Data Explorer

Data Explorer is your window into the metrics that matter. Analyze trends over time, drill into individual data points, and uncover the patterns shaping your development process. Whether you’re diagnosing a slowdown or looking for opportunities to improve, Data Explorer gives you the visibility to act with confidence. Found a view you’ll want to revisit? Save it as a module and skip the work of reapplying filters and display settings every time. Report modules make it effortless to keep an eye on the metrics you care about—like cycle time for a specific team or time period—and they double as building blocks for custom dashboards, so the insights you’ve curated can power views across your organization.

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Using Data Explorer

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Step 1: Selecting a metric to view

Users with the View Dev Metrics permission can select a metric to view. The Data Explorer provides three view options, allowing you to choose the format that best fits your analysis:

• Chart - A standard line chart designed for visualizing a single metric over time. Use this view when you want to track trends or fluctuations in one specific measurement.
• Table - A tabular layout that displays multiple metrics at once, including Scorecard scores, making it ideal for side-by-side comparisons and detailed analysis. The tabular view also supports a hierarchical, nested structure similar to the Bird’s Eye report for drilling into grouped data.
• KPI - A compact widget that shows a single metric with its current value, a trend comparison (directional arrow, percentage/absolute change), and an optional mini chart. This gives engineering leaders an at-a-glance, standardized way to highlight a key metric.

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Configuring chart view

1. From the main sidebar, expand Eng Intelligence, then select Data Explorer.
2. In the right pane, select Chart.
   
3. By default, the cycle time metric is displayed. To select a different metric, click the tab below Data in the right pane. The Metrics window opens.
   
4. Select a metric to view.
   • Cortex organizes metrics into six categories: Custom, Deployment, Incident, Project management, Version control, and AI tools, each with its own set of available metrics. Refer to Available metrics in Data Explorer for definitions.
5. Click View metric. The chart updates, reflecting the new metric.
   • By default, the data uses a time range of the last 30 days, but you can select a different time range. Metrics can be grouped by team, owner, repository, entity, and more.
6. Optionally, toggle off Show table in the right pane to hide the metric overview below the graph.

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Configuring table view

1. From the main sidebar, expand Eng Intelligence, then select Data Explorer.
2. In the right pane, select Table.
   
3. In the right pane, click Add column. The Metrics window opens.
4. Select a metric to view.
   • Cortex organizes metrics into six categories: Custom, Deployment, Incident, Project management, Version control, and AI tools, each with its own set of available metrics. Refer to Available metrics in Data Explorer for definitions.
   • Table view also supports three entity data categories: Custom data, Entity definition, and Entity metadata. Use these to bring entity attributes into the table alongside your metrics. Refer to Entity data in table view for definitions.
   • Table view also supports Scorecards as a metric. Select a Scorecard, then choose Score % or Level to add the result as a column alongside your metrics. Refer to Scorecards in table view for definitions.
5. Click View metric. The table updates, reflecting the new metric.
   • By default, the data uses a time range of the last 30 days, but you can select a different time range. Metrics can be grouped by team, owner, repository, entity, and more.
6. To remove a metric from the tabular view, click the overflow menu icon next to the metric’s name, then select Delete column.
   

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Configuring KPI view

1. From the main sidebar, expand Eng Intelligence, then select Data Explorer.
2. In the right pane, select KPI.
   
3. By default, the cycle time metric is displayed. To select a different metric, click the tab below Metric in the right pane. The Metrics window opens.
4. Select a metric to view.
   • Cortex organizes metrics into six categories: Custom, Deployment, Incident, Project management, Version control, and AI tools, each with its own set of available metrics. Refer to Available metrics in Data Explorer for definitions.
5. Click View metric. The chart updates, reflecting the new metric.
   • By default, the data uses a time range of the last 30 days, but you can select a different time range.
6. Optionally, toggle off the following card options:
   1. Show module header - Hides the card’s header for a cleaner, more minimal look
   2. Show chart preview - Hides the mini chart when you only want the metric value and trend
   3. Show trend - Hides the trend indicator (arrow and percentage change). If toggled on, use the Comparison format drop-down menu to display the trend in percentage or absolute terms.

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Step 2: Filtering and grouping metrics

Users with the View Dev Metrics permission can filter and group metrics. You can filter and group metrics by individual, entity, PR, or owner, and you can filter the chart/table by time range, teams, author, and repository. You can also sort the columns.

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Filtering metrics

To filter by metrics such as entity, team, repo, or user, click Filter in the upper-right corner of the graph. If using the KPI view, Filter appears in the card’s header. Configure a single filter or a combination of filters. When you are done adding filters, click Apply at the bottom of the filter window. When filtering by teams or domains, Include child teams / Include child domains is toggled on by default, so the full team hierarchy rolls up:

• Entity Owner (Team) includes entities owned by the selected team and any of its nested sub-teams.
• Team includes contributors who belong to the selected team or any of its nested sub-teams.

Toggle this off to limit to direct ownership or membership only. See the full list of filters and their definitions.

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Filtering by time range

To filter by time period, click the time range filter in the upper-right corner of the graph. By default, Last 30 days is displayed. If using the KPI view, time range appears in the card’s header. Select a new time range and configure the dates. Optionally, toggle on Exclude weekends to remove Saturday and Sunday from aggregations and visualizations. Because activity typically dips on weekends, excluding them eliminates recurring noise and makes trends easier to spot. The graph automatically reloads. To change the grouping of the time range in the graph, click Display in the upper-right corner of the graph: You can choose whether to display the data grouped by day, week, or month.

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Filtering by time attribute

A pull request has several dates attached to it: when it was opened, when its first commit landed, when it was merged, and so on. The time attribute filter tells Data Explorer which of these dates to use when placing each PR on the timeline. Changing it doesn’t change the metric you’re measuring; it changes which time bucket each PR falls into, and therefore which PRs appear inside your selected time range. For version control and PR-related metrics, click the time attribute filter in the upper-right corner of the graph. If using the KPI view, the time attribute filter appears in the card’s header. Example Say a PR was opened on May 28 and merged on June 3, and you’re viewing a chart with a time range set for the last 30 days.

• With the time attribute set to Open date, the PR counts toward May.
• With it set to Close/merge date, the same PR counts toward June.

If the time range was “June only,” that PR would appear when filtering by close/merge date but disappear when filtering by open date, even though nothing about the PR changed. When a PR seems to be missing from (or unexpectedly present in) a report, the time attribute is usually why. Available time attributes

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Grouping metrics (chart and table views)

To group your metrics differently, click the Group by drop-down in the right pane and select an option: When you select a grouping with an inherent hierarchy, such as Team, Entity owner, or Domain, a Show hierarchy toggle appears. Enable it to see metrics aggregated by hierarchy level and drill down into nested groups, similar to the hierarchy views in the Bird’s Eye and All Scorecards reports. The Group by drop-down also includes a Relationships section, listing the custom entity relationship types defined in your catalog. Select a relationship type to roll metrics up through that relationship. See the full list of grouping options.

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Sorting the columns (chart and table views)

To sort data within the graph, click in the Sort rows field in the right pane. Select an option to sort by. Note that options differ depending on the metric you’re viewing.

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Step 3: Saving the view

Users with the Edit Eng Intel Dashboards permission can save a view as a report. After setting up a view with your preferred metric, filters, and time range, you can save it as a report in Cortex. Note that Cortex refers to these saved reports as modules.

1. While viewing a graph, click Save As in the upper-right corner of the page. The Save module side panel opens.
2. Below Module name, enter a name for the report (required).
3. Below Description, enter a description of the report.
4. Below Display icon, select an icon for the report.
5. Click Save module. The report is saved as a module and can be found via Eng Intelligence > Modules. From here you can:
   • Add it to a custom dashboard
   • Reopen it at any time without reconfiguring filters
   • Rename, update metric/filter settings, and re-save as needed
     • Locate the report, then click the overflow icon. Select Edit to reconfigure the graph or Rename to change the name of the report.
   • Create a duplicate of the report
     • Locate the report, then click the overflow icon. Select Duplicate.
   • Share a link with team members
     • Locate the report, then click the overflow icon. Select Share. The URL is copied to your clipboard. The URL query parameters include timestamps, so the shared Data Explorer page reflects the same results across different timezones.
   • Delete when no longer needed
     • Locate the report, then click the overflow icon. Select Delete.

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Step 4: Exporting to CSV

Users with the View Dev Metrics permission can export data. Chart and table views can be exported as a CSV file. Cortex runs the export on its own servers instead of in your browser, so the file contains every row in the view, not just the rows currently loaded on the page.

1. From the main sidebar, expand Eng Intelligence, then select Data Explorer.
2. Configure the view you want to export, including the metric, filters, and time range.
3. In the upper-right corner of the page, click Export CSV. A toast appears in the lower-right corner of the screen showing the status of the export.
4. Do one of the following:
   • Wait for the export to finish. When the toast shows a green check mark and Check your downloads, the file is available in your browser’s downloads.
   • Click Email me in the toast. Cortex sends you the file when it’s ready, so you can navigate away or close the page without losing the export. This is useful for large exports, which can take a while to build.

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Understanding aggregation types

When you view a metric in Data Explorer, you can choose how the individual data points (e.g. each PR’s Time to Merge) are aggregated into a single headline number. The aggregation you choose changes the story the number tells, but it does not change which metric or which underlying dates are being measured.