What is a Real-time SQL Dashboard?

Dashboards let your team track and analyze important metrics. Some metrics are urgent and need to be checked often. Others only need to be reviewed once a month. You probably have a handful of business-critical numbers that need to be tracked in real-time so that your team can react immediately. That’s where real-time dashboards come in. Most modern applications are built on a SQL database, and analytics databases and warehouses are mostly relational databases that you can query via SQL. This post will show you how to set up a real-time SQL dashboard on top of your database using a dashboard tool.

Why Do You Need a Real-Time Dashboard?

Data is a critical part of any business. Real-time dashboards give you a clear overview of metrics like the volume of support tickets or the number of active users through an easy-to-read visual interface. These charts help you identify patterns, trends, and correlations to make data-informed decisions that directly impact your business. A company that deals with time-sensitive operations without real-time tracking of critical metrics is flying blind.

Think about a food delivery app like Doordash monitoring the number of late food deliveries. If you see a spike in late deliveries, you can give the team on the ground the signal to increase the number of drivers being dispatched.

Real-time dashboards can also be tailored for the customer support team, focusing on metrics that illustrate their performance in handling support tickets.

Or consider an online retailer monitoring inventory in their warehouse. If they see inventory running low, they can discontinue a sale or place more orders from their suppliers. These companies need real-time dashboards internally to track and act on these numbers.

If your product handles a critical business function for a company, you might need to build a customer-facing dashboard to show your customer the metrics that your platform manages.

For example, suppose you’re a marketing platform that delivers emails to customers or a virtual conferencing platform hosting thousands of attendees. In those cases, you’d display metrics like email open rate or number of active attendees.

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Benefits of Real-Time SQL Dashboards

Real-time SQL dashboards offer numerous benefits to businesses, transforming how data is utilized and decisions are made. Here are some key advantages:

1. Improved Decision-Making: With access to real-time data, decision-makers can make informed choices based on the most current information available. This reduces the risk of relying on outdated data, ensuring that strategies and actions are relevant and timely.
2. Enhanced Data Visualization: Real-time SQL dashboards provide a clear and concise visual representation of data. This makes it easier to identify trends, patterns, and correlations, allowing teams to quickly grasp complex information and derive actionable insights.
3. Increased Productivity: By automating data updates and providing real-time insights, these dashboards save time and effort. Teams can focus on higher-value tasks instead of manually compiling and updating reports, leading to greater efficiency and productivity.
4. Better Collaboration: Real-time SQL dashboards enable teams to collaborate more effectively. With everyone having access to the same up-to-date information, it becomes easier to coordinate efforts, share insights, and make collective decisions.
5. Competitive Advantage: Leveraging real-time data gives businesses a competitive edge. By responding quickly to changes in the market and staying ahead of the competition, companies can capitalize on opportunities and mitigate risks more effectively.

What Do You Need To Create a Real-Time SQL Dashboard?

At a high level, you’ll need the following to set up a real-time SQL dashboard:

1. To have a relational database that you can query with SQL
2. To identify the relevant tables and write the queries needed to extract the right data
3. To build a user-facing frontend dashboard. You can use Excel, Google Sheets, an internal tool builder, a business intelligence platform, or your own custom web application
4. A way to run the SQL query at intervals to poll the database for data
5. A way to display the data on your front end with low latency

Setting Up Your Relational Database

Your engineering team is populating data into a database or data warehouse. If you want to query using SQL or a similarly powerful language, you need to store your data in a relational database like Postgres.

A relational database has tables that “relate” to each other by storing pointers to records in other tables. This makes it possible to run complex queries like “find all the late deliveries sent from Domino’s to addresses in Soho, London.”

You can query data using a DBMS (Database Management System) like MySQL, PostgreSQL, or Microsoft SQL Server. If you’re on a budget and looking for something quick, you can get started on the free tier of AWS RDS or similar.

If you use a data warehouse like Amazon’s Redshift on AWS, Google BigQuery, or Snowflake, you can still query data using a SQL-like syntax. It’s important to note that most data warehouses will not actually support real-time analytics, and the data pipeline often causes a delay. If you’re looking for a real-time analytics database, you should consider options such as Rockset.

Creating Your SQL Queries

or real-time reporting, your dashboard or BI tool should be able to connect to your data source and fetch real-time SQL data.

If you don’t have a BI tool in place, you’ll need to build a real-time API running SQL queries that can fetch live data from your relational database. The SQL query needs to be optimized to bring in the data without delays. Factor in the cost of running the query:

1. Cost: Certain providers charge you based both on data stored and the number of queries or tables queried per month
2. Latency: Complex queries can sometimes be slow. Make sure you set up the right virtualized tables, optimize your queries, and structure your data for fast retrieval

Decide how fresh the data needs to be:

1. The SQL query can be called up via an API that pulls data from the database once and caches it for later use. You can set up a polling framework to periodically get the latest data. Set user expectations when it comes to how “real-time” the data is by adding a label that reads (for example) “Updated 3 hrs ago” to show your user the freshness of the dashboard
2. You can also simply have your API run the SQL query each time, refreshing the dashboard whenever it is loaded

You’ll need to figure out what works better for your specific needs by testing your query and measuring how long it takes to fetch the data.

Building the Dashboard UI

Your real-time SQL dashboard needs an easy-to-read UI that the right members of your team can access.

Your dashboard should also display key performance indicators (KPIs) to provide a real-time overview of important metrics.

You can build your own dashboard using a modern frontend JavaScript framework like Vue, React, or Angular. Use a charting library to visualize the data.

Another option is to use Business Intelligence tools. Open-source BI tools usually have a steep learning curve, which might scare away users when creating simple reports and visualizations. Commercial tools are much more user-friendly, so you can focus on the information and not the tool itself.  If you choose to go the open-source route, some of the best open-source BI tools are Metabase, The ELK Stack, Jedox, and Helical Insight.

Your dashboard also needs to be responsive and adjust its size to the screen it’s being viewed on. This is important because it allows users to view the dashboard on any device. Operations teams are often on the move when viewing real-time data. They might not have access to a fast internet connection or a large screen.

A good dashboard design fits your user’s needs.

Choosing the Right SQL Dashboard Tools

Selecting the right SQL dashboard tools is crucial for creating effective and user-friendly dashboards. Here are some factors to consider:

1. Ease of Use: Choose a tool that is intuitive and easy to navigate, even for team members without extensive SQL knowledge. User-friendly interfaces and drag-and-drop features can significantly reduce the learning curve.
2. Data Sources: Ensure the tool supports a wide range of data sources, including relational databases, cloud storage, and other business intelligence tools. This flexibility allows you to integrate multiple data sources seamlessly into your SQL dashboard.
3. Data Visualization: Opt for a tool that offers a variety of visualization options, such as charts, graphs, and tables. Effective data visualization helps users understand and make sense of their data, leading to better insights and decisions.
4. Collaboration Features: Select a tool that enables real-time commenting, @mentions, and file sharing. These features facilitate collaboration among team members, ensuring that everyone is on the same page and can contribute to the analysis.
5. Scalability: Choose a tool that can handle large databases and scale with your business needs. As your data grows, the tool should be able to maintain performance and support more complex queries and visualizations.

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4 Things to Consider Before Buying a Dashboarding Solution

If all the above sounds like a lot of work, that's because it is. You can buy off-the-shelf tools to make your life simpler.

1. Check what data source integrations are available: Your solution should have access to all data sources you use to make them a part of your workflow.
2. How easy is it to create a dashboard? Do you need code, or is it possible to create dashboards with no-code tools? Are the pre-built dashboards and data visualizations well designed? Data visualization is a core part of building dashboards, and a good business intelligence tool can simplify this process. How you display and represent your real-time data will determine how useful it is to its audience.
3. Learning curve and implementation costs: Understand how long it takes to implement a solution. You'll probably have to write SQL queries and some code to integrate dashboards. Make sure you know what the required implementation effort looks like before signing up.
4. What's the core purpose of the dashboards? Certain solutions are better for different use cases such as internal analytics, ad hoc reporting, or external dashboards.

If you're embedding dashboards into your product so that your customer can access real-time data, or need a solution for external reporting, there are dedicated solutions such as Explo. We make it easy to create sophisticated dashboards with minimal code that directly queries your data source and can be set up to be always up-to-date.

Best Practices for Creating Real-Time SQL Dashboards

To create effective real-time SQL dashboards, follow these best practices:

Handling Large Databases

1. Optimize Queries: Ensure that SQL queries are optimized for performance. This reduces the load on the database and improves data retrieval times, making your dashboard more responsive.
2. Use Indexing: Implement indexing to enhance query performance. Indexes help the database locate and retrieve data more quickly, which is crucial for real-time dashboards.
3. Partition Data: Partition large datasets to improve query performance and reduce the risk of data overload. This technique divides your data into smaller, more manageable pieces, making it easier to query and analyze.

Collaborating with Team Members

1. Use Real-Time Commenting: Enable real-time commenting on your dashboard to facilitate collaboration and discussion among team members. This feature allows users to share insights and feedback directly within the dashboard.
2. Set Up @Mentions: Use @mentions to notify team members of changes or updates to the dashboard. This ensures that relevant stakeholders are aware of important developments and can take action as needed.
3. Share Files: Share files and data sources to ensure everyone has access to the same information. This promotes transparency and consistency in data analysis and decision-making.

Setting Up Alerts and Notifications

1. Define Thresholds: Establish thresholds for data changes to trigger alerts and notifications. This helps you stay informed about critical metrics and take timely action when necessary.
2. Set Up Notifications: Configure notifications to be sent via email, Slack, or other communication tools. This ensures that alerts reach the right people promptly, even if they are not actively monitoring the dashboard.
3. Customize Alerts: Customize alerts to meet specific business needs. For example, you can set up notifications for when a key performance indicator (KPI) exceeds a certain threshold, ensuring that you are always aware of significant changes.

By following these best practices and choosing the right SQL dashboard tools, businesses can create effective real-time SQL dashboards that drive informed decision-making, improve productivity, and enhance collaboration.

‎FA‎Qs

1. Why Are Real-Time SQL Dashboards Essential?

Real-time SQL dashboards are essential because they allow you to see what's going on in your company at any given moment. Having real-time data available on a dashboard is a massive improvement over running reports that give you a stale snapshot of your data at infrequent intervals.

2. Do I Need to Be Proficient in SQL to Create a Real-Time SQL Dashboard?

SQL is helpful to understand but it's not strictly necessary to build a data dashboard. There are lots of no-code tools that let you visually create SQL queries, but if you're not proficient in SQL, that is a factor you need to consider when choosing a dashboarding solution.

3. Why Use Commercial Instead of Open Source Tools for Building Dashboards?

It's not a secret that open-source software solutions satisfy most data visualization needs. However, they lack dedicated support. You might run into implementation headwinds and suffer from performance issues. Commercial tools come with enterprise support to help you build dashboards that serve the right data to the right people at the right time.

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