Metabase 58: Improved Documents - now for all, plus lots of Embedded Analytics upgrades
Source: Dev.to
Improved Documents, now available on all plans
Yep, even in Open Source! Documents was released in v57 as a Pro/Enterprise feature. We’ve since decided to make it available for everyone as an additional way to share and collaborate on data in Metabase.
In case you missed Documents in the previous release, they’re reports that combine charts and metrics with text using Markdown or a rich‑text editor. You can collaborate through comments with mentions and emoji reactions. Think of them as a Metabase‑style Notion doc or Jupyter notebook.
- Add supporting text blocks with rich‑text formatting next to cards to caption what’s going on in your charts.
- Documents now appear in Dependency checks (note that Dependency checks are only available on Pro and Enterprise plans).
Tenants make setting up multi‑tenant customer‑facing analytics way simpler
One of the biggest concerns when embedding analytics is ensuring that your customers—or tenants—can’t access each other’s data. Tenants let you group external users by organization and keep each tenant isolated.
- What previously could be a multi‑week project can now be done in a few clicks.
- Use tenants to curate and expose collections with dashboards, charts, and other content to all customers or specific subsets, without duplicating content.
- Define different permission groups within a tenant (e.g., data teams, premium users) while ensuring each tenant only sees the data relevant to them.
💡 Embedded Analytics JS is now Modular Embedding
A brief interruption to give context to the following updates:
- Embedded Analytics JS → Modular Embedding – the “JS” part of the former name sometimes suggested a heavy‑dev approach. It’s now the default starting point for embedded analytics in Metabase.
- Embedded Analytics SDK → Modular Embedding SDK
- Interactive Embedding (all of Metabase in an iframe) → Full‑app Embedding
Read the blog post for more context on what changed and why
Guest Embeds for simple view‑only charts and dashboards
Guest Embeds are the new and improved successor to Static Embedding. On Pro and Enterprise plans, Guest Embeds get more comprehensive theming.
- Smoother migration from simple embedded dashboards/charts to more sophisticated, SSO‑based customer‑facing analytics.
- If you’re currently using Static Embedding, nothing changes for now—your existing configuration continues to work.
Watch Matthew set up your first Guest Embed
Metabot AI is now out of beta and available as an add‑on for all Metabase Cloud plans
Let teammates query data in plain language, e.g., “What was the average order value last month?” Metabot will:
- Generate and debug SQL.
- Provide automatic written summaries of charts.
Tip: Ask Metabot what it can do and it’ll tell you everything.
Metabot is now better at writing SQL from natural‑language prompts and generates more accurate answers—especially when you @‑mention the data source. A cleaner interface for AI exploration has also been added. These improvements have been available since v57.
AWS IAM Authentication for Aurora Postgres and MySQL drivers
You can now connect Metabase to Aurora Postgres and Aurora MySQL databases using AWS IAM authentication instead of traditional username/password credentials. This simplifies configuration, enhances security, and eliminates hard‑coded credentials.
Available on Pro and Enterprise self‑hosted.
Pricing details →
Dashboard subscriptions are now available with Modular Embedding
- You can subscribe and unsubscribe yourself (but not others).
- Emails from subscriptions created in embedding contexts will no longer include links to Metabase.
Available on Pro and Enterprise.
Pricing details →
Performance improvements to Modular Embedding and the SDK
Under‑the‑hood changes speed up load times for SDK and Modular Embedding components, shaving roughly one second off render time.
Allow setting a custom Y‑axis range, even if points fall outside it
Crop outliers for a clearer view of your data. When you set a custom Y‑axis range, Metabase now respects that range even if some data points lie outside it, letting you focus on the most relevant portion of your chart.
— Metabase Team
Set a manual Y‑axis range
Metabase now renders exactly the range you specify.
Note: This change affects existing charts. You may see less or no data on charts that previously were showing data. If a chart looks clipped or empty after upgrading to v58, edit the visualization settings to adjust or remove the custom Y‑axis range.
Metabase Cloud hosting arrives down under
Crikey! Our Aussie and Kiwi mates can now choose cloud hosting in Sydney to keep Metabase close to home.
Australia has been added to our available hosting regions, alongside existing options in:
- US‑East (Virginia)
- Europe (Frankfurt)
- South America (São Paulo)
- Asia‑Pacific (Singapore)
Who moved my cheese: UI changes
- New embedding analytics names – see the blog post for all changes and why.
- Simplified data picker – find your starting data with inline search. You can still access the full modal by clicking “Browse all.” (Note: the new data picker doesn’t apply in embedded contexts.)
- SQL Snippets “Top folder” renamed to “SQL Snippets.”
- Remote sync modes renamed from “Development” and “Production” to “Read/write” and “Read‑only.”
Breaking changes
Custom Y‑axis limits are now enforced
Metabase always respects custom Y‑axis ranges, even if data points fall outside them. Charts that previously ignored these limits may now appear clipped or empty. Edit the chart’s visualization settings to adjust or remove the Y‑axis range if needed.
@‑prefixed JWT claims are no longer supported
JWT claims that start with @ are now ignored and won’t be saved as user attributes. This change supports the new Tenants feature, which reserves @‑prefixed claims (e.g., @tenants). If you use JWT auth and have custom claims beginning with @, please rename them.
Big thanks to everyone who contributed!
Thanks to all who submitted bug reports, feature suggestions, translations, and pull requests. Metabase gets better and better thanks to your efforts.
Hope you enjoy the release! If you want to get into the nitty‑gritty, check out our changelog. To see what other features we have in the works, see our product roadmap.
Cheers,
The Metabase team