dbt Semantic Layer integration
Governed, explorable metrics
Make your most important company metrics automatically available to business teams for confident data exploration and self-serve reporting. 100% accuracy, 100% of the time, with no code required.
Mode means the right answer, every time
Explore using only the configurations in dbt.
Trust an architectural approach that prevents aggregating aggregates & other common mistakes.
Avoid multiple round trips to the database when possible.
Extend analysis using the same trusted metrics in SQL.
without ever leaving dbt
How it works
Our architectural approach to the integration leverages the dbt Proxy server and Helix, our own in-memory data engine in situationally-dependent ways. For changes that require getting new data or re-running a metric, Mode relies only on the logic built in dbt, using Helix simply as a proxy. This means we don’t perform any additional manipulation of the data within Mode, preventing common mistakes like aggregating aggregates, or summing distinct values.
For changes that don’t require new data, such as changing a
chart from a bar to a line, we do rely on Helix. This prevents unnecessary hits to the data warehouse, and provides access
to Mode’s powerful visualization system.
The result? The guardrails of dbt and the power of Mode’s visualizations for trusted analysis for everyone, every time.
Creating and maintaining accurate metric definitions is challenging because our business logic lives in so many places, from queries to one-off docs. Now, we can define those metrics in one place, in the dbt Semantic Layer, and have that data easily and consistently accessible to our business teams in Mode.
