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Snowflake hero Openlayer integrates with Snowflake so you can run data quality tests directly on your Snowflake tables. The integration uses key-pair authentication, ensuring secure, auditable access without sharing passwords.

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Prerequisites

To follow this guide, you need:
  • A Snowflake account with access to the target tables.
  • Permissions to create users and roles in your Snowflake account.
  • An Openlayer project with monitoring mode enabled.

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Setup Guide

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Step 1: Create a warehouse on your Snowflake account

Navigate to your Snowflake account an create a new warehouse. You will use the warehouse name in the next steps. Create Snowflake warehouse A warehouse is an on-demand, scalable compute cluster used for executing data processing tasks. Openlayer will connect to a warehouse to run queries and sync data from the tables you want to monitor.

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Step 2: Create a dedicated user and role

Next, in Snowflake, create a service user and role. They will be used to run queries securely. To do it, run the following commands in a SQL worksheet, replacing placeholders:
Replace [OPENLAYER_PUBLIC_KEY_HERE] in the script below with the public RSA key available in the Openlayer UI when creating a Snowflake connection.
-- Variables
-- Replace the warehouse name with the one you created in Step 1
set role_name = 'OPENLAYER_FILE_IMPORTER_ROLE';
set user_name = 'OPENLAYER_FILE_IMPORTER';
set warehouse_name = '[YOUR_WAREHOUSE_NAME_HERE]';

-- Use Security Admin role for creating users/roles
use role securityadmin;

-- Create role for Openlayer
create role if not exists identifier($role_name);

-- Create a dedicated service user
create user if not exists identifier($user_name);
alter user identifier($user_name) set default_role = $role_name;
alter user identifier($user_name) set default_warehouse = $warehouse_name;
alter user identifier($user_name) set type = 'SERVICE';

-- Assign the role to the user
grant role identifier($role_name) to user identifier($user_name);

-- Associate a public key with the user for key-based authentication
-- Replace the public key with the one available in the Openlayer UI
ALTER USER identifier($user_name) SET RSA_PUBLIC_KEY='[OPENLAYER_PUBLIC_KEY_HERE]';
Openlayer roles in Snowflake

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Step 3: Grant role permissions

The role you created in Step 2 (default to OPENLAYER_FILE_IMPORTER_ROLE) must have USAGE rights on the warehouse, database, and schema, and SELECT rights on the target tables. To do it, run the following commands in a SQL worksheet, replacing placeholders: 
-- Variables
-- Replace the warehouse, database, schema, and table names with the ones you want to grant permissions to
set role_name = 'OPENLAYER_FILE_IMPORTER_ROLE';
set user_name = 'OPENLAYER_FILE_IMPORTER';
set warehouse_name = '[YOUR_WAREHOUSE_NAME_HERE]';
set database_name = '[YOUR_DATABASE_NAME_HERE]';
set schema_name = '[YOUR_SCHEMA_NAME_HERE]';
set table_name = '[YOUR_TABLE_NAME_HERE]';

-- Grant usage rights to the warehouse
grant USAGE
on warehouse identifier($warehouse_name)
to role identifier($role_name);

-- Grant usage rights to the database
grant USAGE
on database identifier($database_name)
to role identifier($role_name);

-- Grant usage rights to the schema
grant USAGE
on schema identifier($database_name).identifier($schema_name)
to role identifier($role_name);

-- Grant select rights to the table
grant SELECT
on table identifier($database_name).identifier($schema_name).identifier($table_name)
to role identifier($role_name);

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Step 4: Connect inside Openlayer

In your Openlayer workspace:
  1. Go to Data sources and select Snowflake.
  2. Click Connect.
  3. Fill in the fields:
  • Snowflake user: the Snowflake username (default to OPENLAYER_FILE_IMPORTER)
  • Snowflake role: the role with permissions (default to OPENLAYER_FILE_IMPORTER_ROLE)
  • Snowflake account: your account identifier (e.g. ABCDEFG-XYZ123)
  • Snowflake warehouse: the warehouse to run queries (the one you created in Step 1)
  • Name: a descriptive name for this connection
Configure Snowflake connection

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Step 5: Configure your table

After the connection is created, select the table to monitor:
  • Database: name of the database
  • Schema: schema containing the table
  • Table: table name
  • Timestamp column: column used to order/filter data for monitoring windows
  • Unique id column: column used to identify unique rows for monitoring windows (recommended)
  • Data source name: a descriptive name in Openlayer

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Optional: ML-specific settings

If the table contains ML outputs, you can provide additional context:
  • Class names
  • Feature names
  • Categorical feature names
This enables Openlayer to run ML-aware tests such as performance monitoring and drift detection.

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Troubleshooting

  • Permission errors → verify your role has USAGE on the database/schema/warehouse and SELECT on the table.
  • Key errors → check that your public key is registered to the Snowflake user and that you are providing the correct private key.
  • Empty results → confirm the timestamp column is populated and the right table is selected.