Supporting dbt metrics layer

Feature Suggestions
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We use dbt extensively and are constantly looking for ways to leverage it as our central place to define data used for analysis.

dbt announced and are working on a metrics layer implementation where the analysts can define core metrics right within the dbt models.

Now that Holistics has its dbt integration up and running it would be great to make more use of this. So, if a user wants to create a new model from a dbt table in their warehouse it would be great if Holistics could reference the dbt metadata, and if any metrics have been defined for that table, they are “automatically” created. In my mind, I see a dialogue box pop-up asking if the following dbt defined metrics should also be included in the definition, so that it is optional. Also, when creating a new measure, someone could select from possibly new metrics that have been defined.

This would help bring together more of the centralised definitions and metrics that we have in dbt and really leverage this, with Holistics focussing on the joining of tables and visualisations.

There are other visualisation tools out there that are already doing this, such as Lightdash and Sisu

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Hi @DataGeekDude,

Thank you for your suggestion.
When dbt first introduces their metrics layer, we have been thinking of how to integrate it with Holistics modeling layer (because we have something called dbt integration).

The last time I checked, dbt metrics don’t currently have much meaning in terms of transformation value since it only plays a role as metadata so integrating with it could be a huge change to our current modeling behavior. However, since this could be an opportunity for us to improve our dbt integration, we would definitely think of how to seize this opportunity with dbt metrics.

Thanks

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+1 for this feature. Especially since it is now fully baked as Metricflow. See docs here

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