Looker

Looker Integration with Tallyfy Analytics

Want to turn workflow data into interactive insights your whole team can explore? Looker connects directly to Tallyfy Analytics, transforming raw process information into dashboards that answer questions you didn’t even know you had.

Looker vs Looker Studio

This guide covers both Looker (Google Cloud’s enterprise BI platform) and Looker Studio (free visualization tool, formerly Google Data Studio). Both integrate with Tallyfy Analytics through Amazon Athena, but use different connection methods. Choose the one that matches your needs and budget.

Integration Benefits

• Interactive Data Exploration - Click, filter, and drill down through your workflow data without writing queries
• Embedded Analytics - Share live dashboards with stakeholders who don’t need full BI tool access
• Real-time Monitoring - Watch processes unfold with dashboards that update as work happens
• Collaborative Intelligence - Build once, share everywhere - from Slack to email to web portals
• Self-Service Analytics - Empower team members to answer their own questions without IT bottlenecks

Key Capabilities

Feature	Description
Live Connectivity	Direct connection to Tallyfy data via Amazon Athena1
LookML Modeling	Define relationships and calculations once, use everywhere
Embedded Dashboards	Integrate analytics into your existing applications
Scheduled Delivery	Email reports automatically on your schedule
Mobile Access	Access insights from any device, anywhere

Business Applications

Here’s what you can actually build with Looker and Tallyfy together:

1. Executive Dashboards - Give leadership the 10,000-foot view with drill-down into details
2. Process Performance Monitoring - Spot bottlenecks before they become problems
3. Team Analytics - See who’s crushing their tasks and who needs support
4. Customer Journey Analysis - Track how form submissions flow through your processes
5. Compliance Reporting - Prove you’re meeting SLAs with timestamp evidence
6. Workload Distribution - Balance assignments across your team based on real data

Technical Architecture

The connection works through a straightforward chain:

• Tallyfy Analytics - Your process data stored securely in Amazon S3
• Amazon Athena - Query engine that runs SQL on your data lake
• Simba JDBC Driver - The bridge connecting Looker to Athena
• Looker Platform - Where you build models and create visualizations
• Looker API - Embed dashboards anywhere you need them

Authentication Requirements

When Tallyfy provisions your Analytics account, you’ll receive two credential sets. Keep them straight:

• AWS IAM Login (username/password) - For AWS web console access only
• Access Key and Secret Access Key - Your credentials for Looker connections

Important

Looker needs the Access Key and Secret Access Key - not the IAM username/password. Token-based authentication works better with BI platforms and avoids those frustrating “security token invalid” errors.

Performance Optimization

Looker offers some neat tricks for working with Athena data:

• Result Streaming - Large result sets? Enable streaming to improve extraction speed
• Persistent Derived Tables - Cache complex calculations in S3 for faster dashboard loading
• Connection Pooling - Increase concurrent connections if Looker is your primary analytics tool
• Query Optimization - Use Looker’s aggregate awareness to pre-calculate common metrics

Understanding time metrics

Task duration metrics in Looker show elapsed time between assignment and completion - not actual working time. These timestamps include holidays, multi-tasking periods, and external delays. For accurate effort tracking, see how to track time spent on tasks.

Getting Started

Ready to connect? Here’s your roadmap:

For Looker (Enterprise Platform):

1. Make sure you’ve got an active Tallyfy Analytics subscription
2. Verify you have Looker access (self-hosted or Looker Cloud)
3. Gather your Access Key and Secret Access Key from Tallyfy
4. Follow the Looker connection guide to set everything up
5. Start exploring your data - Looker makes it surprisingly intuitive

For Looker Studio (Free Tool):

1. Ensure you have an active Tallyfy Analytics subscription
2. Sign up for a free Looker Studio account
3. Choose a third-party connector (CData or OWOX)
4. Configure the connector with your Athena credentials
5. Start building reports and visualizations

Setup takes about 15-20 minutes for Looker, or 10-15 minutes for Looker Studio. The detailed connection guides below walk you through each option.

• Connecting Looker Studio to analytics data
• Connecting Looker to analytics data

Related articles

Looker > Connecting Looker to analytics data

This comprehensive guide demonstrates connecting Looker’s enterprise BI platform to Tallyfy workflow data through Amazon Athena with step-by-step setup instructions driver installation connection configuration performance optimization and advanced dashboard creation capabilities.

Looker > Connecting Looker Studio to analytics data

Looker Studio connects to Tallyfy workflow data through third-party connectors like CData or OWOX in 10-15 minutes enabling users to create free shareable dashboards and reports from their analytics data without requiring enterprise BI platform subscriptions.

Integrations > Tallyfy Analytics

Tallyfy Analytics is an add-on service that copies workflow data to a dedicated analytical infrastructure enabling users to connect business intelligence tools like Tableau and Power BI for custom reporting advanced SQL queries trend analysis and deep process insights through secure Amazon Athena integration.

Analytics > Tableau

Tableau integration enhances Tallyfy Analytics by offering extensive data visualization tools for creating interactive dashboards and reports to analyze workflow performance through direct connectivity with Amazon Athena.

Footnotes

1. AWS serverless query service using standard SQL on S3 data lakes, no infrastructure management needed ↩

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