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The Snowflake integration imports candidates directly from your Snowflake warehouse into Great Question and keeps them in sync automatically. It uses key pair authentication for a secure connection, OAuth-based Snowflake connections are no longer supported, so if you’re on an older setup, you’ll need to reconnect using key pair authentication below.

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Before you start

You’ll need:
  • Admin permissions in Great Question
  • Access to run SQL commands in Snowflake with the SECURITYADMIN or ACCOUNTADMIN role
  • A Snowflake table that contains at least an email column, used to match candidates

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Step 1: Key management

Choose how to authenticate:
  • Let Great Question generate the key pair (recommended). Great Question creates an RSA key pair and gives you the public key to install in Snowflake.
  • Provide your own private key in PEM format (2048-bit minimum).

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Step 2: Connection details

Enter your Snowflake connection details:
  • Account URL: Your full Snowflake URL (like https://abc12345.us-east-1.snowflakecomputing.com)
  • Username: The Snowflake user that Great Question will connect as
  • Role (optional): A specific Snowflake role to use
  • Warehouse: The compute warehouse for running queries
  • Database: Where your candidate table lives
  • Schema (optional): Defaults to “PUBLIC” if you leave it blank
  • Table: The specific table containing your candidates
Not sure what values to use? Run these in Snowflake to find out:

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Step 3: Grant privileges

This is where you set up permissions in Snowflake. The wizard shows you six SQL commands to run in your Snowflake console. Don’t worry—each one has a handy “Copy command” button. Here’s what you’ll be running: Allow public key assignment
USE ROLE SECURITYADMIN; GRANT MODIFY PROGRAMMATIC AUTHENTICATION METHODS ON USER your_username TO ROLE your_role;
Add the public key to the user
USE ROLE SECURITYADMIN; ALTER USER your_username SET RSA_PUBLIC_KEY=‘your_public_key_here’;
Grant warehouse usage
USE ROLE SYSADMIN; GRANT USAGE ON WAREHOUSE your_warehouse TO USER your_username;
Grant database access
GRANT USAGE ON DATABASE your_database TO USER your_username;
Grant schema permissions
GRANT USAGE ON ALL SCHEMAS IN DATABASE your_database TO USER your_username;
Grant table access
GRANT SELECT ON ALL TABLES IN DATABASE your_database TO USER your_username;
To run these commands, head to your Snowflake console, open a new Worksheet, paste each command, and execute. Make sure you’re using a role with sufficient privileges (like SECURITYADMIN or ACCOUNTADMIN).

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Step 4: Test and complete

Test the connection to confirm Great Question can reach your Snowflake account and that the email column exists, then complete the setup.

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Configuring Your Integration

Once connected, you can customize how the integration works:
Data Location
Your warehouse, database, schema, and table settings from the wizard are saved here. You can update them anytime if your data moves.
Import Filtering
Want to control which records get imported? Add a boolean column called gq_import to your table. Set it to true for candidates you want to sync, and we’ll skip the rest.
Push Candidates to Snowflake
Enable this to export candidates from Great Question back to your Snowflake table. When enabled, this creates a CANDIDATES table inside your configured database containing the id and email of all existing candidates.
Make sure your Snowflake user has owner privileges to the warehouse and permissions to create tables and insert data.
This is useful if you want to restrict which candidates sync back to Great Question to only those that already exist in your system.
Handling Deletions
Add a boolean is_deleted column to your table if you want to soft-delete candidates. When this column is true, we’ll remove that candidate from Great Question during the next sync. If a previously imported record is removed from Snowflake without the is_deleted column, the candidate won’t be automatically deleted from Great Question. Using the is_deleted column gives you explicit control over deletion behavior.

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Synchronization

Your candidates sync automatically every 24 hours at midnight PST. Need data sooner? Hit the “Sync now” button on your integration settings page. If you’ve enabled candidate exports, those run daily at 11:30 PM PST. You can also trigger an export manually using the “Export Data” button.

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Custom Attributes

Any additional columns in your Snowflake table can map to candidate attributes in Great Question. To set this up:
  1. Go to Account > Candidate attributes > New attribute (or click here)
  2. Create an attribute with a name that exactly matches the column name from Snowflake
For example, if you have a department column in Snowflake, create a “department” custom attribute in Great Question, and the values will map automatically on each sync.
The name of the attribute must match the column name from Snowflake exactly.

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Troubleshooting

Still need help? Contact us at support@greatquestion.co — median response time is 19 minutes during support hours.