There are two ways to query data in Atlan:
- writing your own SQL
- using the Visual Query Builder
💪 Did you know? Atlan pushes all queries to the source (no data is stored in Atlan). In addition, Atlan applies access policies to the results before displaying them.
Write your own SQL
🤓 Who can do this? Anyone with the knowledge to write SQL. Any Atlan user with data access to the asset can query data.
To query an asset with your own SQL:
- From the left menu of any screen, click Insights.
- Under the Explorer tab, find the asset you want to query:
- Use the Select database dropdown to choose another database, if necessary.
- Search for the asset by name in the search bar, or browse for it in the tree structure.
- Hover over the table or view, and click the play icon. This writes and runs a basic preview query.
- (Optional) Click the open asset sidebar icon to view more details in the asset sidebar.
- (Optional) Click the eye icon to view a preview of the query results.
- (Optional) Click the 3-dot icon for more options:
- Click Set editor context to set the same connection, database, and schema name in the query editor as selected in the Explorer tab.
- Click Place name in editor to view the asset name in the query editor.
- Click Copy path to copy the full path of the asset, including database and schema names.
- Under the Untitled tab on the right, change the sample query or write your own — separate multiple queries with a semicolon
;. Click the Run button in the upper right to test your query as you write it.- (Optional) Click the downward arrow next to the Run button to export query results via email or schedule the query.
- (Optional) If you have multiple tabs open in the query editor, right-click a tab to open the tabs menu. You can close a specific tab or all tabs, or duplicate the query.
- (Optional) From the top right of the query editor, click the 3-dot icon for additional query editor actions or to customize it further:
- Click or hover over Duplicate query to create a duplicate version of your query.
- Click or hover over Open command palette to view the actions you can run inside the query editor.
- Click or hover over Themes and then select your preferred theme for the query editor.
- Click or hover over Tab spacing to change the tab spacing for your queries.
- Click or hover over Font size to change the font size for your queries.
- Click or hover over Cursor to change the cursor position in the query editor.
- Click or hover over Autosuggestions to turn off autosuggestions for assets in the query editor.
The editor supports all read-based SQL statements, including JOIN. The editor will not run any write-based statements. The following SQL statements are not supported:
UPDATEDELETECREATEALTERDROPTRUNCATEINSERT INTO
💪 Did you know? You can select the context for your query to the left of the Run button. Then you won't need to fully qualify table names with schema and database names.
Use the Visual Query Builder
🤓 Who can do this? Any Atlan user with data access to the asset. No SQL knowledge required!
To query an asset using the Visual Query Builder:
- From the left menu of any screen, click Insights.
- At the top of the screen, to the right of the Untitled tab, click the + button and select New visual query.
- Under Select from choose the table or view you want to query.
- (Optional) In the column selector to the right, select the column you want to query.
- Then develop your query:
- Click the Run button to run the query and preview its results.
- Click the blue circular + button to add an action to the query.
- Repeat these steps until your query is complete.
- (Optional) If there are any errors in your query, click Auto fix for Atlan to recommend a fix.
- (Optional) In the query results set, click Copy to copy the query results or click Download to export them.
💪 Did you know? You can learn more about the query builder actions in this example.