Snowflake dashboard notes
I have long lamented the fact that Snowflake doesn’t enable you to add open text to your dashboard in Snowsight (their web UI). Often I want to:
- Add a description to the dashboard
- Link to an accompanying analysis doc
- Structure the dashboard with headings
- Add notes clarifying how the data was queried, what caveats exist, externalities that might show up, etc.
One of the data scientists at my company recently BLEW MY MIND 🤯 with a workaround for Snowflake dashboard notes. The answer? Stuff ’em in a query. Seems so obvious once you know the trick!
How to add notes to a dashboard in Snowflake
You can achieve a “Notes” tile such as this one:
With the following SQL snippet:
SELECT '- Some comment about how the data was queried' AS notes
UNION
SELECT '- This data does not account for x y and z' AS notes
UNION
SELECT '- Usage spikes at A, B, C marketing moments and dips during the winter holiday season' AS notes
This snippet includes a “query” for each string you want to add to a notes
table. The UNION
operator glues these queries together, such that each string is its own row in notes
.
Imagine all the nonsense you could get up to by manually selecting and inserting data into a query…while I would still prefer the ability to add open text (including headings) to a dashboard, this is an intriguing workaround before that flexibility is built into the product.