Academy
Data Lake

Data Lake: connect your BI tool or spreadsheet

The Data Lake exposes the results of your analyses as an SQL/ODBC data source — BI tools query the data directly, without file export. This is the recommended path when the destination for the data is an analytics tool: instead of generating and moving files on every run, the tool connects once and then continuously sees the results.

How to enable

Activation is in the process settings, under the Data Lake tab (Turbo AI processes): turn on the Enable BI button for the result tables you want to publish and click Save. The same screen shows the connection details (server, database, type, user, and password, with a copy button) and the Table Name — the name you will see in the tool. The connection is read-only.

Warning — shared data: Data Lake credentials are shared by the organization. When you enable a table, your data becomes accessible to all organization users — carefully assess which information you want to make available.

How the data is organized: stacked history

The core of the model is that Data Lake stacks the analysis table data לאורך the process history: each reference date run on the platform is added to the same table — in practice, the runs become a single historical “big table.”

  • Nothing is overwritten: the June run does not replace the May run; both coexist in the table.

  • Columns that no longer exist in the flow do not break the table — new data starts showing them as null.

  • New columns that appear in the flow are added to the table without any action on your part.

  • Standard platform fields accompany the data — the main one is the reference date, which identifies the period for each run and is the ideal column to filter (WHERE) when you want a specific date instead of the full history.

Warning — high volumes: because it preserves the full history, large tables run frequently accumulate a lot of data, and this feature is not recommended for very high volumes. Filter by reference date in your queries, publish only the necessary tables, and for heavy data replication, prefer the Database Export step.

Connect your tool

  • Power BI: the full step-by-step — connection, filtering by reference date with a parameter, and DirectQuery mode — is in the article "Practical guide: connecting Power BI to Data Lake".

  • Other tools: Excel (Get Data > From PostgreSQL Database), Tableau, dbt, and any SQL/ODBC client use the same connection details from the Data Lake tab — server, database, user, and password.

Usage example

The controllership keeps a closing dashboard in Power BI. Instead of exporting spreadsheets with each run, the team enables the reconciliation result tables in Data Lake and connects Power BI in DirectQuery mode with a filter by the current month’s reference date. The dashboard starts reflecting each new run automatically — and the comparison with previous months uses the table’s own stacked history.

  • Practical guide: connecting Power BI to Data Lake

  • Introduction to integrations

  • Database Export step

  • Excel Export step

Was this helpful?