Working with Dashboards and Visualizations

What this chapter covers

Working with Dashboards and Visualizations in Databricks is 16% of the Databricks Data Analyst Associate exam, the second largest chapter after query execution. It covers how an analyst turns query results into charts and dashboards and gets them to the right audience.

The chapter has two parts: building AI/BI Dashboards and visualizations (pages, datasets, widgets, parameters and choosing a chart type), and delivering them (sharing and publishing, embedding, scheduled refresh and subscriptions, and SQL alerts with thresholds and destinations).

Questions are mostly short scenarios in which the stated requirement (freshness, cost, who may see what, audience) decides the answer. They are single-answer multiple choice, and short SQL is shown as text. There are no exhibits.

How the topics fit together

A dashboard is built from datasets on the Data tab and widgets on the canvas. Once published, the audience decides how it is delivered: workspace users get a shared link, external apps get an embed, and busy readers get a scheduled snapshot. Alerts watch a single query value instead of a whole dashboard.

• Build questions ask about pages, datasets, widget types and parameters.
• Chart questions ask which visualization communicates a given insight.
• Sharing questions ask about permission levels, publish options and embedding.
• Delivery questions ask about schedules, subscribers and alert conditions.

How to use these pages

Each topic page has the same shape, so you can skim for what you need.

• What it is: the idea in plain words.
• How it works: the mechanism, with tables and examples.
• What to remember for the exam: the facts to memorize and how questions are phrased.
• Common mistakes: the classic traps.
• Check yourself: three questions to test your understanding.