Alation Connector for ThoughtSpot OCF

The ThoughtSpot OCF Connector, developed by Logan Data, enables Alation users to automatically extract and catalog ThoughtSpot analytics objects, bringing Organizations, Worksheets, Views, SQL Views, Answers, Liveboards, Datasources, Measures, Dimensions, and Formulas into Alation's unified data intelligence platform.

ThoughtSpot drives higher app engagement by fueling user curiosity with embedded search and interactive Liveboards, empowering non-technical decision makers to find answers within the data warehouse without writing SQL, and empowering business analysts to build and share Liveboards with confidence. By connecting ThoughtSpot to Alation through this OCF connector, Business Analysts, Data Analysts, Business Stewards, ThoughtSpot Admins, and Business Leadership gain the ability to find, understand, and trust ThoughtSpot analytics assets from within Alation's catalog, with full lineage, permissions, and usage context surfaced alongside every object.

Built on Alation's Open Connector Framework (OCF) with a containerized SDK, the connector uses ThoughtSpot REST APIs v2 to extract metadata accurately and completely:

/tspublic/rest/v2/metadata/header/search: Object metadata and header information

/tspublic/rest/v2/metadata/detail: Full object details including owners and timestamps

/tspublic/rest/v2/metadata/tml/export: Computed formula expressions

Object mapping - what gets extracted and how it appears in Alation:

Organization -> Alation Folder: Owner, creation time, modification time, description, and permissions

Worksheet / View / SQL View -> Alation Dataset: Owner, creation time, and modification time

Answer -> Alation Report: Name, type, and parent folder

Liveboard -> Alation Dashboard: Name, type, and parent folder

Datasource -> Alation Datasource: Datasource objects cataloged as datasource columns

Measure / Dimension -> Alation Field: Field name, category (measure or dimension), and expression

Formula -> Alation Field: Computed formula fields with full expression capture

Lineage capabilities:

Report lineage (intra-system): Trace data flow from Answers and Liveboards back to Worksheets, Views, and SQL Views within ThoughtSpot, providing visibility into how analytics objects are built.

Cross-system lineage: Connect ThoughtSpot Datasources to upstream database tables already cataloged in Alation (for example, Snowflake, SQL Server, and Google BigQuery) for end-to-end lineage across the data stack.

Column-level lineage (impact analysis): Trace individual report columns back to their underlying datasource fields, showing exactly which source fields drive each analysis.

Authentication and security:

Basic authentication: Username and password

Trusted Authentication: ThoughtSpot's recommended approach for secure service-to-service connectivity without exposing user credentials

SSL/TLS: Configurable HTTPS for encrypted metadata extraction in transit

Additional catalog features:

Object usage statistics: ThoughtSpot object popularity scores surfaced on every catalog page to help users identify the most-used and most-trusted Liveboards and Answers

Report previews: Dashboard image thumbnails displayed on Report and Dashboard catalog pages for quick visual identification

Permission mirroring: ThoughtSpot group-based EFFECTIVE permissions replicated into Alation, ensuring users see only the objects they are authorized to access in ThoughtSpot

Navigation links: One-click links from any Alation catalog object directly to the corresponding object in the ThoughtSpot application

Selective extraction: Apply organization-level filters to scope catalog updates

Full extraction: Catalog the entire ThoughtSpot instance in a single run

Google BigQuery datasource support with cross-system lineage (v1.1.1+)