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Use CData Connect Cloud to gain access to live Amazon Athena data from your Google Sheets.
Google Sheets is a from, web-based spreadsheet program. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, you can instantly access Amazon Athena data from within Google Sheets for data analysis, collaborations, calculations, and more. This article shows how to connect to Amazon Athena in your Connect Cloud instance and access live Amazon Athena data in Google Sheets.
CData Connect Cloud provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for Amazon Athena, allowing you to easily access live Amazon Athena data in Google Sheets. Simply use the partner Connect Cloud Add-On to generate a query (or write your own). Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Cloud pushes all supported query operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Amazon Athena, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Amazon Athena data.
This setup requires a CData Connect Cloud instance and the CData Connect Cloud Add-On for Google Sheets. To get started, sign up a free trial of Connect Cloud and install the free Connect Cloud Google Sheets Add-On.
Connect to Amazon Athena in Connect Cloud
CData Connect Cloud uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources.
- Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
- Select "Amazon Athena" from the Add Connection panel
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Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Amazon Athena.
Authenticating to Amazon Athena
To authorize Amazon Athena requests, provide the credentials for an administrator account or for an IAM user with custom permissions: Set AccessKey to the access key Id. Set SecretKey to the secret access key.
Note: Though you can connect as the AWS account administrator, it is recommended to use IAM user credentials to access AWS services.
Obtaining the Access Key
To obtain the credentials for an IAM user, follow the steps below:
- Sign into the IAM console.
- In the navigation pane, select Users.
- To create or manage the access keys for a user, select the user and then select the Security Credentials tab.
To obtain the credentials for your AWS root account, follow the steps below:
- Sign into the AWS Management console with the credentials for your root account.
- Select your account name or number and select My Security Credentials in the menu that is displayed.
- Click Continue to Security Credentials and expand the Access Keys section to manage or create root account access keys.
Authenticating from an EC2 Instance
If you are using the CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 from an EC2 Instance and have an IAM Role assigned to the instance, you can use the IAM Role to authenticate. To do so, set UseEC2Roles to true and leave AccessKey and SecretKey empty. The CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 will automatically obtain your IAM Role credentials and authenticate with them.
Authenticating as an AWS Role
In many situations it may be preferable to use an IAM role for authentication instead of the direct security credentials of an AWS root user. An AWS role may be used instead by specifying the RoleARN. This will cause the CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 to attempt to retrieve credentials for the specified role. If you are connecting to AWS (instead of already being connected such as on an EC2 instance), you must additionally specify the AccessKey and SecretKey of an IAM user to assume the role for. Roles may not be used when specifying the AccessKey and SecretKey of an AWS root user.
Authenticating with MFA
For users and roles that require Multi-factor Authentication, specify the MFASerialNumber and MFAToken connection properties. This will cause the CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 to submit the MFA credentials in a request to retrieve temporary authentication credentials. Note that the duration of the temporary credentials may be controlled via the TemporaryTokenDuration (default 3600 seconds).
Connecting to Amazon Athena
In addition to the AccessKey and SecretKey properties, specify Database, S3StagingDirectory and Region. Set Region to the region where your Amazon Athena data is hosted. Set S3StagingDirectory to a folder in S3 where you would like to store the results of queries.
If Database is not set in the connection, the data provider connects to the default database set in Amazon Athena.
- Click Create & Test
- Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Amazon Athena Connection page and update the User-based permissions.
With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Amazon Athena data from Google Sheets.
Access Live Amazon Athena Data in Google Sheets
The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect Cloud from Google Sheets to access live Amazon Athena data.
- Log into Google Sheets, create a new sheet (or open an existing one).
- Click Add-ons and click Get Add-ons (if you have already installed the Add-on, jump to step 5).
- Search for CData Connect Cloud Add-On and install the Add-on.
- Authorize the Add-On.
- Back in Google Sheets, click Add-ons and open the CData Connect Cloud Add-On.
- In the Add-On panel, click Authorize to authenticate with your CData Connect Cloud instance
- In the CData Connect Cloud panel in Google Sheets, click Import
- Choose a Connection (e.g. AmazonAthena1), Table (e.g. Customers, and Columns to import
- Optionally add Filters, Sorting, and a Limit
- Click Execute to import the data
Live Access to Amazon Athena Data from Cloud Applications
New, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Amazon Athena data from your Google Sheets workbook. You can add more data to your workbook for calculations, aggregations, collaboration, and more.

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