Frequently Asked Questions

A ThoughtSpot instance is allocated to customers upon registration and license purchase. Users with a valid license can use their ThoughtSpot application URL to access their instance, whereas evaluating users can use the free-trial instance to try out ThoughtSpot features. For example, https://Xyz-company.thoughtspot.cloud/, my1.thoughtspot.cloud (free-trial instance). You can find your instance URL in account activation emails sent to your registered email address.

Your ThoughtSpot application instance URL is also referred to as ThoughtSpot Host, thoughtspotHost, tsURL TS_HOST. The instance URL is required to initialize your embedded application and sign in to ThoughtSpot extensions, such as the Vercel integration, business app integration, and ThoughtSpot Google plugins.

A ThoughtSpot Liveboard is a collection of charts and tables saved by a user for live analytics. A typical Liveboard presents the charts and tables on a single page and allows you to apply filters, explore, edit, and download data, and schedule notifications.

A data source is a data object, such as a Model, Table, or View, from which users can search data and create Answers and visualizations.

You can embed any of the following components, or the entire ThoughtSpot experience:

The Visual Embed SDK is a Javascript library using which you can embed ThoughtSpot application and its components in your web app.

We recommend using Visual Embed SDK to embed ThoughtSpot in your app. However, if your application doesn’t allow custom Javascript, you can embed ThoughtSpot in an iFrame without using the SDK.

To embed ThoughtSpot without using the Visual Embed SDK:

For more information, see Embed without SDK.

The Visual Embed SDK not only allows you to embed ThoughtSpot, but also provides APIs and object properties to customize your embedded view. The SDK allows you to:

Yes. ThoughtSpot provides a client library using which you can embed ThoughtSpot components in a React app. For more information, see Embed ThoughtSpot in a React app.

ThoughtSpot Embedded is a low-code embedded analytics platform with several features that significantly enhance the embedding experience. Some of these features include:

For more information, see Embedded analytics with ThoughtSpot Embedded.

ThoughtSpot Embedded provides access to Visual Embed SDK, which you can use to embed ThoughtSpot Search, Liveboards, visualizations, or the full ThoughtSpot experience in your app.

ThoughtSpot Embedded also provides access to REST APIs, using which you can deploy and manage your embedded instance.

For a complete list of features, see Feature matrix and license types.

To embed ThoughtSpot, you require ThoughtSpot Embedded license. For more information, see Get started with ThoughtSpot Embedded.

Yes. You can explore Visual Embed and REST API SDK features and preview the coding experience in the developer Playground on the public site.

To sign up for a 30-day free trial, click Free Trial on the ThoughtSpot developers website. For more information about features available for evaluation, see Feature matrix and license types.

Starting from 8.4.1-sw release, customers with license to embed ThoughtSpot can use the Visual Embed SDK for embedded analytics.

If you want to rebrand UI elements, customize fonts and color scheme of your charts, you can use the Style customization functionality available in the Develop or Admin tab. This option is available on all instances and doesn’t require a ThoughtSpot Embedded license.

However, for advanced customization controls, we recommend using ThoughtSpot Embedded features. For more information, contact ThoughtSpot Support.

Yes. You can use the /tspublic/v1/user/sync to sync users and groups from external systems with ThoughtSpot. To sync users and groups from Active Directory, you may need to use an AD sync script provided by ThoughtSpot. For more information and assistance, please contact ThoughtSpot Support.

By default, the SAML SSO users will see the ThoughtSpot login page with a link to log in via SSO. To enable automatic SAML redirection on your instance, contact ThoughtSpot Support.

If you are embedding without the Visual Embed SDK or using AuthType.None, the IdP flow will occur when the ThoughtSpot content is loaded. However, you need to configure your IdP to allow the flow to complete.

You can use any of the following features to restrict user access to the embedded component or view:

For more information about access control, see Access control and data security and Authentication and authorization.

You can map a user’s groups in the SAML assertion with ThoughtSpot. For more information, see Configure SAML group mapping.

If you have a single ThoughtSpot cluster and you have embedded the full ThoughtSpot application in another app, you may want to prevent external users from accessing your non-embedded ThoughtSpot instance. ThoughtSpot allows you to restrict embed users from accessing your non-embedded ThoughtSpot instance using a TSCLI command. Please contact ThoughtSpot support to enable this flag on your instance.

ThoughtSpot allows customizing UI elements, chart colors, logo, fonts, footer text, and other such style modifications. For more information, see Customization and rebranding.

No. The Style customization feature is available on ThoughtSpot Cloud and ThoughtSpot Software deployments with the standard license. This feature is available to all ThoughtSpot users with Administrator or Developer privilege.

Embedded Liveboards are rendered in the same layout as they were created with, but are responsive for different screen sizes. Individual visualizations can be embedded separately on a single page of your application, which gives you more control of the layout.

Advanced customization and layout controls are available with the new Liveboard experience.

Yes. If you have customized the wide logo in the Style customization page, it will be displayed as the primary logo in PDFs. By default, the ThoughtSpot logo is displayed at the bottom of the title page. To disable this logo, contact ThoughtSpot Support.

Custom actions allow you to add custom buttons and menu items to ThoughtSpot visualizations and Liveboards. Your application users can use these actions to pass ThoughtSpot data to the code you control in the host app, or to a specific URL target.

For more information, see Custom actions.

Not all types of custom actions require a ThoughtSpot Embedded license. Any ThoughtSpot user with Administrator or Developer privilege can create a URL-based custom action. Callback custom actions are supported only on embedded ThoughtSpot instances and require a ThoughtSpot Embedded license.

For more information, see Custom actions and see Feature matrix and license types.

Yes. You can set the custom action availability to one or several groups. Users with Administrator or Developer privilege can set the custom action to be available globally on all visualizations or allow authorized users to assign it to the visualization of their choice.

You can use the /tspublic/v1/pinboarddata API and the /tspublic/v1/searchdata to pull data out of ThoughtSpot, read it, and then take action on it conditionally based on the results. For example, you could send a programmatic query to read Sales data of last week and then send an email if they were over or under a certain threshold.

The upcoming ThoughtSpot Sync features allow you to connect ThoughtSpot with third-party business applications such as Slack, SalesForce, and Google Sheets. Custom actions require writing a bit of code, but can be used to send data to applications that do not have a native integration via ThoughtSpot Sync.

The URL-based custom actions allow you to pass authentication information in the custom action API call. For more information, see URL actions.

The URL-based custom actions allow you to pass query parameters as key-value pairs. For more information, see URL actions.

The ThoughtSpot REST API allows you to send API requests directly to the ThoughtSpot server from your application client. You can use it to query the data, automate deployments using TML, manage users, groups, sessions, and objects, view logs and so on.

The Visual Embed SDK is a Javascript library specifically used for embedding ThoughtSpot web components into your web app, such as Search, Pinboards, and Visualizations. You can use REST APIs along with Visual Embed SDK to programmatically deploy, manage, and control embedded objects.

The REST API v2.0 framework is built upon the existing core API functionality and data models but offers several new features and enhancements. It simplifies the request and response workflow and provides an enhanced developer experience with an interactive Playground.

For more information, see REST API v2.0 and REST API v1 and v2.0 comparison.

ThoughtSpot REST API framework supports data APIs, using which you can embed an Answer, Liveboard, or a specific visualization from a Liveboard. You can use these APIs with or without the Visual Embed SDK to embed ThoughtSpot content in your app.

For more information, see the following pages:

To communicate and exchange data with a ThoughtSpot application server securely via HTTPS:

You must add the SSL certificates obtained from your ThoughtSpot instance to Truststore or Keystore on your client environment. The steps to import a certificate vary based on your client’s application framework. For example, in a JDK-based implementation, the trusted certificates and required keys are stored in the Java Keystore of your client application. In a Python-based implementation, the SSL certificates must be available in the certificate store used by Python.

To learn more about the SDK, see the following resources:

Check the following resources for code samples:

To learn more about ThoughtSpot REST API, refer to the following pages on the Developer Documentation site:

Check the following resources for REST API v1 code samples:

You can also view and download the REST API v2.0 code samples from the REST API v2.0 Playground.