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1. Overview

The Ana x MongoDB integration connects your MongoDB cluster to Ana, giving you natural language access to your collections. MongoDB is a document database, so Ana queries it with native aggregation pipelines (db.<collection>.aggregate([...])) rather than SQL — collections appear as tables, nested document fields are exposed as dot-paths (address.city), and arrays can be $unwind-ed. Results come back as a normal table.
Connect MongoDB to Ana to query and analyze your collections using natural language.

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2. Prerequisites

You’ll need:
  • A MongoDB cluster you want Ana to query — MongoDB Atlas or a self-managed deployment
  • A read-only database user, and permission to view the cluster’s connection string
  • A TextQL account with permission to add connectors
Use a read-only MongoDB user for this connector. Ana only issues read queries, but aggregation pipelines can technically include write stages ($out, $merge) — a read-only user guarantees the connector can never modify your data regardless of the query. In Atlas, assign the built-in readAnyDatabase role, or read on a specific database.

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Which type of connection should I use?

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3. Capabilities

Once configured, Ana can:
  • Query any collection in plain language and return the results as a table.
  • Aggregate across documents — group, filter, and summarize without hand-written pipelines.
  • Read nested fields as dot-paths and expand arrays where a question needs per-element rows.
  • Query across every database in the cluster, or stay scoped to one.

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4. Setup Instructions

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Step 1: Gather your MongoDB connection details

  1. Go to cloud.mongodb.com and sign in.
  2. Navigate to your cluster and click Connect.
  3. Choose Drivers.
  4. Under step 3, MongoDB shows a connection string like:
    You need only the host from it — the part between @ and /. In this example that’s cluster0.7fmjzec.mongodb.net. Don’t paste the whole string into TextQL.
  5. Note the username, and the password for that database user. Atlas does not show an existing user’s password again — if you don’t have it, reset it under Database Access, or create a new read-only user there.
  6. Under Network Access, add your TextQL egress IP to the allowlist. See the Network Configuration Guide for the addresses to allow.

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Step 2: Add MongoDB as a connector in TextQL

  1. Go to the TextQL Connectors Page and sign in.
  2. Click New Connector and select MongoDB.
  3. Fill in two fields:
    • Connector Name — a descriptive name for this connection.
    • Host — the host from Step 1, on its own, with no mongodb+srv:// prefix and no trailing path (e.g. cluster0.7fmjzec.mongodb.net).
  4. For MongoDB Atlas, turn on Use SRV connection (mongodb+srv, for Atlas). For a self-managed deployment, leave it off and enter the deployment’s Port instead.
  5. Click Create Connector.
The remaining fields already hold working defaults — leave them as they are unless your deployment needs otherwise.
Leaving Database blank exposes every non-system database, with collections referenced as database.collection. This requires the connector’s user to hold the listDatabases privilege — if it doesn’t have that, name a single database in the form instead.

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Step 3: Verify the connection

  1. Open the MongoDB connector and click Test Connection.
  • A successful setup returns a connection confirmation.
  • If the test fails, see the Troubleshooting section below.

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5. Usage Examples

Once configured, you can ask Ana:
  • “How many documents are in the orders collection, and how has that grown by month?”
  • “Break down users by the city in their address field.”
  • “Which products appear most often across all order line items?”
  • “Show me the orders collection’s fields and what types they hold.”
  • “Compare average order value between customers acquired this year and last.”

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6. Troubleshooting

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7. Security Notes

  • Follow the principle of least privilege. Grant the connector’s user read access only to the data Ana needs — readAnyDatabase, or read on a single database.
  • Keep Use TLS enabled so credentials and query results are encrypted in transit. Atlas requires it.
  • Keep the Atlas Network Access allowlist as narrow as possible rather than opening the cluster to all addresses.
  • Credentials are stored encrypted by TextQL. Rotate the database user’s password if you suspect it has been exposed, and update the connector afterwards.
  • If you no longer need the integration, remove the connector in TextQL and delete the database user in MongoDB.

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Need Help?

For further assistance, please contact support@textql.com.

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