Data and Business Intelligence Glossary Terms

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Table

What is a table?

A table is data’s natural habitat. In a database, a table is a series of fields, with the values of those fields arranged in rows, each row with a value corresponding to a field. Tables in databases are connected via entity and foreign keys.

Databases are made up of tables, but table can also refer to a type of data visualization, or chart. The table visualization resembles a spreadsheet, with columns corresponding to fields (or aggregations, in the case of custom columns).

Example table in Metabase

Metabase’s Sample Database contains four tables: Products, Orders, People, and Reviews.

Figure 1 shows a question in Metabase visualized as a table. This question adds one filter to the People table, so that our result is a table of our customers whose State is Georgia:

<em>Fig. 1</em>. A table showing <strong>People</strong> in Georgia (GA).
Fig. 1. A table showing People in Georgia (GA).

With the toggle below the table, we can alternate between viewing this question as a table and as a pin map (or whatever other visualization you’ve chosen).

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