Performance
Holistics report performance is bound by the slowest of these stages:
- Pre-query processing — parsing, permission checks, query plan
- Job queuing — waiting for an available worker
- Query execution — running on your data warehouse
- Result transfer — moving the result set from your data warehouse to Holistics
- Post-query processing — caching and result assembly
- Browser render — drawing the visualization
For the full breakdown, see Report Running Mechanism.
Common levers
A few high-leverage ways to make things faster, before going deep into diagnosis.
Optimize the underlying datasets and models
Optimizing datasets and models will help optimize the report's SQL execution — usually the biggest bottleneck. See Dataset Performance Tips.
Reduce the number of data points on a report
Fewer data points means:
- Faster transfer from your data warehouse to Holistics
- Faster transfer from Holistics to the browser
- Faster visualization rendering
Ways to reduce data points:
- Apply filters
- Apply limits (configure default limit in Admin Settings → Visualization → Default Records Limit)
- Limit series on a chart: in Visualization Settings, Styles → Group small values into "Other". See Line chart example.
Reduce the number of widgets in a dashboard
Each widget on a dashboard spawns its own report job. If the widgets exceed your job queue capacity, some will block until others finish.
Aim for 10–15 widgets per dashboard. Use Drill-Through for additional detail without piling on widgets.
Use caching wisely
Set cache duration per the freshness/cost trade-off your dashboards need. Use Model Persistence for slow queries that don't change often.
Pre-aggregate with Aggregate Awareness
For frequently-queried slices over large fact tables, Aggregate Awareness lets Holistics route queries to pre-aggregated tables transparently.
Enable Holistics Canal
Canal Engine speeds up result transfer between your data warehouse and Holistics. Most useful when results are large or your warehouse is far from a Holistics region.
Optimize your data warehouse
Holistics runs your queries on your warehouse — so the warehouse's processing power and configuration set the ceiling. See Diagnose data warehouse issues for warehouse-side investigation.
Diagnosing problems
- Symptom-based diagnosis: Performance Troubleshooting walks through what each report-loading status means and how to fix it.
- Slow jobs you can't pin down: Report Slow-Running Jobs — how to file an actionable support request.
If none of this matches what you're seeing, contact [email protected] with the URL, the slow status, and a screenshot/recording.