Using Amazon Timestream data with Amazon QuickSight

Following, you can find how to connect to your Amazon Timestream data using Amazon QuickSight. For a brief overview, see the Getting started with Amazon Timestream and Amazon QuickSight video tutorial on YouTube.

Creating a new Amazon QuickSight data source connection for a Timestream database

Following, you can find how to connect to Amazon Timestream from Amazon QuickSight.

Before you can proceed, Amazon QuickSight needs to be authorized to connect to Amazon Timestream. If connections aren't enabled, you get an error when you try to connect. A QuickSight administrator can authorize connections to AWS resources. To authorize, open the menu by clicking on your profile icon at top right. Choose Manage QuickSight, Security & permissions, Add or remove. Then enable the check box for Amazon Timestream, then choose Update to confirm. For more information, see Accessing data sources.

To connect to Amazon Timestream

1. Begin by creating a new dataset. Choose Datasets from the navigation pane at left, then choose New Dataset.

2. Choose the Timestream data source card.

3. For Data source name, enter a descriptive name for your Timestream data source connection, for example US Timestream Data. Because you can create many datasets from a connection to Timestream, it's best to keep the name simple.

4. Choose Validate connection to check that you can successfully connect to Timestream.

5. Choose Create data source to proceed.

6. For Database, choose Select to view the list of available options.

7. Choose the one you want to use, then choose Select to continue.

8. Do one of the following:

   • To import your data into QuickSight's in-memory engine (called SPICE), choose Import to SPICE for quicker analytics.

   • To allow QuickSight to run a query against your data each time you refresh the dataset or use the analysis or dashboard, choose Directly query your data.

   If you want to enable autorefresh on a published dashboard that uses Timestream data, the Timestream dataset needs to use a direct query.

9. Choose Edit/Preview and then Save to save your dataset and close it.

10. Repeat these steps for the number of concurrent direct connections to Timestream that you want to open in a dataset. For example, let's say you want to use four tables in a QuickSight dataset. Currently, QuickSight datasets connect to only one table at a time from a Timestream data source. To use four tables in the same dataset, you need to add four data source connections in QuickSight.

Managing permissions for Timestream data

The following procedure describes how to view, add, and revoke permissions to allow access to the same Timestream data source. The people that you add need to be active users in QuickSight before you can add them.

To edit permissions on a dataset

1. Choose Datasets at left, then scroll down to find the dataset for your Timestream connection. An example might be US Timestream Data.

2. Choose the Timestream dataset to open it.

3. On the dataset details page that opens, choose the Permissionstab.

   A list of current permissions appears.

4. To add permissions, choose Add users & groups, then follow these steps:

   1. Add users or groups to allow them to use the same dataset.

   2. When you're finished adding everyone that you want to add, choose the Permissions that you want to apply to them.

5. (Optional) To edit permissions, you can choose Viewer or Owner.

   • Choose Viewer to allow read access.

   • Choose Owner to allow that user to edit, share, or delete this QuickSight data source.

6. (Optional) To revoke permissions, choose Revoke access. After you revoke someone's access, they can't create edit, share, or delete the dataset.

7. When you are finished, choose Close.

Adding a new QuickSight dataset for Timestream

After you have an existing data source connection for Timestream data, you can create Timestream datasets to use for analysis.

Currently, you can use a Timestream connection only for a single table in a dataset. To add data from multiple Timestream tables in a single dataset, create an additional QuickSight data source connection for each table.

To create a dataset using Amazon Timestream

1. Choose Datasets at left, then scroll down to find the data source card for your Timestream connection. If you have many data sources, you can use the search bar at the top of the page to find your data source with a partial match on the name.

2. Choose the Timestream data source card, and then choose Create data set.

3. For Database, choose Select to view a list of available databases and choose the one that you want to use.

4. For Tables, choose the table that you want to use.

5. Choose Edit/Preview.

6. (Optional) To add more data, use the following steps:

   1. Choose Add data at top right.

   2. To connect to different data, choose Switch data source, and choose a different dataset.

   3. Follow the UI prompts to finish adding data.

   4. After adding new data to the same dataset, choose Configure this join (the two red dots). Set up a join for each additional table.

   5. If you want to add calculated fields, choose Add calculated field.

   6. To add a model from SageMaker, choose Augment with SageMaker. This option is only available in QuickSight Enterprise edition.

   7. Clear the check box for any fields that you want to omit.

   8. Update any data types that you want to change.

7. When you are done, choose Save to save and close the dataset.

Adding Timestream data to an analysis

Following, you can find how to add an Amazon Timestream dataset to a QuickSight analysis. Before you begin, make sure that you have an existing dataset that contains the Timestream data that you want to use.

To add Amazon Timestream data to an analysis

1. Choose Analyses at left.

2. Do one of the following:

   • To create a new analysis, choose New analysis at right.

   • To add to an existing analysis, open the analysis that you want to edit.

     • Choose the pencil icon near at top left.

     • Choose Add data set.

3. Choose the Timestream dataset that you want to add.

For more information, see Working with analyses.