Cascading Filters Not Working with Custom Models

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1

My Setup

I've created a data model structure in Metabase with the following components:

  1. Base Database Tables:
  • Partners table with columns including PartnerId and Name
  • Contracts table with columns including ContractId, PartnerId, and Area_Name (the public area name field)
  1. Custom Model:
  • Model 6 (Contract Performance Dashboard) which joins these tables and includes both PartnerName (from Partners) and Area_Name (from Contracts)
  1. Database Relationships:
  • In Metabase Admin, I've defined a Foreign Key relationship between Contracts[PartnerId] and Partners[PartnerId]
  • I've also defined Foreign Key relationships from Model 6 where PartnerId and ContractId are defined as foreign keys to the source tables

The Issue

I'm trying to create cascading filters in my dashboard where:

  1. The user first selects a Partner (from PartnerName)
  2. Then the second filter shows only the Area_Name values that belong to that Partner

However, I'm encountering the following issues:

  1. When adding the first filter for PartnerName (category type), I expected it to automatically show me a list of choices, but I had to go into Edit and choose the Model in order to get that list. After doing that, the filter works correctly.
  2. When adding the second filter for Area_Name and trying to link it to the Partner filter, I can edit and select a source, but no values appear in the dropdown. I expected to see a list of all area names.
  3. When attempting to create the linked relationship between these filters, the cascading behavior doesn't work - selecting a Partner doesn't filter the available area names.

What I've Tried

  1. Verified that the Foreign Key relationships are correctly defined in the Metabase Admin
  2. Confirmed that Model 6 includes both PartnerName and Area_Name columns
  3. Checked that the data contains multiple area names for each Partner
  4. Tried different filter types and settings

Questions

  1. Is there something specific I need to configure to make cascading filters work with custom models?
  2. Do linked filters work differently when the columns come from joined tables in a model versus direct database tables?
  3. Is there a way to debug why the area name filter isn't showing any values?
  4. Are there any known limitations with cascading filters that might be affecting my setup?

Any guidance would be helpful as I'm trying to create an intuitive dashboard experience where users can easily filter by Partner and then by area name.

2

have you associated in the model the column to the database column? I would guess that this is a SQL model right?

3

Thanks for your repsonse.

Yes, I believe that is what I have tried to describe like this:

  • In Metabase Admin, I've defined a Foreign Key relationship between Contracts[PartnerId] and Partners[PartnerId]
  • I've also defined Foreign Key relationships from Model 6 where PartnerId and ContractId are defined as foreign keys to the source tables

I have now also tried mapping them, suing the option above in the metadata editor, but it still doesn't work.

In the meantime, I tried creating this model directly in our DW, rather than in Metabase, and this does works when building a question from that. This made me think that what I was trying to do with having the intermediate model in Metabase is not supported for filtering?