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Add SQL Charts from Notebooks to a Dashboard
The work of a data analyst is in constant iteration. Analyze, discover, share. Wash, rinse, and repeat. When it comes to sharing insights with business partners, analysts need a streamlined way to get their insights from Notebooks where analysis is completed to a place where business partners can see it.
Sisense is happy to announce added functionality that allows you to add SQL charts to a Dashboard directly from your Notebooks. This update significantly reduces the steps required to share insights and eliminates task switching between Notebooks, Dashboards, and Models while maintaining data security and data continuity.
Reducing steps through automation
While Notebooks only require a data connection to query data and create charts, Dashboards require an underlying data model to be in place. This is because Dashboards are part of a self-service use case, where analysis can be done by non-technical staff or departments rather than dedicated data analysts.
The data set powering a Dashboard widget has to be part of the data model, which can be done today by manually copying and pasting SQL queries into the Model. However, this multi-step process across Notebooks, the Data Tab, and the Analytics Tab isn’t scalable.
Once you have a chart, you will choose the destination Dashboard and select the Model. After completing this step once, the system will automatically populate your last selection, reducing the need to search for the same destinations over and over again.
When you click Add, two things will happen behind the scenes:
- The chart code will be translated into code to make it a visible and supported widget on the Dashboard
- The SQL query will be added to the Model and displayed as a new table
Go directly to the Dashboard to see the chart, begin editing the Dashboard after multiple charts, or go to the Model itself to create relationships between the new table and existing tables.
You can also use this feature to update the Model, which only adds the SQL to the Model but doesn’t create a Dashboard widget.
Eliminate task switching
The automation mentioned above makes for a simpler, easier workflow. This, in turn, reduces task switching. By reducing the number of steps from start to finish, we decrease the opportunity for distraction. Now, (almost) everything is in a single workflow within the Notebooks tab. To share insights and charts, you no longer need to jump between three areas of the product: Notebooks, Models, and Dashboards.
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Please note, you will still need to go to the Dashboard to make visual or design changes. You may also need to go to the Model to create relationships between tables.
Maintain separation between queries, visualizations, and people
You shouldn’t have to worry about how changes to your Dashboard might affect your ongoing analysis and vice versa. When a chart is added to a Dashboard, it essentially creates a copy of that SQL. This means that changes to the SQL or chart design in Notebooks won’t affect that widget on the Dashboard. This also means that changes to the widget on the Dashboard have no impact on any of the data or charts in the Notebook.
While the same SQL is powering both the widget and the chart, the visualization and customization are completely independent.
You can be confident that the insights delivered to business users are only seen by those who should see them. Data Security rules are applied to tables within the Model itself. If there are existing data security rules when adding a chart to a dashboard, those rules will be respected. The widget will behave like any other Dashboard widget if security rules are applied to a table, meaning that the viewer will not be able to view that specific data if they do not have the appropriate access.
Get started with adding charts to Dashboards
It’s easy to get started! Make sure Notebooks is enabled (talk to your administrator if it’s not). Create a Notebook, connect it directly to your database, and start querying. That’s it!
Adding charts to Dashboards from Notebooks is a feature that addresses today’s gap in the analysis cycle - how to get the insights back to those who need them. For more information, check out our documentation and watch the demo below.
Happy Querying!
