How Metabase Works
Metabase an open-source business analytical engine. It can connect to multiple data sources. Metabase is not a data lake, it connects to live data, in real time. Metabase does not make a copy of your data and store it. Below we will explore the basic concept and structure of Metabase.
Questions
Questions are your guided reports - walk you through in a visual sense. You can ask questions in Metabase using the visual query builder, or create a SQL query. Staff can build questions from a model, raw data, or a saved question. A model is a saved question and a great starting point for questions. This type of question generally pulls data from multiple raw tables. With raw data, staff can specify the database and the table as the starting point for the question. Staff can also use the results of any question as the starting point for a new question.
SQL Query
SQL Queries allows staff to write an SQL statement to define a report. When staff write and run a query from the SQL editor, Metabase sends the query to your database exactly as it is written. For example, you can take a report from the Koha Reports Wiki and copy and paste it in the SQL query and run it.
Collections
Collections are a way to organize and provide specific parts of data. You will see 2 collections to start. Collections are created in a folder structure.
- Our Analytics - everyone can see (all users)
- Your personal collection - your own personal collection that only you and administrators can see.
- You can restrict access to certain users and groups (ie for libraries within a consortium)
Permission can be granular to table data (for example then can't see acquisitions data in your Koha system). There is not currently a way to restrict at row level, only table.
Dashboards
Dashboards are collections of Questions or SQL Queries, laid out visually. This allows you to see multiple answers visually at once.
Dashboards can be public and shared online with your patrons or in a presentation for board, city, county, college or university. Here is a great example from McKinney Public Library with their use of a Public Dashboard.
Dashboard subscriptions can be set up to send the results of questions on a dashboard to people via email or Slack. These messages can be sent to people who do not have an account in your Metabase account.
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