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Connecting Your BI Tool to Clarity Data

Learn how to connect your Business Intelligence (BI) tool directly to your Clarity Human Services data in Snowflake.

Table of Contents

Overview

BYOBI lets you connect your preferred business intelligence tool directly to your Clarity data in Snowflake. This guide walks you through authenticating and configuring three popular tools - Tableau, Microsoft Power BI, and Looker - against your dedicated reader account.

Connecting your account requires the following authentication method:

Method Notes

Key-Pair 

One-time setup; supported by all three tools.

Before You Begin

To get started, you’ll need:

  • Your Bitfocus Snowflake account credentials (username, instance name, warehouse name).
  • The BI tool of your choice, installed locally or available in your environment.
  • For Tableau Desktop only: ODBC and the Snowflake ODBC driver.

You can find your server URL, instance name, and warehouse name in Snowflake under Account > Account Details.

Contact Bitfocus for a BI Service Account

Submit a request to the Support Team at support@bitfocus.com for a BI service account that will allow you to connect your BI tool.  See instructions on creating a key pair in the next section.

You will need to send the public key you created (attach the .pub file or include its contents in an email) along with the request. Do not send a private key (.p8) file. Within 2-3 business days, Bitfocus will create the account and share the username associated with the service account.

Note: The BI service account can only be requested by the System Administrator who administers the BYOBI-Snowflake account. For more information, see BYOBI - Data Analytics Toolkit.

Creating a Key Pair

Key-pair authentication uses an encrypted private key stored on the machine running your BI tool, paired with a public key registered to your Snowflake user. It's the most secure option and lets your BI tool run scheduled queries without requiring anyone to sign in.

To use key-pair authentication in Snowflake, users must generate a key pair with OpenSSL and run a Snowflake command to associate a user with the private key. The private key then needs to be uploaded to the server for cloud-based BI tools or stored on the user’s local machine for desktop BI tools (Tableau).

Step-by-step instructions to guide you through this process are below.

Step 1: (Windows Only) Install OpenSSL

macOS and Linux machines have OpenSSL preinstalled, so you can skip this step. On Windows, you’ll need to use one of the following approaches before you can run the commands below:

  • Download the OpenSSL installer from Shining Light Productions using that link.
  • Use Git for Windows (most common): if you have Git installed, open Git Bash and run the commands above unchanged.
  • winget: winget install ShiningLight.OpenSSL.Light, then run the commands in a new terminal.
  • WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux): run the commands in your Linux shell.

Step 2: Generate your private key

Open a terminal (Terminal on macOS/Linux; PowerShell on Windows) and run: 

openssl genrsa 2048 | openssl pkcs8 -topk8 -inform PEM -out rsa_key .p8 -nocrypt

This creates rsa_key.p8 in your current directory.

Store this file somewhere safe - you’ll need it every time you connect.

Step 3: Generate the matching public key

In the terminal window, enter:

openssl rsa -in rsa_key.p8 -pubout -out rsa_key.pub
 

Step 4: Register the public key with Snowflake

Open a Snowflake SQL worksheet and run:

 ALTER USER your_username SET RSA_PUBLIC_KEY='MIIBIjANBgkqh...';

 

Replace your_username with your Snowflake username, and paste in the contents of rsa_key.pub (the full key text between the header and footer lines).

You’re now ready to authenticate any of the three BI tools below using your .p8 private key file.

Key Pair Resources

Tableau Desktop

Prerequisites

Tableau Desktop requires both ODBC and the Snowflake ODBC driver to be installed.

  1. Install iODBC from iodbc.org/dataspace/iodbc/wiki/iODBC/Downloads.
  2. Install Snowflake's ODBC driver from Snowflake Developer Resources.
  3. Open ODBC Administrator, go to the ODBC Drivers tab, and click Add Driver.
  4. In the dialog:
    • Description of the driver: Snowflake (this is case-sensitive and must be an exact match)
    • Driver file name (macOS): /opt/snowflake/snowflakeodbc/lib/universal/libSnowflake.dylib

Connecting

  1. Open Tableau Desktop. From Connect > To a Server, select Snowflake.
    1. Enter your connection parameters as follows:

      Server: ficsimh-prod_[your-instance name]_reader.snowflakecomputing.com

      Role: PUBLIC

      Warehouse: READER_WH_[your-instance-name]

      Authentication: Choose Username & Password or Key-Pair
       
      Connection Parameters
  2. Provide credentials based on your chosen method:
    1. Username & Password: enter your Snowflake username and password.
    2. Sign in using Key Pair: enter your username, then navigate to your rsa_key.p8 private key file.

Once connected, your community's tables will appear in the Tableau interface.

Tableau References

Microsoft Power BI Desktop

Power BI Desktop does not require any additional drivers.

Connecting

  1. In Power BI Desktop, click Get Data and select Snowflake as the Data Source.
  2. Enter your connection details as follows:

    FieldValueServer: FICSIMH-PROD_[your-instance-name]_READER.snowflakecomputing.com

    Warehouse: [your-warehouse-name]
  3. Click Next and choose your authentication method:
    • Username & Password: enter the credentials provided for your Bitfocus Snowflake reader account.
    • Key-Pair Authentication: open your rsa_key.p8 file in a plain-text editor (Notepad, VS Code, TextEdit), then copy and paste the entire contents into the key field.
    • Microsoft Account: Power BI uses Microsoft Entra OAuth rather than Snowflake OAuth. See Configure Microsoft Entra ID for External OAuth for setup details.

Microsoft Power BI References

Looker

Connecting

Create a connection in Looker by following these instructions: Snowflake | Looker | Google Cloud Documentation.

The parameters below should be used when setting up your Snowflake connection in Looker:

  1. In Looker, navigate to Admin > Connections and click Add Connection.
  2. Enter the parameters:

    FieldValueHost: FICSIMH-PROD_[your-instance-name]_READER.snowflakecomputing.com*
    *The URL can be found under “Account Details” in Snowflake

    Port: 443

    Database Name: PROD_CLARITY_RAW

    Default Schema: [your-instance-name]

    Database Settings 

    Under the Optional Settings section:

    Additional JDBC Parameters: warehouse=[your-warehouse-name]

     
    Optional Settings

    You can find your warehouse name in Snowflake under Compute > Warehouses.

    Leave the remaining settings (max connections, query timeout, etc.) at their defaults unless you have a reason to change them.

  3. Choose your authentication method:
    1. Database Account (Username & Password): enter your admin username and password.

       
      Authentication Settings
    2. Key Pair: enter your username and upload your rsa_key.p8 file.
       
      Authentication Settings_Key Pair

After setting up a database connection, you will need to set up a data model and explore to be able to query your data. Looker documentation has detailed instructions on creating projects, models, and explores:


Looker References

FAQ and other considerations

Tableau says it can’t find the driver for Snowflake. Where is it?

Double-check that the driver is named Snowflake in ODBC Administrator with a capital S. Tableau requires that the driver name is an exact match and the field is case-sensitive.

My BI tool says that it can’t find the server.

Verify that you’re using the correct URL. You can confirm it in Snowflake under Account Details > Account/Server URL. Don't include https:// or trailing slashes.

The URL can be found in your Snowflake account under “Account Details” as “Account/Server URL.

Key-pair authentication fails with an "invalid private key" error.

Make sure you're pointing to the .p8 private key file (not .pub), and that the public key was registered to the same Snowflake user you're connecting as. The ALTER USER … SET RSA_PUBLIC_KEY statement should use the contents of rsa_key.pub, with the header and footer lines stripped.

My queries are slow or timing out.

Check that your reader warehouse (READER_WH_[your-instance-name]) is sized appropriately and isn't suspended. Warehouses auto-resume on first query but may add a few seconds of latency.

Need Help?

If you require additional support or run into a problem this guide doesn’t cover, please contact the Support Team at support@bitfocus.com and make sure to include the following:

  • The BI tool and version you’re using.
  • The authentication method you’ve selected.
  • The exact error message (a screenshot is ideal).
  • Your Clarity instance name.

Additional Resources

 

 

Updated: 09/28/2026