BigQuery: insert row

The BigQuery: insert row Point template streams one row into a BigQuery table through the streaming insert API.

Like Google Sheets: add row, this point authenticates through the Google account connected once for the whole account — there’s no token field on the point itself.

Before you start

Connect a Google account under Settings > 3rd-party integrations > Google — the same connection Google Sheets: add row uses.

Note

This is not the Google BigQuery card on that page. That one is the BigQuery integration: it streams every message event of an application into a fixed schema on a service account key. This point writes one row you define, at the step you place it on, and takes no key of its own.

Caution

If you connected Google before BigQuery support was added, reconnect it once. A connection keeps the permissions it was granted with, so an older one can write to Sheets but not to BigQuery, and the point fails with a 403.

Two things also need to be in place on the Google Cloud side, or the request fails:

• The dataset and the table have to exist already — this point writes rows, it never creates a table.
• The connected Google account needs the BigQuery Data Editor role (or any role granting bigquery.tables.updateData) on that dataset.

Configure the point

1. Drag BigQuery: insert row from the Integrations section of the left panel onto the canvas.
2. Double-click the point and enter a Step Name.
3. In Project ID, enter the Google Cloud project ID — the id, not the display name, for example my-analytics-prod.
4. In Dataset, enter the dataset name.
5. In Table, enter the table name.
6. In Columns, add the column name mapped to the value to write — see key/value fields. Every column you list has to exist in the table’s schema.
7. Click Save.

Reading a failed request

Open Calls log in the point’s drawer and check the response:

• 401 — the Google connection is missing or expired; reconnect it under Settings > 3rd-party integrations.
• 403 with accessDenied: Streaming insert is not allowed in the free tier — the project has no billing account attached. Streaming inserts, which is what this point uses, are not part of the BigQuery sandbox; enable billing on the project and the same request goes through.
• 403 with accessDenied or insufficientPermissions — the connection was granted before BigQuery support was added (reconnect it), or the Google account has no write access to the dataset.
• 403 with quotaExceeded or rateLimitExceeded — the project’s streaming insert quota is spent; nothing to reconnect, the journey has to send less or the quota has to be raised in Google Cloud.
• 404 — the project, dataset, or table name doesn’t match anything.

Caution

A row BigQuery rejects — an unknown column, a value that doesn’t fit the column’s type — comes back as 200 with an insertErrors body, not as an error status. The traveler moves on as if the write succeeded. The first such message is written into the bigquery_insert_error traveler attribute, so you can branch on it with a Condition split right after this point, and the full body is in the Calls log.

A failed request drops the traveler from the journey — see Errors and failed requests.