Hi Alvin users and fans,

We hope you had a fantastic May! Now that the dust has settled, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on the exciting updates and enhancements we brought to Alvin during May.

New Features & Improvements

Auto-Assignment of Workloads

Previously, we would have workloads assigned to a dbt model, query fingerprint or dashboard, but the workloads would not be “discrete”, so one query fingerprint would also be present in a dbt model, it would not be tied to one category. Based on the work done to detect workloads, the entire product section has now been refactored to assign workloads based on the most contextual identification. I.e a query will always be associated with it’s dbt model or Looker dashboard and only in the cases where it cannot be assigned to any actual system it will be labeled as a query fingerprint. This will make alerting/monitoring better and avoid duplicate/overlapping alerts. What would happen prior to this improvement would be that a dbt model would trigger both a dbt model + query fingerprint alert which was annoying and not very useful. This change ensures clarity, consistency, context

Navigate Lineage like a Pro

We realized the lineage experience should not be about too much clicking, but rather about questions and answers. While we’re not fully there yet, we have made some very convenient additions. 

By choosing “all sources” you can know see all the origin tables of a given table (or column). This is useful to understand i.e what operational sources are used to feed a given table or dashboard further downstream

And voila, here it is!

You can also click on of the specific source tables and hit “expand compressed lineage”, to see just the full transformation path to the target table you started with. Pretty nice!

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Behind the Scenes: Tackling Bugs & Refining the Experience

We've also dedicated time to squashing pesky bugs and fine-tuning Alvin to ensure a smoother, more enjoyable experience for everyone. Some key accomplishments include:

  • Search Bar flickering fix: Previously we were having issues with the search bar flickering a bit when summoned very quickly after the UI loaded for the first time. We don’t want to bore you with the details, but it’s fixed now!

On the Horizon: What's Next for Alvin

We're always looking forward, and here's a sneak peek at what we're working on for the coming months:

  • Workload insights: Based on the work on SQL Lens, we will attribute all queries with insights about potential issues that could cause performance or quality problems with a query down the line.

Your Feedback Matters to Us!

We're committed to continuously improving Alvin, and your feedback is essential to our progress. We'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions on the recent updates, or any other ideas you have. Just let us know by replying to this email or reach out on LinkedIn or Slack.

Thank you for being a part of our journey!

The Alvin Team

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