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Orion connects to three kinds of source: your data warehouse, the tools holding your business logic, and a few services that add outside context. Administrators connect each one once, at the tenant level.

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Accessing Data Sources

  1. Go to Configuration in the left-hand navigation menu
  2. Select the Data Sources tab
The Data Sources tab in Configuration, showing connected data source tiles Once you’ve set up access on the source side (service accounts, API keys), this page is where you enter those connection details. BigQuery needs one value from Orion as well. The connection form shows the Orion service account that you grant access to in Google Cloud. You never have to ask us for it. See Connecting Data Sources for the full setup.

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How Data Sources Work

Data sources are configured at the tenant level and made globally available:
  • Tenant-level setup - Administrators connect data sources once in Configuration
  • Tenant-wide by default - Connected data sources are available across the tenant, subject to each user’s role and group membership
  • Role limits - What a user can do with a data source depends on their role: Admins manage connections, Analysts query them, and Viewers query only where a project owner allows it
  • Group scoping - Groups limit which data sources their members can use
  • Project-level selection - Each project can choose which data sources to use
  • Multiple data sources - A project can connect to multiple data sources simultaneously

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Supported Data Sources

Orion currently supports connections to:
  • BigQuery - Google’s data warehouse platform
  • Snowflake - Cloud data platform
  • Databricks - Lakehouse data platform
  • Redshift - Amazon’s cloud data warehouse
  • Amazon Athena - Serverless SQL over data in S3, via the AWS Glue catalog
  • Microsoft Fabric - Microsoft’s analytics warehouse
  • PostgreSQL - Open-source relational database
  • MySQL - Open-source relational database
  • Delta Lake - Delta tables on cloud storage (ADLS Gen2 or GCS)
  • MotherDuck - Hosted DuckDB, queried with DuckDB SQL
  • Looker - Dashboards, Looks, and LookML business logic
  • dbt - Model metadata and lineage, used to enrich a warehouse connection
Two lightweight external-context sources round out the list:
  • News API - News headlines pulled into analyses for external context (free newsapi.org key)
  • Weather - Historical and forecast weather from Open-Meteo, no key required
For the credentials, grants, and step-by-step setup each source needs, see Connecting Data Sources. Beyond these tenant-level connections, users can also upload Excel files in chat and query them as ad hoc data sources for a single analysis. See File Uploads.

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Adding a Data Source

As an administrator, you can:
  1. Click the Add Data Source tile
  2. Select the type of data source from the supported list
  3. Provide the necessary connection credentials and configuration
  4. Save the connection
The Choose a data source modal. Source types appear as two columns of cards, each with an icon, a name and a one-line description, and the list scrolls to more types below the fold The data source is now available for all users to select when setting up projects.
Each data source has its own access requirements. See Connecting Data Sources for the credentials, grants, and network access each one needs.

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Managing Data Sources

Administrators can:
  • Update credentials - Change connection details if needed
  • Monitor status - Check the health of data source connections
  • Remove data sources - Disconnect data sources from the tenant
  • View usage - See which projects are using each data source
Start with one or two data sources and expand as your team’s analytical needs grow.