# Explore and query metrics

> Ask for metrics by name, trend them by day, week or month, split and filter them, and save charts that follow the metric definitions.

Source: https://tini.so/docs/metric-queries

A **metric query** asks for metrics by name, instead of spelling out SQL: “Revenue and Orders, by month, split by plan, for the last 90 days.” Orcabase writes the SQL for your database from the current definitions every time it runs.

## Explore a metric

Open any metric and go to its **Explore** tab. It charts the metric, and you can change the question with a few controls:

| Control | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| Metrics | Add more metrics to see them side by side, like Revenue and Orders. |
| Range | Last 7 days, 30 days, 90 days, 12 months, or all time. |
| Trend by | The time grain: day, week, month, quarter or year. Or no trend, for a single total. |
| Split by | Break the numbers down by a dimension, like plan or country. |
| Where | Filters, like country is one of VN, SG. Numbers and dates also compare with >, ≥, < and ≤; text can match with contains. |

Switch between the **Chart** and the **Table**, and click **SQL** to see exactly what ran. If you’ve edited the metric but not saved it, Explore still shows the saved definition.

## Save it as a query

When the view is right, click **Save as query** and name it. It becomes a saved [query](https://tini.so/docs/queries) of the metric kind: give it a [chart](https://tini.so/docs/charts), pin it to a dashboard, or open it from the Queries page, where the same controls replace the SQL editor.

Because a metric query stores names, not SQL, it follows the definitions: change how Revenue is calculated, and every saved metric query asking for Revenue picks up the change on its next run. Renaming a metric or a field updates saved metric queries for you.

> **Note: Convert to SQL**
>
> Need something the controls can’t express? **Convert to SQL**, on a metric query’s page, turns it into an ordinary SQL query, starting from the SQL Orcabase wrote. It stops following the metric definitions from then on.

## What the result looks like

Result columns are named after what you asked for, so charts map onto them naturally. Revenue by month, split by plan, comes back as:

```text
created_at__month   plan       revenue
2025-06-01          Monthly    31,420
2025-06-01          Sampler     8,150
2025-07-01          Monthly    33,080
…
```

A time dimension at a grain is named `dimension__grain`, like `created_at__month`.

## Rules that keep numbers right

- **No double-counting.** A metric can be split or filtered by its own model’s dimensions, and by models it reaches through many → one or one → one joins. Across a one → many join, Orcabase refuses and explains why. See [Correct or loud](https://tini.so/docs/semantic-layer#correct-or-loud).
- **Clear errors.** Ask for a metric or field that doesn’t exist, or a grain a dimension doesn’t allow, and the error lists the valid options.
- **Safe values.** Filter values are sent to the database as parameters, never pasted into the SQL.
- **UTC time.** Grains and ranges are counted in UTC. “Last 30 days” is worked out when the query runs, so a saved query always means the most recent 30 days.
- **The usual limits.** At most 5,000 rows, and 30 seconds. A fine grain over a long range with a split can hit the row limit: use a coarser grain or a shorter range.

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