PM Hacks: Building Metrics Dashboard using SQL queries

An important aspect of being a PM is to get your entire team on the same page. The simplest way of doing this is to have an analytics dashboard.

A lot of companies use SQL databases. Per scalegrid.io about 60% of the market share in 2019 belonged to SQL Databases with about 40% using MySQL. One of the tools that I started using recently which allows you to build dashboards quickly and easily is PopSQL.

PopSQL is a collaborative SQL editor allowing teams to share SQL queries. However, the feature that I have found most useful is the ability to build dashboards and make them accessible externally via URLs.

This lets you be on top of your product metrics and at the same time allows the information to be available for the larger group.

Connecting and setting up your Dashboard with PopSQL is very easy.

1- Set up your DB Connections: PopSQL allows you to connect to multiple databases. All you need to do is provide hostname, port, db, username and password.

You can choose if you want to keep your connections private or not as well.

2- Get your queries in place: Start writing your query by taking advantage of PopSQL’s ability to add variables. Having the same variable across queries allows you to easily build a Dashboard.

Once you have your queries in place, you can organize them in multiple folders and/or make them visible to your team members.

You can also choose the output form of your query.

Create a Dashboard: Adding Queries to your dashboard is easy. Create a new dashboard and search for your query. Once you add the query you want, you will be able to choose your display type.

You can now schedule the dashboard to be updated at a regular interval.

Don’t forget to share your dashboard using the Share> Get Presentation link option.