Tableau, Looker, Metabase and Grafana on SharePoint data

Last updated 23 October 2026

None of these BI tools has a proper SharePoint list connector, so someone is stuck exporting CSVs by hand or wiring together a script just to get the data in.

Tableau, Looker, Metabase and Grafana connect to SQL databases and warehouses, and none of them has a proper native connector for a SharePoint list. A Metabase estate holding every department’s figures can still be missing one team’s account health scores because they live in a list, reaching the dashboard through a CSV exported on Mondays or a staging script that fails without warning whenever a column changes.

Put the list where the BI tool already looks

SPSync replicates the lists behind a dashboard into a database or warehouse, such as Postgres, BigQuery or Databricks, on a schedule, then keeps it current with delta reads. Each of these BI tools already connects well to that kind of destination. The dashboard work stays the same; the source underneath becomes a replication that runs by itself and follows the list when its columns change.

A shape the semantic layer can model

Lookups are key columns and multi-value columns are child tables, the shape a semantic layer expects for joins and aggregations. Person columns resolve into a shared sp_users table, so an “account owner” dimension is defined once and reused across dashboards. Deleted items keep their row with sp_deleted_at set, so a trend line over last year keeps all its data points. SPSync can also generate a reporting view per list that adds person names.

Matching the destination to the tool

Tableau users coming from the retired SharePoint Lists connector will find the replacement, its sign-in options and its extract-only refresh in Tableau on SharePoint lists after the connector deprecation.

BigQuery, Databricks and ClickHouse are shipped destinations today. Check the destination page for current status before you build a dashboard on one, and if the destination you need is missing, tell us; requests are what move a destination up the roadmap.

Include the lookup lists the model joins against when you choose the lists, and match the sync to how often the dashboard refreshes. Then connect the BI tool to the destination as it connects to any other source. If the tool’s semantic layer lives in a repository, keep the replication’s command-line config in the same repository and CI pipeline.

spsync auth login --client-id 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
spsync export-config --output replication.yaml --pipeline-name tableau_looker_metabase --prefix tableau_looker_metabase --destination-kind postgres --connection-string-env SPSYNC_DB_CONNECTION --dataset-name tableau_looker_metabase --client-id 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 --site-url https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/example --all-lists
spsync doctor replication.yaml
spsync run replication.yaml

pipeline_name: tableau_looker_metabase
prefix: tableau_looker_metabase
auth:
  mode: delegated
  client_id: 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
  tenant_id: common
destination:
  kind: postgres
  connection_string_env: SPSYNC_DB_CONNECTION
  dataset_name: tableau_looker_metabase
scopes:
  - site_url: https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/example
    mode: entire_site
reconcile_interval_days: 7
create_reporting_views: false

# every night at 02:00
0 2 * * * cd /opt/spsync && SPSYNC_DB_CONNECTION="$(cat /etc/spsync/db.env)" uv run spsync run replication.yaml >> /var/log/spsync/run.log 2>&1

# .github/workflows/spsync-run.yml
name: SPSync
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: "0 2 * * *"
  workflow_dispatch: {}
jobs:
  run:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: astral-sh/setup-uv@v3
      - run: uv sync
      - run: uv run spsync run replication.yaml
        env:
          SPSYNC_DB_CONNECTION: ${{ secrets.SPSYNC_DB_CONNECTION }}
          SPSYNC_LICENCE_KEY: ${{ secrets.SPSYNC_LICENCE_KEY }}

# azure-pipelines.yml
schedules:
  - cron: "0 2 * * *"
    branches: { include: [main] }
    always: true
steps:
  - script: uv sync
  - script: uv run spsync run replication.yaml
    env:
      SPSYNC_DB_CONNECTION: $(SPSYNC_DB_CONNECTION)
      SPSYNC_LICENCE_KEY: $(SPSYNC_LICENCE_KEY)

# Windows Task Scheduler action (see /docs/cli/automation/)
$env:SPSYNC_DB_CONNECTION = (Get-Content C:\spsync\db.env)
uv run spsync run C:\spsync\replication.yaml
schtasks /Create /SC DAILY /ST 02:00 /TN "SPSync" /TR "powershell -File C:\spsync\run.ps1"

# ~/Library/LaunchAgents/io.spsync.run.plist, then: launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/io.spsync.run.plist