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This guide will get you oriented in Metabase

If you run Faros CE locally, you can access the Metabase UI at http://localhost:3000

Metabase allows you to create questions (i.e. metrics, charts) from a database and arrange them in dashboards. Your questions and dashboards are stored in collections. They can be shared and embedded.

The Faros CE database

Metabase sits on top of the Faros CE database that receives the data from your systems. Start exploring the data by clicking Browse Data in the banner of the Metabase UI.

For each table, you can:

• look at its content (essentially, drafting a question that grabs everything in that table)
• look up its schema and associated documentation
• do an "X-Ray", i.e. let Metabase automatically build an interesting dashboard about the data in that table

Questions

Questions are your metrics and charts. Questions are made of a query and a visualization.

Queries can be built in the Query Builder UI, or through SQL. Get started by clicking Ask a question in the banner.

You can save questions to a collection (see below). There are canned questions that we have added in your Faros CE instance.

Questions can reference other questions. This can be useful for some complex computations that are used in several metrics. For example, take a look at our Lead Time question in the DORA collection: it is used as a starting point of all the lead time metrics on the DORA dashboard.

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Save modifications to questions powering canned dashboards in a separate collection

This guarantees that an update to a canned dashboard will not overwrite your modifications. See Update Canned Dashboards for more information.

Dashboards

Dashboards allow you to present a set questions.

They can have filters that can be applied to those questions, and have interactivity settings, i.e. a way for you to control what happens when a user clicks on a chart. Create a dashboard by clicking the Create button in the banner.

Dashboards are saved in a collection (see below). There are canned dashboards that we have added in your Faros instance, like the Welcome dashboard.

Collections

Collections are hierarchical folders with ACLs where your questions and dashboards are saved. One such collection is the Faros CE collection where all the canned questions and dashboards reside.

Sharing and Embedding

Dashboards and Questions, can be shared and embedded so they can be accessed without logging into Metabase.