Data visualization makes it much easier to identify trends, patterns, and outliers and to discover insights within complex data. Information displayed in a visual context, such as a graph or a map, is a more natural way for the human mind to comprehend large amounts of data. There exists classic Business Intelligence tools, such as Tableau and Power BI, that are used for corporate reporting and for building complex dashboards where a large number of users are consumers of a particular dashboard.
Sometimes, individuals or small groups of users in an organization just need to undertake ad-hoc data analysis, perform data validation while loading data, or quickly create simple charts and dashboards that can be shared and explored together as a team. For those use cases, Snowflake’s Snowsight tool is a great choice. Snowsight is the new Snowflake web user interface that replaces the traditional Snowflake SQL Worksheet. Snowsight provides automatic contextual statistics and data visualizations as well as many other functionalities, including script version history, worksheet folder structures, custom filtering and much more. And, best of all, Snowsight makes it easy for teams to collaborate with Snowflake by sharing query results and by working together on a collaborative dashboard.
Snowflake Dashboard
Using only four SQL queries, this Snowflake dashboard was built to provide some quick insight into cash flow and forecasting. The left side of the dashboard includes information about the account balances due from U.S. customers which total $2.69 billion and the right side of the dashboard shows information about outstanding U.S. orders that have not yet been shipped or invoiced which total $439 billion.
This dashboard consists of six tiles, based on four individual queries. Two of the tiles are table tiles and the other four are chart tiles, two scorecards and two bar charts.
Every Snowflake instance includes the data needed to build the dashboard presented here. The data to be used comes from the Snowflake_Sample_Data database, the TPCH_SF100 schema, and “Customer” and “Orders” tables. So, give it a try to see how quick and easy it is to create a Snowflake dashboard in Snowsight.
Below are the four queries.
With the queries, you can create a tile for a table or a chart. There are various chart types to choose from including line charts, bar charts, scatter charts, heat grids and scorecard charts. As an example, below you can see how you would select a bar chart for a tile.
Collaboration
Snowsight offers new ways to share and collaborate with others. For any of the queries, just use the drop-down arrow to download the query results into a CSV file which can be shared with others.
Once you’ve used the four queries to create the six tiles in the dashboard, you are now ready to share the dashboard with others, so you can collaborate on the project. You can share the dashboard by inviting users or by getting and sharing the link.
Summary
As is evident, Snowsight makes it easier than ever to use Snowflake and will make you fall in love with it once you get the hang of it. Having access to worksheet history and being able to switch between Snowflake accounts increases Snowflake’s usability. The SQL query formatting, UI keyboard shortcuts, and autocomplete in Snowsight worksheets make it more efficient for Snowflake users to write queries. And, now, the ability to collaborate with other Snowflake users makes Snowsight a good option as a data visualization tool.
For more information on how SpringML can help you use Snowsight to improve productivity and collaboration within your organization, email us at info@springml.com.
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