Connect to Google Sheets Data in as an External Source in Dremio

The CData JDBC Driver for Google Spreadsheets implements JDBC Standards and allows various applications, including Dremio, to work with live Google Sheets data. Dremio is a data lakehouse platform designed to empower self-service, interactive analytics on the data lake. With the CData JDBC Driver, you can include live Google Sheets data as a part of your enterprise data lake. This article describes how to connect to Google Sheets data from Dremio as an External Source.

The CData JDBC Driver enables high-speed access to live Google Sheets data in Dremio. Once you install the driver, authenticate with Google Sheets and gain immediate access to Google Sheets data within your data lake. By surfacing Google Sheets data using native data types and handling complex filters, aggregations, & other operations automatically, the CData JDBC Driver grants seamless access to Google Sheets data.

Build the ARP Connector

To use the CData JDBC Driver in Dremio, you need to build an Advanced Relation Pushdown (ARP) Connector. You can view the source code for the Connector on GitHub or download the ZIP file (GitHub.com) directly. Once you copy or extract the files, run the following command from the root directory of the connector (the directory containing the pom.xml file) to build the connector.

mvn clean install

Once the JAR file for the connector is built (in the target directory), you are ready to copy the ARP connector and JDBC Driver to your Dremio instance.

Installing the Connector and JDBC Driver

Install the ARP Connector to %DREMIO_HOME%/jars/ and the JDBC Driver for Google Sheets to %DREMIO_HOME%/jars/3rdparty. You can use commands similar to the following:

ARP Connector

docker cp PATH\TO\dremio-googlesheets-plugin-20.0.0.jar dremio_image_name:/opt/dremio/jars/

JDBC Driver for Google Sheets

docker cp PATH\TO\cdata.jdbc.googlesheets.jar dremio_image_name:/opt/dremio/jars/3rdparty/

Connecting to Google Sheets

Google Sheets will now appear as an External Source option in Dremio. The ARP Connector built uses a JDBC URL to connect to Google Sheets data. The JDBC Driver has a built-in connection string designer that you can use (see below).

Built-in Connection String Designer

For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Google Sheets JDBC Driver. Double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command line.

java -jar cdata.jdbc.googlesheets.jar

Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

You can connect to a spreadsheet by providing authentication to Google and then setting the Spreadsheet connection property to the name or feed link of the spreadsheet. If you want to view a list of information about the spreadsheets in your Google Drive, execute a query to the Spreadsheets view after you authenticate.

ClientLogin (username/password authentication) has been officially deprecated since April 20, 2012 and is now no longer available. Instead, use the OAuth 2.0 authentication standard. To access Google APIs on behalf on individual users, you can use the embedded credentials or you can register your own OAuth app.

OAuth also enables you to use a service account to connect on behalf of users in a Google Apps domain. To authenticate with a service account, you will need to register an application to obtain the OAuth JWT values.

See the Getting Started chapter in the help documentation to connect to Google Sheets from different types of accounts: Google accounts, Google Apps accounts, and accounts using two-step verification.

NOTE: To use the JDBC Driver in Dremio, you will need a license (full or trial) and a Runtime Key (RTK). For more information on obtaining this license (or a trial), contact our sales team.

Add the Runtime Key (RTK) to the JDBC URL. You will end up with a JDBC URL similar to the following:

jdbc:googlesheets:RTK=5246...;Spreadsheet=MySheet;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH

Access Google Sheets as an External Source

To add Google Sheets as an External Source, click to add a new source and select GoogleSheets. Copy the JDBC URL and paste it into the New GoogleSheets Source wizard.

Save the connection and you are ready to query live Google Sheets data in Dremio, easily incorporating Google Sheets data into your data lake.

More Information & Free Trial

Using the CData JDBC Driver for Google Spreadsheets in Dremio, you can incorporate live Google Sheets data into your data lake. Check out our CData JDBC Driver for Google Spreadsheets page for more information about connecting to Google Sheets. Download a free, 30 day trial of the CData JDBC Driver for Google Spreadsheets and get started today.