Metabase

Before you start

To connect Metabase to Horizon Catalog, you need the following:

  • Administrator access to your Metabase instance. Horizon Catalog authenticates with an API key in the Administrators group, which is required to read users and all collections.

Complete the following steps to enable metadata, lineage, and popularity of your Metabase dashboards, questions, and collections in Horizon Catalog.

  1. Identify your Metabase URL.
  2. Create an API key.
  3. Create the Metabase connection.

1. Identify your Metabase URL

The URL is the address you use to sign in to Metabase, for example https://example.metabaseapp.com. Keep this information for the next steps.

2. Create an API key

Horizon Catalog authenticates with a Metabase API key. You must be a Metabase administrator to create one, and the key must be in the Administrators group so that Horizon Catalog can read users and all collections.

  1. In Metabase, select the gear icon in the upper right, then select Admin settings.
  2. Go to the Settings tab, then select Authentication in the left menu.
  3. Scroll to API Keys and select Manage.
  4. Select Create API Key.
  5. Enter a Key name, for example Horizon Catalog.
  6. For Group, select Administrators.
  7. Select Create, then copy the generated key and store it securely for use in Step 3.

Note

Metabase shows the API key only once. Copy and store it before closing this page.

For details, see API keys (https://www.metabase.com/docs/latest/people-and-groups/api-keys) in the Metabase documentation.

3. Create the Metabase connection

  1. In Snowflake, open Catalog > Connections and select Metabase from the Metadata connections section.

  2. Fill out the setup form with the following information:

    FieldValue
    Display NameA name for this connection. The default is Metabase, but you can override it.
    URL

    Your Metabase URL from Step 1, for example https://example.metabaseapp.com.

    API KeyThe API key from Step 2.
    Snowflake Database

    The Snowflake database where Horizon Catalog stores the connector metadata. The default is CONNECTORS.

    Snowflake Schema

    The Snowflake schema where Horizon Catalog stores the connector metadata. The default is METADATA.

  3. Select Create connection.

Connection security

All communication between Horizon Catalog and Metabase uses HTTPS (TLS 1.2 or higher). Authentication uses a Metabase API key, which is stored as an encrypted secret. No additional encryption configuration is required.

For more details, see Security and data protection.