BigQuery is a per-user connection: each member uploads their own credentials, and nothing is shared with other members. No workspace-admin setup is required.
1
Select your data source
Navigate to Integrations. Click on BigQuery.
2
Setup the connection
Fill in the connection details and click on Test Connection.
Connecting with a service account (BigQuery Direct)
The BigQuery (Direct v2) option takes a Google service-account key file instead of individual credentials, and creates a semantic model wired one-to-one to your project.1
Create a service account in Google Cloud
In the Google Cloud project that holds your datasets, create a service
account and grant it read access to BigQuery — typically BigQuery Data
Viewer on the datasets you want to expose, plus BigQuery Job User on
the project so it can run queries. Then create a JSON key and download
the file.
2
Upload the key file
On the Integrations
page, choose BigQuery (Direct v2) → Connect and drop in the
.json key
file. Athena confirms the project ID and service-account email it read from
the file before you save.3
Name the model
Give the semantic model a title and save. The key is encrypted at rest and
never returned to the browser.
Athena queries BigQuery with exactly the permissions you gave that service
account — grant the minimum your team needs, and rotate the key by uploading a
new one at any time.