Using Metabase as an Admin Dashboard

[hwelch-fle]

Not really related to Planka development, but I have come across a pretty slick way to monitor my instance at a very high level without having to navigate a ton of projects and boards by linking the Postgres database to a service like Metabase (I'm sure this method would work well with other BI systems too).

Project Boards:

Dashboard on Metabase filtered on example project:

Setting it up should be pretty self explanatory, you only need to add the Planka Postgres database as a datasource, Metabase does a good job of pre-populating the field types and even unrolls the JSON timer field for you. I just filled out some metadata and formatted the ID fields for card and board to generate a link to my instance with the ID inserted.

If there's any interest in a more detailed explanation of the setup I'd be glad to write up a guide, but I just thought I'd share this for now to see if this is something that other people might be interested in.

[seals187]

Hi There,

Would appreciate if you would write a little KB p.e.
Do you have any links to read for the understanding ?
Is it difficult to implement ?

best regards
seals187

[hwelch-fle]

1) Set Up the Database

Establish Connection to Metabase

I would avoid enabling actions as you don't want Metabase to be able to write changes to the Planka database

Manually Validate all Table Metadata

This step is a bit tedious, but you only need to do it once, Most of the relationships will be automatically noticed by Metabase. You just need to set the view for Foreign Keys (Related -> Name) and the Name value for each table

Display related as the foreign name

Set name field as record name

This initial Setup is not entirely necessary, it just makes derived tables easier to read.

Bonus: Auto Link cards/boards to your instance under Formatting

2) Create a Model

Linking all the tables into a single Metabase model will improve query time and make question/SQL query creation easier

Linking

All you need to do is link each table like this on ID. I've ignored some tables, but you can continue this join as far as you want.

Metadata

After creating the join, you can switch to the Metadata tab and fill out as much info as you want

I usually rename fields (e.g List -> Status) and add conversions or hyperlinking here. Read the Metabase docs for all the options you have on this screen

3) Implementation

You can now use this model however you want. It will autoupdate on page refresh, and most of the dashboard panels you see in the original post are just filtered versions of this joined Model. You can either use the Metabase query builder (usually good enough), or write your own SQL queries with the model as your starting point

[seals187]

Thank you very much, I will try that =)