Snowflake

Connect Summation to a Snowflake account.

Summation queries Snowflake using a username and password, scoped to a warehouse and role you specify.

What you’ll need

Click on View account details link from the menu as seen below:

Switch to the Config File tab on the Account Details modal, we need the following fields from the code block displayed there

• A Snowflake account identifier, that would be of the form <orgname>-<account_name>
• A warehouse Summation can use to run queries.
• A username and password that can be used to authenticate

Form fields

On Summation side, on the Snowflake connection details page, you can enter the fields we noted above into the form:

Field	Required	Stored as	Notes
Account Identifier	Yes	Config	e.g. myorg-myaccount. Don’t include .snowflakecomputing.com. See Finding the organization and account name in the Snowflake docs.
Warehouse	Yes	Config	The compute warehouse, e.g. COMPUTE_WH. See Overview of warehouses.
Role	Optional	Config	Snowflake role to assume. Defaults to the user’s default role if blank. See Overview of access control.
Username	Yes	Config	Snowflake login name.
Password	Yes	Secret

Recommended Best Practice (Optional)

Create a dedicated SUMMATION_USER and SUMMATION_ROLE rather than re-using a personal login. Easier to audit, and you can rotate credentials without disrupting humans.

Setup SQL

Run as ACCOUNTADMIN (or another role with sufficient privileges):

CREATE ROLE IF NOT EXISTS SUMMATION_ROLE;

CREATE WAREHOUSE IF NOT EXISTS SUMMATION_WH
  WITH WAREHOUSE_SIZE = 'XSMALL'
       AUTO_SUSPEND   = 60
       AUTO_RESUME    = TRUE;

GRANT USAGE ON WAREHOUSE SUMMATION_WH TO ROLE SUMMATION_ROLE;

-- Grant read access to the data you want exposed
GRANT USAGE  ON DATABASE ANALYTICS                       TO ROLE SUMMATION_ROLE;
GRANT USAGE  ON ALL SCHEMAS IN DATABASE ANALYTICS        TO ROLE SUMMATION_ROLE;
GRANT SELECT ON ALL TABLES  IN DATABASE ANALYTICS        TO ROLE SUMMATION_ROLE;
GRANT SELECT ON FUTURE TABLES IN DATABASE ANALYTICS      TO ROLE SUMMATION_ROLE;

CREATE USER IF NOT EXISTS SUMMATION_USER
  PASSWORD          = '<strong-password>'
  DEFAULT_ROLE      = SUMMATION_ROLE
  DEFAULT_WAREHOUSE = SUMMATION_WH;

GRANT ROLE SUMMATION_ROLE TO USER SUMMATION_USER;

For more on grants, see GRANT <privileges> in the Snowflake docs.

Adding datasets

After saving the connection, browse the tree of databases and schemas in the dataset picker and select tables or views. Each dataset’s source reference looks like:

snowflake:DATABASE.SCHEMA.TABLE

Common problems

Error or symptom	Likely cause
Authentication failed	Wrong username or password, or the user is locked or password-expired.
Object does not exist or not authorized	The role can’t see the schema or table. Re-check the GRANT statements.
Warehouse not found	Warehouse name is case-sensitive in some accounts — match casing exactly.
Login blocked by MFA	Summation uses password auth. Use a service user that doesn’t require MFA.