A tale of two modes

Those of you who have been with us for a while have known that a lot has changed in Metabase over the years. We’ve added collections, new dashboard features, embedding, permissions, and a whole lot more. But one specific piece of Metabase, the query builder, has remained largely unchanged. So finally, after years of faithful service, we’re retiring it and replacing it with something we think is a whole lot better. Somethings actually, and we’d love to tell you about them.

A tale of two modes

Borrowing from a certain phrase, we’ve aimed to keep the simple things simple, and make harder things possible without having to resort to SQL when you’re working with your data. That’s why instead of trying to cram every possible tool into one space, we’ve split things into two different modes. To start, we’ve sanded things down and created a streamlined and simple place to view tables and visualizations, and quickly filter or summarize what you’re looking at.

When you need a bit more power and a touch more space, we’ve added a whole new experience to let you join data (yes, finally) and do multiple summary and filter steps when the question calls for it. You can preview each step to see how it affects your result, and then visualize it when you’re ready.

You can easily switch back and forth between these two modes when you need to, and start a new question using your preferred experience.

Easier browsing

You’ll also notice you can browse through your data from anywhere now from the nav bar. Click through your databases and tables to find what you need and you’ll see the data right away. Then, you can easily summarize or filter it using that mode we mentioned up above. If you’re a seasoned SQL pro and have been wishing you could get to writing faster, there’s also a one-click button to get you going from anywhere in Metabase.

Enhanced search

Search now also includes tables, metrics, and segments, so if you know what you’re looking for you can find it in a jiffy.

Bug fixes and enhancements

We’ve closed nearly 40 bugs in this release. Check out the full list of closed bugs.

Also, our amazing community of contributors have helped us to add Dutch as a supported language. Just set your browser’s preferred language to switch Metabase over. If you’d like to help translate Metabase into your own language of choice, head on over to our POEditor project.

How to get the latest release

See our instructions on how to upgrade.

If you haven’t set Metabase up before, here’s the best place to get started.

Tell us what you think

We’d love to hear what you think of these new changes. Head over to our discussion board to give us your thoughts!

Thanks, The Metabase Team