Snowflake Monitor – QBeeQ

The QBeeQ Snowflake Monitor turns Snowflake’s native usage data into clear visuals you can share broadly, no custom ETL and no elevated Snowflake access required. Connect once and get instant visibility into cost drivers, warehouse utilization, failed tasks, and pipeline slowdowns across single accounts or your entire organization, with fast time-to-value and actionable insights out of the box.

Compatibility and limitations

Compatibility

The Snowflake Monitor can be used with:

Standard Snowflake schemas

ACCOUNT_USAGE

ORGANIZATION_USAGE

All Snowflake editions and versions

Sisense Live, Elasticube, or Sisense Managed Data Warehouse (MDWH) connections

Sisense deployments on Windows or Linux

Limitations

Limited to Sisense/Snowflake only

Does not support query-level detail at this time

Installation and configuration

The Snowflake Monitor plugin is not a traditional widget plugin; it is a set of dashboards and a data model that utilizes a connection and access to schemas between Sisense and Snowflake.

Installation and configuration require a:

Sisense Admin to install the plugin in Sisense

Sisense Data Admin or above to create the connection on the Data tab

Snowflake SYSADMIN or SECURITYADMIN to grant access to the Service User

To install the Snowflake Monitor:

Download dashboard and model files

Grant access to the service user in Snowflake

Set up a Snowflake connection in Sisense

Import and build the Snowflake Monitor elasticube

Import Snowflake Monitor dashboards

Install the QBeeQ Heatmap Chart

Configure, test, and validate

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If your Sisense environment is highly customized (ex., customized default date ranges, etc.), please reach out to QBeeQ Support at support@qbeeq.io for assistance.

Download dashboard and model files

Navigate to the QBeeQ Framework tab

Click the blue version link and download the QBeeQSnowflakeMonitor.zip file

Unzip the file

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When unzipped, the folder should contain two files: QBeeQ Snowflake Monitor.smodel and QBeeQSnowflakeMonitor.dash The QBeeQSnowflakeMonitor.dash file includes all 8 dashboards so that they only have to be imported once.

Grant access to the service user in Snowflake

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This step requires a Snowflake user with the role of SYSADMIN or SECURITYADMIN

A (service) User is a service or application that interacts with Snowflake without human interaction. This user needs access to the following schemas:

SNOWFLAKE.ACCOUNT_USAGE schema

SNOWFLAKE.ORGANIZATION_USAGE schema

Set up a Snowflake connection in Sisense

Use the Connection Management page to create a Snowflake connection using the service user credentials from the previous step

Select the schemas to include:

SNOWFLAKE.ACCOUNT_USAGE

SNOWFLAKE.ORGANIZATION_USAGE

Share the connection with the other users as required

Import and build the Snowflake Monitor elasticube

Import the data model using the Snowflake Monitor.smodel file

Perform a build on the elasticube

Share the elasticube with other users as required

Configure data security rules as required (optional)

Import Snowflake Monitor dashboards

Import the dashboards using the .dash files from the Snowflake Monitor folder

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It is recommended to create a folder where the dashboards can be easily viewed and managed.

Install the QBeeQ Snowflake Heatmap

Some of the Snowflake Monitor dashboards utilize the Snowflake Heatmap, which is a version of the QBeeQ Heatmap Chart. This plugin is already included in your license. It will need to be installed separately, but it is required in order for all the dashboards to be functional.

Follow the installation instructions in Installing QBeeQ Plugins

Configure, test and validate data

Schedule automatic refreshes (Live) or build schedules (Elasticube) based on your needs

Confirm that the build/refreshes are running and completing

Test and validate dashboards and widgets

Confirm that all dashboards and widgets are loading

Share dashboards with other users as required

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Sisense dashboards are not direct copies of those in Snowflake. Data may look different if viewed side-by-side. These dashboards are not meant for direct comparison.

Using the Snowflake Monitor

The Snowflake Monitor provides a suite of dashboards designed to help organizations monitor, optimize, and control their Snowflake utilization and costs. Each dashboard focuses on a different aspect of usage, enabling both high-level visibility and deep-dive analysis.

Overview

The Overview dashboard gives you a quick, executive-level snapshot of your Snowflake environment. It highlights overall usage and spending trends, making it easy to track progress against budgets or forecasts.

Key metrics: total credits used (Compute, Cloud Services), daily trends

Ideal for executives and FinOps leads

Task

The Task dashboard helps you stay on top of scheduled and serverless jobs. By surfacing failures, costs, and run times, it ensures that automation is efficient and reliable.

Monitors scheduled and serverless tasks

Displays execution history, failures, average runtime, and cost impact

Helps identify failing or costly recurring processes

Warehouse

The Warehouse dashboard reveals how compute resources are being used across your Snowflake environment. It makes it easy to spot idle, oversized, or overused warehouses that can drive unnecessary costs.

Tracks compute warehouses — utilization, and cost per warehouse

Identifies idle or oversized warehouses for optimization

Query

The Queries dashboard focuses on performance and efficiency at the SQL level. It highlights costly queries, long runtimes, and user activity so you can tune workloads effectively.

Shows query execution patterns and performance

Includes cost estimation per query, runtime, and user attribution

Surfaces costly or inefficient queries for tuning

User

The Users dashboard breaks down credit consumption by individuals, helping you understand who your top consumers are and whether usage aligns with expectations.

Breaks down credit consumption by individual users

Reveals top consumers and potential misuse or training needs

Materialized Views

The Materialized Views dashboard provides transparency into view refreshes and their associated costs. It helps teams evaluate whether views are delivering enough value to justify their compute spend.

Lists all materialized views, credit cost

Highlights underused or expensive views

Pipe

The Pipe dashboard monitors data ingestion through Snowpipe. It ensures streaming and automated loads are reliable, timely, and cost-efficient.

Monitors Snowpipe activity, including data ingestion rates and cost

Helps ensure streaming and automated loads are healthy and cost-effective

Storage

The Storage dashboard tracks how much data is being stored, where it lives, and whether it’s growing in ways that might lead to cost issues. It supports smarter data lifecycle management.

Displays storage usage over time — table sizes, historical data retention

Identifies old or unnecessary data, consuming storage space

Sharing Snowflake Monitor dashboards

You can share some or all of the Snowflake Monitor dashboards with users within the Sisense environment. To share, use the native share dashboard function.

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It is recommended to create a folder where the dashboards can be easily viewed and managed.