Blog

Top 5 Dashboard fails (and how to fix them)

Dashboards are meant to guide decisions, not create confusion. In this guide, we’ll walk through five common pitfalls and how to fix them.

Abed Habli

‧ 5 min read

Product Hunt AMA Recap: embedding, open source success, and more

Before our launch, I hosted an AMA on ProductHunt and answered questions about Metabase, embeddings, building an open source company, and more.

Sameer Al-Sakran

‧ 6 min read

Introducing Metabase's new Embedded Analytics SDK for React

The React toolkit for custom embedded analytics that integrates seamlessly in your UI

Jess Thompson

‧ 1 min read

Metabase alternatives: peeking at other Business Intelligence tools

Curious about other Business Intelligence tools? Check out our Metabase alternatives review, because we love a little healthy competition

Jess Thompson

‧ 17 min read

Maps data visualizations: best practices

Learn how to create impactful map data visualizations with tips on using pin maps, grid maps, and region maps to highlight patterns and make data-driven decisions.

Alex Yarosh

‧ 4 min read

How to visualize time-series data: best practices

Learn about time-series data and how to visualize it. With best practices and a handy cheat sheet.

Alex Yarosh

‧ 2 min read

How to build better line and bar charts

Learn how to improve bar and line charts by choosing the right type, reducing clutter, and highlighting data. More best practices and a handy cheat sheet.

Alex Yarosh

‧ 5 min read

Communicate Data Effectively

Learn how to present data clearly. Use TL;DRs, simplify slides, highlight key points, and make confident recommendations for better decisions.

Thomas Schmidt

‧ 8 min read

How we enriched customer contact and organization data

To improve self-service at Metabase, we used open-source tools like dlt to automate contact enrichment and tailor data models for different teams.

Max Zheng

‧ 4 min read

Set up a basic pipeline for log analysis

You can use a BI tool for small scale log analysis with data visualizations. Here are a few tips and suggestions to get started.

The Metabase Team

‧ 3 min read

Embed a Metabase dashboard in Zendesk

Get the customer data and insights you need automatically filtered and ready for use within your support tickets. You can also embed a dashboard in Salesforce, Stripe, Jira, or platforms that allow embedding URLs.

Ignacio Beines Furcada and Sarina Bloodgood

‧ 4 min read

Keeping tabs on embedded analytics

Metabase's usage analytics can help you learn who your most engaged customers are and what’s most important to them.

The Metabase Team

‧ 2 min read

Comparing the most popular open-source charting libraries

Discover features from commonly used data visualization libraries, like Chart.js, ECharts, and Nivo.

The Metabase Team

‧ 4 min read

Understand how your team uses Metabase

Learn which dashboards are most popular, how to track active users and changes to settings and configurations, view audit logs to monitor incidents, and more.

The Metabase Team

‧ 3 min read

Metabase housekeeping with usage analytics

Clear out outdated, unused questions and dashboards to make space for the most valuable stuff. Improve load times by caching the questions that consume the most resources.

The Metabase Team

‧ 6 min read

How data-driven is your org?

How to take usage analytics to organize your Metabase and point people to the data they want to (and should be) looking at.

The Metabase Team

‧ 3 min read

10 handy Metabase features you may not know about

Here are ten features of Metabase that may take some time to discover, but once you do you may find yourself using all the time.

The Metabase Team

‧ 4 min read

Choose where your Metabase Cloud is hosted

Speed up your Metabase by hosting it closer to you and your data with new cloud-hosting options in the EU (Frankfurt), APAC (Singapore), or LATAM (São Paulo).

The Metabase Team

‧ 1 min read

Vulnerability post-mortem: July 2023

A recap of the H2 Unauthenticated Remote Code Execution vulnerability and our response.

The Metabase Team

‧ 13 min read

Advice for building and scaling an effective and happy data team

If you don't understand data roles enough to scope job descriptions or workload, get ready for burnout, turnover, and the death of company-wide data culture. Our data team offers some advice on how to build a healthy data team.

The Metabase Team

‧ 6 min read

Urgent: Upgrade your Metabase installation now. H2-related remote code execution found

More vulnerabilities related to H2 connection strings were discovered, and patched. If you are on version 0.43 of Metabase or later, please upgrade IMMEDIATELY.

The Metabase Team

‧ 2 min read

Please upgrade your Metabase immediately

We've patched a severe vulnerability uncovered by a third-party security researcher.

Sameer Al-Sakran

‧ 1 min read

The two most important business metrics to track

Effective metrics are not a one-size-fits-all solution. Here's how to create a useful North Star metric and counter metric to start building out your metrics store.

The Metabase Team

‧ 3 min read

How to improve data literacy

Proven methods and resources to help everyone use data in their everyday tasks.

The Metabase Team

‧ 3 min read

You don't need a data warehouse

Start querying your production database as soon as possible, because the best way to model your data warehouse is to prototype it in real life.

The Metabase Team

‧ 2 min read

The hidden costs of the data stack

An incomplete list of the less obvious costs associated with maintaining a data stack, and some things you can do to keep those costs under control.

The Metabase Team

‧ 6 min read

4 steps to turn your support tickets into an automated dashboard

Using Zendesk, Freshdesk, or any other ticketing system? You can start labeling your support tickets for content analysis, and view the results in a support dashboard.

The Metabase Team

‧ 5 min read

How to create and analyze an NPS survey the right way

NPS survey data can hold the keys to customer success, but you have to ask the right questions to get the best results.

The Metabase Team

‧ 4 min read

Automating growth and customer insights in SaaS businesses

How a modern data stack can help you improve your customer journey and grow your revenue.

The Metabase Team

‧ 3 min read

Why interactive embedding?

If you want to offer customer analytics, you want interactive embedding.

The Metabase Team

‧ 5 min read

Bus factor of top GitHub projects

What is the bus factor for the top one thousand GitHub repositories with the most stars?

The Metabase Team

‧ 3 min read

Why Metabase Cloud?

What you get with Metabase Cloud, and why it's a good deal.

The Metabase Team

‧ 6 min read

Halloween Edition: Data Horror stories in startups

We talked with Amogh Sarda and Ali Baghshomali about common horror data stories in startups and how to avoid them. Read on to learn about the best practices for establishing product events management and upscaling from spreadsheets to the BI.

The Metabase Team

‧ 6 min read

The data guide to travel

We scraped some data from Google Maps to find out what the top attractions are in the world’s most visited destinations.

The Metabase Team

‧ 3 min read

How Metabase uses Metabase

Here at Metabase, we use Metabase internally, so we thought it'd be fun to use Metabase to see how we use Metabase.

The Metabase Team

‧ 2 min read

Want to retire early? Save more money

Japan and Korea’s high average savings rates drive shorter times to reach financial independence.

The Metabase Team

‧ 3 min read

#jobs #jobs #jobs | Exploring trends in data jobs postings

Building a dashboard using data from the dbt Slack to analyze how data jobs have been changing over time.

The Metabase Team

‧ 4 min read

Building a better data culture for your team

What are the best ways to build a data-centric culture within an organization? TJ Muehleman and Krishnan Raghupathi are sharing their experience and advice on how to get started.

The Metabase Team

‧ 9 min read

A product manager's guide to getting started with Metabase

You may have plenty of product management tools at your disposal, but really getting to know your product data and customers is still a challenge. Learn how Metabase can help your product team make smarter data-driven decisions without relying exclusively on event instrumentation.

The Metabase Team

‧ 3 min read

A marketer's guide to getting started with Metabase

Your marketing team moves fast, and doesn't have the time to spend weeks vetting and configuring an analytics tool. Learn how Metabase can help you level up those growth initiatives.

Alexander Kinn

‧ 4 min read

Maintaining healthy skepticism toward your data

Your data isn't infallible, but it takes practice to get comfortable interrogating that data when you get an unexpected result. Learn how you can hone your data intuition and keep cool in the face of fluctuating numbers.

The Metabase Team

‧ 3 min read

Your chart has too many series: data visualization tips for the non-analyst

Creating effective charts and dashboards isn't always intuitive for those outside the analyst bubble. We've pulled together some tips to help you make sure your data visualizations are the best they can be.

The Metabase Team

‧ 3 min read

Calculating LTV: are you doing it wrong?

You've heard that customer lifetime value (LTV) is an important metric, but how exactly are you supposed to know what formula to use? This article offers a simple LTV formula for SaaS companies, along with use cases for the metrics and common pitfalls people encounter when working with LTV.

Bruno Bergher

‧ 5 min read

Metabase is SOC 2 Type 1 Compliant

Metabase has always cared about data privacy, and today we’re proud to announce we're now SOC 2 Type 1 compliant.

The Metabase Team

‧ 1 min read

The perfect chart: choosing the right visualization for every scenario

Data viz is all about communicating the right story. Line charts are a reliable standby, but it's good to have options. Read on for tips and examples about when to use scatterplots, progress bars, and more.

The Metabase Team

‧ 4 min read

Avoiding analyst burnout: how to streamline ad hoc requests

Help your analysts avoid burnout with these tips for handling ad hoc analysis requests (hint: the answer lies in self-service analytics!).

The Metabase Team

‧ 4 min read

Business intelligence career paths

To the uninitiated, BI career paths may sound a lot alike. We've written up an explainer on the difference between the following common roles within data teams: data analyst, data scientist, BI developer, data engineer, and analytics engineer.

The Metabase Team

‧ 6 min read

From spreadsheets to business intelligence

Maybe you're a spreadsheet pro but find yourself increasingly curious about that mysterious world of business intelligence. When is it time to make the move to a BI platform?

The Metabase Team

‧ 5 min read

BI career path: How I became a data lead at AngelList Venture

No two data journeys are alike. We talked to Brandon Krull, Data Lead at AngelList Venture, about his path from chemistry to data engineering.

The Metabase Team

‧ 3 min read

SQL Cheatsheet: Five simple SQL commands to get started in data analytics

SQL cheatsheet for data exploration: discover five basic SQL commands and functions to get started with data analysis.

The Metabase Team

‧ 8 min read

Tools for building trust

Official Collections and Question Moderation help people find intelligence they can rely on.

The Metabase Team

‧ 2 min read

The 6 most common types of bias when working with data

When working with data your prejudices and prior beliefs can skew the way you reach to conclusion in several unexpected and elegant ways. Learn how to defend your reasoning.

The Metabase Team

‧ 7 min read

The Modern Data Stack (updated for 2021)

The Modern Data Stack (MDS) consists of a flexible set of technologies that help businesses store, manage, and learn from their data.

The Metabase Team

‧ 5 min read

An open call for article submissions

Calling all writers. We're looking for people who want to write articles about business intelligence, data analytics, and everything Metabase.

The Metabase Team

‧ 2 min read

Introducing Learn Metabase

We're excited to share this new site we've built to help teach you how to get the most out of Metabase.

The Metabase Team

‧ 1 min read

How to run Metabase in production

We'll walk through the different ways you can run Metabase in production, and give some guidance on what to do next after you're up and running.

The Metabase Team

‧ 4 min read

An Enterprising Opening

We are unifying our OSS and Enterprise repositories, and making the Enterprise codebase publicly accessible

The Metabase Team

‧ 2 min read

Announcing Metabase Cloud

We're launching Metabase Cloud

The Metabase Team

‧ 1 min read

Upcoming changes to our translations policies

We're making things clearer, and raising our quality bar.

The Metabase Team

‧ 2 min read

Metabase 0.33 Preview - A query for your thoughts

We're overhauling our query builder and adding new features. We'd love your thoughts.

The Metabase Team

‧ 2 min read

They grow up so fast

Modular drivers and performance improvements

The Metabase Team

‧ 2 min read

Metabase in Portuguese

It's um bom dia for you if Português is your language of choice.

The Metabase Team

‧ 1 min read

Metabase en Español

Our first official translation is here at last

The Metabase Team

‧ 1 min read

Some things to know before trying out version 0.30

Lots is changing in 0.30, so here's how to prepare.

Maz Ameli

‧ 2 min read

Power your Application analytics with Metabase

You can now embed Metabase dashboards in your application to easily provide analytics to your users and iterate faster.

Sameer Al-Sakran

‧ 4 min read

Want to provide a white labelled version of Metabase?

Learn about white-labeling Metabase to deliver a branded analytics experience tailored to your organization.

Sameer Al-Sakran

‧ 1 min read

Help us provide Metabase in your language!

Help localize Metabase! Join the community effort to make Metabase accessible in multiple languages.

Sameer Al-Sakran

‧ 2 min read

We put questions inside your questions

Discover how nested queries in Metabase simplify complex data analysis with subqueries and advanced filtering.

Sameer Al-Sakran

‧ 3 min read

AWS Startups & Metabase

Discover how AWS startups use Metabase for simple, scalable analytics without the complexity of traditional BI tools.

Sameer Al-Sakran

‧ 3 min read

Bootstrap your analytics in 1 hour or less

Set up analytics for your startup in under an hour! A quick guide to getting actionable insights with Metabase.

Tim Abraham

‧ 5 min read

Announcing the Metabase Network

Introducing the Metabase Network: Connect with experts for custom solutions, integrations, and analytics support.

Sameer Al-Sakran

‧ 1 min read

Come celebrate the Metabase project turning 1!

Celebrate Metabase's birthday! Discover our journey and achievements since launching the platform.

Sameer Al-Sakran

‧ 1 min read

The Metabase approach to Permissions

Sameer Al-Sakran

‧ 3 min read

Unfiltered Filter Excitement

Metabase now has dashboard-wide filters

Maz Ameli

‧ 2 min read

Institutional Memory

Explore the challenges of institutional memory in analytics and discover strategies to maintain organizational knowledge effectively.

Sameer Al-Sakran

‧ 6 min read

Microservices considered harmful

Learn why microservices may not be ideal for early-stage startups and how monoliths can simplify development and analytics.

Sameer Al-Sakran

‧ 3 min read

Event Analytics Strategies

Master event analytics with strategies for building pipelines, integrating data, and optimizing performance.

Allen Gilliland

‧ 6 min read

The 2015 Analytics Software Market

Sameer Al-Sakran

‧ 6 min read

Analytics rumblings in the public markets in 2015

Sameer Al-Sakran

‧ 4 min read

Unveiling Metabase

Discover Metabase, an open-source BI tool designed for simplicity, enabling everyone in your company to access data effortlessly.

Sameer Al-Sakran

‧ 2 min read