Connecting to a Heroku Postgres database

Heroku launched what they call the “SQL database service for developers”. 

It relieves the burden of database management by providing a set of features and tools that save a lot of time and effort. 

These Heroku Postgres databases can accept outside connections so you are able to connect them to the business intelligence tool of your choice.

Let me show you how you can quickly connect a business intelligence tool to a Database.

On your Heroku Dashboard choose “Databases”

Then choose the Database you want. 

Click to get the connection details.

Now, we have to configure this database in a business intelligence tool. I’ll show you how to do it in Viur.

Go to the “Datasource Configuration” page and click “Add Datasource” > “Add Database” and copy the connection details and then test the connection.

Make sure you have “use SSL” checked because Heroku only accepts connections with SSL.

Save the connection and follow the link to the “Widget Creator”.

The Database is loaded and good to go.

Let’s do a simple query using the “Code Editor” to see how it goes.

Looks good!

All in all, it took me less than five minutes to get the database connection details from Heroku, connect it to my business intelligence tool (Viur) and create a simple chart using a SQL query. 

Viur is Business Intelligence made easy.