Insights | Creating a basic "Question"|II_001

Infigo Insights utilises the Metabase platform to visualise and utilise your platform's data.

In this tutorial, we will take a look at creating a basic "Question". This is Metabase terminology, giving you the means to generate informational data reports using intuitive tools.

Our basic example will see us creating a "Question", looking at the total value of orders taken on a singular storefront over the previous 30 days.

Metabase

1. Click on New
To begin creating a new question (report), click the New icon to the top right of your Metabase screen.
2. Click on Question
3. Pick your starting data
Choose the data you wish to utilise within your question. You will have the ability to select between the Infigo platform data (named "training" in my case, due to the name of the platform "training.infigosoftware.com") or you can utilise the output of any previously saved questions.
In our case, click the main bulk of platform data (in my case, "training").
4. Select the initial data table to use
In this example, we will only use data from one of the provided data tables. However, as we will see in later tutorials, multiple data tables can be utilised in a single question.
In this example, we are looking for the value of orders received. The Order data set contains this information.
5. Click the arrow to control the data shown
This is not a mandatory step, however the arrow icon next to the selected data table can be used to refine the fields displayed in the eventual data set.
Without refining the selected fields, all data will be displayed by default.
6. Select required fields
Select / deselect the fields of the data set you wish to display or hide.
This does not impact the selection of this data in later stages, however will control whether the data is shown on any visualised data tables.
7. Click on Add filters to narrow your answer
Filters allow you to refine the displayed data set and cut out unnecessary noise.
For example, in this instance we will apply two filters:
- Filter 1 will display order information for only ONE storefront on our platform.
- Filter 2 will ensure only order information from the previous 30 days is included.
8. Locate the metric by which you wish to filter
Our first filter is to refine data to only one storefront, so in this case I can choose the storefront_id field.
9. Type the data to filter by
How you can filter this field will be controlled by the type of data contained within it. For example, here we have a numerical ID, and as a result we are able to enter value(s) to filter, then control how these values are used.
The default usage, for example, is "Is". This means only values of that chosen ID will be shown.
Alternatives include things such as "IsNot" "Less than" "Greater than" and more.
10. Create additional filters
For our second filter we wish to refine displayed dates. For this, we are able to select a field such as "created_date" in the "order" table.
The icon next to this field indicates it is in a date format. This will control how we specify this filter.
11. Click on or enter a time period
A date field will give you inputs allowing you to specify dates to consider.
This can be as general as today, last month or last year. Or, it can cover specific time periods and time frames.
12. Amend specifications
Any information you have already specified can be modified by simply clicking on the entry again.
13. Click on Visualize
The data covered by the current "Question" being asked can be viewed at any time by clicking the Visualize button.
14. Data
We can see in our example that based on our refinement or displayed columns and filtering of data, only an Order ID and total value of that order are being displayed.
15. Return to the question editor by clicking this icon
16. Click on Summarize
Summarize allows you to display existing data in a condensed way. For example in our case, we are looking to display one order price for the entire month instead of data on each individual order placed.
17. Click on Sum of ...
You have numerous methods of summarizing the data, including the counting of entries, summing of entries and much more.
You also have ability to generate your own custom expressions, should the provided options be unsuitable.
18. Click on total
In our case we are looking for the sum of the "total" data column.
19. Click on Visualize
20. Answer obtained!
We now see just a singular value, which is combining all of the order total data we saw in the previous table.
This is now giving us our required data, the order total over the last 30 days!
21. Click on Save
Save the question to your account for later use.
22. Enter a name for the data, an optional description and specify a location on your account to save it.
23. Click on Save
24. Click on Not now
Saved questions can immediately be added to dashboards (a collection of different questions and other data you wish to make readily available for review).
Click "Not now" in this example, as we will create dashboards in different tutorials.