From 1ef51a3f89a53a0b16b7c092d6fda99dc1bee7ca Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Tatiana Inama Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2026 16:31:42 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] docs: reorganize Spotlight documentation into Overview, Catalog, and Canvas sections --- docs.json | 10 +- guides/metrics-catalog.mdx | 953 +----------------- guides/metrics-catalog/canvas.mdx | 175 ++++ guides/metrics-catalog/catalog.mdx | 923 +++++++++++++++++ .../canvas-saved-trees-dark.png | Bin 0 -> 1395438 bytes .../metrics-catalog/canvas-saved-trees.png | Bin 0 -> 1470749 bytes 6 files changed, 1120 insertions(+), 941 deletions(-) create mode 100644 guides/metrics-catalog/canvas.mdx create mode 100644 guides/metrics-catalog/catalog.mdx create mode 100644 images/guides/metrics-catalog/canvas-saved-trees-dark.png create mode 100644 images/guides/metrics-catalog/canvas-saved-trees.png diff --git a/docs.json b/docs.json index eff49d1a..799ade12 100644 --- a/docs.json +++ b/docs.json @@ -51,7 +51,15 @@ "group": "BI feature guides", "icon": "person-chalkboard", "pages": [ - "guides/metrics-catalog", + { + "group": "Spotlight", + "icon": "stars", + "pages": [ + "guides/metrics-catalog", + "guides/metrics-catalog/catalog", + "guides/metrics-catalog/canvas" + ] + }, { "group": "Chart types", "pages": [ diff --git a/guides/metrics-catalog.mdx b/guides/metrics-catalog.mdx index 291dacd0..d92f7f51 100644 --- a/guides/metrics-catalog.mdx +++ b/guides/metrics-catalog.mdx @@ -1,5 +1,6 @@ --- title: "Spotlight" +sidebarTitle: "Overview" description: Spotlight is a suite of features designed to put Metrics front and center. It simplifies data exploration, making it easy for business users to focus on metrics without dealing with complex tables or time dimensions. --- @@ -11,947 +12,19 @@ description: Spotlight is a suite of features designed to put Metrics front and ## Getting Started -Lightdash users don't need to do anything to get started! Spotlight features use your existing [Lightdash semantic layer](/guides/lightdash-semantic-layer) and metrics definitions, so you can get started today. +Spotlight features use your existing [Lightdash semantic layer](/guides/lightdash-semantic-layer) and metrics definitions, so you can get started today. Head to **Metrics** in the navigation bar to start exploring. -Head to the Metrics Catalog under the Browse menu in the navigation bar. +Spotlight is organized into two main views: -## Browsing the catalog +- **Catalog** — A searchable, filterable table of all your project metrics. Browse metrics by category, owner, or popularity, explore any metric over time in the Metrics Explorer, and curate what your business users see through `.yml` configuration. -Browse all the project metrics you have access to (based on permissions and user-attributes) in the **Metrics Catalog**. +- **Canvas** — A freeform workspace where you can drag metrics onto a canvas and draw connections between them to visualize metric trees, hierarchies, and dependencies. - - ![](/images/guides/metrics-catalog/browsing-the-catalog-a9520c871903cedd96eb7923a1b3ae4e.webp) - - -1. **Search**: Easily find metrics by their names or .yml descriptions using the searchbar. - -2. **View .yml descriptions**: Click on any description to expand and view the full content, including rendered Markdown. - -3. **Categories**: Use categories to streamline your metrics and KPIs. Filter metrics by category and add new ones directly in the UI. ***Users with editor permissions and above*** can click on any category cell to edit, rename, change its color, or delete it. - -4. **View popularity**: Discover a metric’s popularity and see where it’s being used. Click to explore a complete list of charts which use the metric. Metrics are sorted by default to highlight the most used ones first. - -5. **Explore**: ***Interactive viewers and above*** can dive deeper by clicking *Explore* to visualize the metric in a chart format. - -## Exploring a metric - -Visualize your metrics in the **Metrics Explorer**. - - - ![](/images/guides/metrics-catalog/exploring-a-metric.png) - - -1. **Plot over time**: View your selected metric plotted over a time dimension as a line chart. You can adjust this dimension or set a default time dimension in your `.yml` to simplify the process for users. [See how](#configuring-default-time-settings-in-yml) - -2. **Filter by date**: Use the date picker with convenient presets for quick selection. [See how default presets work based on the granularity](#faq) - -3. **Adjust the time granularity**: Refine your view by choosing the desired level of date granularity. - -4. **Filter by a dimension:** Filter your metric by any string or boolean dimension from the same table. - -5. **Segment-by**: Break down the metric by any non-time dimension in your dataset. - -6. **Compare to:** - - * **'This time last year'**: Compare the selected time period to the same period last year - - * **'Another metric':** Compare to any other metric in the project **that has a default time dimension specified in the `.yml`**. This includes joins [See how](#configuring-default-time-settings-in-yml) - -7. **Drag to zoom:** Click and drag across the chart to highlight the desired time range or data points, then release to zoom in on that segment. Hit ‘Reset Zoom’ to reset chart. - -## Curating Spotlight for your business users - -Spotlight is designed to be a tool for your business users to explore and understand your data. - -To make Spotlight more useful for your business users, you can curate the metrics they can see and explore. - -To do this, you can: - -* Control the visibility of metrics in the catalog - -* Add categories to your metrics - -* Add default time settings to your metrics - -All through your Lightdash `.yml` files. - -### Configuring global visibility of metrics - -You can control the visibility of metrics in the catalog by creating a new file called `lightdash.config.yml` in the root of your dbt project. - - - If you're new to lightdash.config.yml, check out our [getting started guide](/references/lightdash-config-yml#getting-started-with-lightdashconfigyml) to learn how to create and set up this file. - - -See this video for an example on how to set this up: - -
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