Get the most out of Metabase when you're bad at SQL queries

Hello there,

Lately I installed Metabase on the same virtual machine that I use for ERPNext. I was using Microsoft Power BI and I loved it but I didn’t like the fact that I had to use the On-premises data gateway on my Windows computer to refresh the data a few times a day. I wanted to use real-time data. When I initially tried Metabase, I liked it but it was not as easy to use as Power BI when I wanted to use data coming from more than just one table. I found out that you could achieve pretty much anything as long as you are good at building complex SQL queries which is not one of my best skills. There was also a lack of customization (for example column names) that I didn’t like in Metabase.

While doing researches, I stumbled upon a free software: FlySpeed SQL Query
https://www.activedbsoft.com/overview-querytool.html

The free version if fully functional and you get everything you need to easily build complex SQL queries that you will then be able to use in Metabase to get all the data you need. You can use the visual SQL query editor, link tables, sort and make calculation easily and then copy and paste the generated SQL query in Metabase.

I can now stop using Power BI and create all of my Dashboard in Metabase (hosted on the same server and accessible on the same domain name as my ERPNext installation).

2 Likes

Nice! Thanks for sharing

I have been doing exactly this, just using our ERP’s builtin custom query builder instead of FlySpeed. It also generates the query in native SQL, and I just paste that into Metabase,
Been using it for only the last day, and I already see how useful this is going to be. Super easy to create dashboards this way, using the native SQL option in Metabase.