Query and Explore with the Workbench
- how-to
The workbench for Operational Insights provides a graphical user interface for query development and data exploration.
You use the workbench to manage your databases, scopes, and collections; create, run, and save SQL++ for Operational Insights queries; and view and save query results and metrics — all in a single window.
Prerequisites
To use the Operational Insights UI, you need the Operational Insights Access role along with specific privileges.
Workbench Features
Features of the workbench include:
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Controls for adding and managing databases, scopes, collections, links, and Iceberg catalogs. See Data Model & Hierarchy and sources:manage-external.adoc#iceberg-ui.
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A single, integrated visual interface for query development and testing. The query editor offers multi-line formatting, copy-and-paste, and syntax coloring. See Write and Run Queries.
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Immediate display of metrics for executed queries and access to the query plan. See View Query Metrics or Plan.
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A query history for quick revision and re-execution. See Use the Query History.
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Define query-specific settings, including a maximum time limit and positional parameters. See Set Query Options.
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Options for displaying query results in JSON or table format, for copying or downloading query results in JSON format. See Work with Query Results.
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Data visualization options for query results. See Visualize Results in Charts.
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Monitoring of active, completed, and open requests. See Monitoring Queries.
Accessing the Workbench
To open the workbench, sign in to the Web Console and click Workbench in the navigation bar. The Workbench item is shown to users who can access the service.
The workbench has three tabs, across the top of the screen:
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Workbench: query development and data exploration, described on this page.
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Monitor: active, completed, and open requests, and service statistics. See Monitoring Queries.
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Samples: sample data to load. See Load Sample Data.
The Workbench tab has the following working panes:
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An explorer where you select, create, and manage links, catalogs, databases, scopes, and collections.
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The query editor.
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Options for reviewing query results and viewing query history.
Load Sample Data
The Samples tab loads sample datasets, to give a quick-start example of Operational Insights capabilities.
The travel-sample dataset creates a database named travel-sample, with an inventory scope containing five collections: airline, airport, hotel, landmark, and route.
To load it:
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In the workbench, click the Samples tab.
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Select the travel-sample checkbox.
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Click Load Sample Data.
A notification appears when loading starts, and another when it completes. Once a sample has been loaded, its checkbox is disabled.
For a walkthrough that uses this dataset, see Quick Start Tutorial.