Querying & exploring
The Explore page is Flax's point-and-click query builder — pick dimensions and measures and Flax compiles dialect-correct SQL that runs in your own warehouse.
Explore is where you turn the semantic model into answers. You point and click to assemble a query — no SQL required — and Flax compiles it to dialect-correct SQL that runs directly in your warehouse. This page is for analysts and viewers who want to ask questions of governed data.
#How Explore works
Open Explore at /app/explore and pick a semantic layer, then a model. The
page has two parts:
- A field-picker panel listing the dimensions and measures defined in the model, with controls for grain, sort, period comparison, and table calculations.
- A result view with Chart, Table, and SQL tabs.
Assemble your query by toggling fields, then click Run. Flax compiles your selections to dialect-correct SQL, executes it in your warehouse, and shows the rows. The footer reports how many rows came back and how long the query took.
#Warehouse-native, governed by the model
Explore never copies your data into Flax. Every query is compiled to SQL for your connection's dialect (Postgres, Snowflake, Databricks, or BigQuery) and executed in place. Because queries are built from the semantic model, metric definitions, joins, and row-access filters apply automatically — everyone sees numbers that mean the same thing, restricted to the rows they are allowed to see.
#What you can do from Explore
- Build queries by choosing dimensions, measures, filters, sorts, and a limit.
- Write SQL by hand in the governed SQL runner when a question needs more than point-and-click.
- Drill down from a summarized value to the underlying rows.
- Inspect the compiled SQL and raw results of any query.
- Turn a result into a saved chart or continue in a sheet for spreadsheet-style modelling.