database to enable checkbox filters in dashboards and questions. This can be a somewhat resource-intensive process, particularly if you have a very large database.

If you’ve selected Choose when syncs and scans happen > ON, you’ll see the following options under Scanning for filter values:

• Regularly, on a schedule allows you to run scan queries at a frequency that matches the rate of change to your database. The time is set in the timezone of the server where your Metabase app is running. This is the best option for a small database, or tables with distinct values that get updated often.
• Only when adding a new filter widget is a great option if you want scan queries to run on demand. Turning this option ON means that Metabase will only scan and cache the values of the field(s) that are used when a new filter is added to a dashboard or SQL question.
• Never, I’ll do this manually if I need to is an option for databases that are either prohibitively large, or which never really have new values added. Use the Re-scan field values now button to run a manual scan and bring your filter values up to date.

Periodically refingerprint tables

Periodic refingerprinting will increase the load on your database.

Turn this option ON to scan a sample of values every time Metabase runs a sync.

A fingerprinting query examines the first 10,000 rows from each column and uses that data to guesstimate how many unique values each column has, what the minimum and maximum values are for numeric and timestamp columns, and so on. If you leave this option OFF, Metabase will only fingerprint your columns once during setup.

Further reading

• Managing databases
• Metadata editing
• Models
• Setting data access permissions