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Metabase is a report building tool that sits on top of your Data Warehouse. You can connect most report building tools to your Data, but Metabase is the option we choose to use because we find it is simple to use for beginner data analysts, but has the sophistication for those more hard core coders. Metabase comes with the Data Warehouse, but you connect your Data Warehouse to Excel, Crystal, Power BI, or any other tool to get as much value out of your data as possible! Once you have Metabase set up, it will update with your data approximately every 2 hours.

The data in Metabase is broken into tables. We have 3 main types of tables: Analytic, Dimension and Fact tables. Each table serves a purpose:

Our Analytics

The Analytics category in Metabase houses all of your collections, whether shared or personal. A collection contains any saved dashboards, questions, or pulses. These are typically items that you have personalized, and want to be able to reference in the future. For questions, this could be two tables that you joined together, or you summarized in a particular way. For dashboards, these are typically multiple questions that you have organized to display certain information. You could have a sales dashboard and a project dashboard, for example. Pulses are questions or dashboards that you send to specific members of your team on some sort of schedule so they stay up to date.

In Metabase, there are many tables of data that capture various parts of your system. To ‘Ask a Question’ in Metabase is essentially a means to view a specific table, and configure it to your needs. If you click on ‘Ask a Question’, you will then be prompted to choose from Simple Question, Custom Question, or Native Query. If you are not very familiar with data or coding, you will most likely want to choose Simple Question. You can then choose from a list of Data Warehouse tables, or any saved questions from previous searches.

Metabase Question

There are many tables of data that capture various parts of your system. A Metabase Question is what we would consider a filter report or widget in the system. To ‘Ask a Question’ in Metabase is essentially a means to view a specific table, and configure it to your needs. If you click on ‘Ask a Question’, you will then be prompted to choose from Simple Question, Custom Question, or Native Query. If you are not very familiar with data or coding, you will most likely want to choose Simple Question. You can then choose from a list of Data Warehouse tables, or any saved questions from previous searches.

Interacting with a Table

There are specific actions that you can perform in each table. In the upper right corner, you will see options to filter, summarize, and show editor. The show editor option allows you to join the data with another table, in addition to being able to filter and summarize the data from that page. Joining data merges two tables together. You want to join tables that are going to be supplementary to each other, as you have to choose a column to line the tables up by. Your results are going to be the most accurate if the tables have a similar ID – whether that is ticket ID, company ID, etc. You will then see data from both tables and be able to filter and summarize the results from the combined data. Filtering data lets you change the results based on specific conditions. For example, you could look at the Analytics Company table, and filter by quarterly sales greater than $1000. You would then only see companies in the table that meet that condition. Summarizing data is a way to group the results by a certain metric, such as count of rows, sum of, or minimum of. When summarizing data you want to pick a metric, and then choose what you want it to be grouped by. For example, in the Analytics Company table, you could choose the metric ‘sum of annual sales’ and group it by company name. You would then see each company in your system, and their total annual sales. You can add as many groupings as you would like. The visualization option allows you to change how the data is displayed. Any of the options that are highlighted are going to be a good way to display your data. Each option that you can choose from also has settings. Depending on the display, you can change which columns to display, the dimensions, and the x and y axis. If you create a table that you like, and want to be able to reference in the future, it’s a good idea to save it. When you save the table, you can choose to add it any of the dashboards you have created.

Metabase Dashboard

A Metasbase Dashboard is a group of Questions you want displayed together in one place. Metabase dashboards are very similar to our system Dashboard, where you can add multiple widgets, configure the widgets, and interact with the data. To get to your dashboards, navigate to Our Analytics, and choose from whichever collection you saved your dashboard in. You can further interact with your data in your dashboard, by clicking ‘edit dashboard’ in the upper right corner. When in edit mode, you can re-size all of your data and move it around in the dashboard to change the layout. You also have the ability to add a question, or add filters. The filters in the dashboard essentially filter the questions you have in bulk, based on how you configure them. There are a few options you can choose from, including time, location, ID, and other categories. Once you choose a category, it will ask what type of filter you would like, such as various date ranges or locations. After you have added the filter, you can choose which field each table of data should be filtered by. For example, if you have a filter set for ‘relative date’, some options you may be able to choose include created date, event date, sold date, etc. You will then want to save your filter, and once you are done editing the dashboard, you will be able to change the data you see based on those filters.