We’re continuing to deepen our dbt integration to make Omni the best place to work with dbt.
Now, with Omni’s dbt IDE, developers can create and edit models right from Omni. This allows them to:
Iterate on dbt models faster
Spend less time switching between tools
Develop dbt models with more context from the BI layer, “touching & feeling” the data as they go
This further tightens the development workflow between Omni and dbt, making it even easier for analytics engineers and analysts to push definitions out of the BI layer and into the warehouse.
In this blog, I’ll walk you through the process of creating & editing dbt models with the dbt IDE, and how it pairs with the rest of Omni’s dbt integration to make your dbt & BI workflow seamless.
Creating & editing dbt models with Omni’s dbt IDE #
As I explain in the demo above, the dbt IDE unlocks two key workflows:
Browse models & metadata: From the dbt IDE, you can view your dbt models and metadata alongside your Omni model. For example: If you’re analyzing data in Omni and curious how a certain field from dbt is defined, you can view the model in Omni without needing to switch over to dbt.
Create & edit dbt models: Open a dbt model from the IDE or create a new one. Run SQL just as you would in dbt with jinja and ref() support, and push your code to dbt while opening a pull request or branch in Github. For example: Let’s say you’re analyzing data in Omni and notice a field definition from dbt is incorrect. From Omni, you can edit the model, run the SQL to validate changes, and push the change back down to dbt.
More on Omni’s dbt integration #
Model development is only one part of Omni’s robust dbt integration. I recently covered the rest of our integration in another blog post; here’s a recap:
Dynamic dbt environments let you switch between your dev and prod dbt environments. This enables you to preview how development changes impact your analyses and visualizations before release.
Change management tools like schema refreshes and the content validator help you apply dbt changes in Omni quickly and easily, without breaking content.
Two-way integration features like metadata syncing and git controls make it easy to keep dbt and Omni in lockstep.
Altogether, you can leverage Omni’s dbt integration to manage your dbt development cycle from end-to-end:
Integrating the dbt & BI development workflow #
dbt model development and analysis/visualization in the BI layer are intrinsically connected, but for most analysts and data engineers, these processes are quite isolated.
Omni integrates analysis, visualization, and model development, saving time, cutting context-switching, and streamlining data engineering workflows. And we’re always building more – follow along by watching our Friday engineering demos.
If you’re interested in trying out Omni’s dbt model development workflow for yourself, we’d love to show you.