Explore Cards: see column values and filter the grid

Open the Explore panel

The Explore panel sits above the data grid. The Explore toggle in the action bar shows or hides it. When explore filters are on, a filter badge with a count appears beside the toggle, and each filtered card shows its filter as a pill in its header.

A View with no cards shows No cards yet and the hint "See what's in any column, then click values to filter the grid." Mammoth may offer a few Suggested columns to start from.

Each card queries the View, so it describes the View's data after its pipeline.

Add, move and remove Explore Cards

Mammoth remembers the cards you add for the View.

1. Click Add card on the left of the panel. The Explore a column list opens.
2. Find a column with Search columns.
3. Select it. A card for that column appears.

You can also add several columns at once from the Column Browser with Open in Explore Columns. See Browse columns.

To arrange the cards:

• Drag a card by its header to reorder it.
• Drag a card's edge to change its width.
• Close a card with Close card.
• Resize the panel by dragging its edge, or choose a panel height (small, medium or large).

The Add card menu also adds three other kinds of card:

How to use each one: Ask, Search and Compare cards.

Card types for text, number and date columns

Each column card matches its column's data type. Switch views with the chart type dropdown in the card header.

Every control on each card is on Text, number and date cards.

Spot data quality problems with Explore Cards

• Blank values appear as a (blank) row on text cards, so gaps are visible at once.
• Outliers stand out at the ends of number bar charts.
• Missing time periods show as gaps in date charts.

After you load new data, scan the cards for your key columns as a quick quality check. For a scored check, use the Data quality report.

Select values with a click, filter with a double-click

A single click selects a value without filtering. A double-click filters at once.

Select values first, then filter or exclude

When you click a value:

1. The value is marked as selected (a checkbox in list views, a highlighted bar in chart views).
2. A selection bar shows how many values and rows are selected, with Filter, Exclude and Clear selection buttons.
3. The grid does not change yet.

To select more than one value:

• Click more values. A plain click toggles a value on or off.
• Shift-click to select a run of values from the last one you clicked.
• Drag across bars in a chart view to select a range.
• In list views, use Select all or Invert.

Then choose:

• Filter (or press Enter): show only rows with the selected values.
• Exclude: hide rows with the selected values.
• Clear selection (the × button, or press Esc): deselect everything.

Selecting first is useful when you want to check the row count in the selection bar before filtering, or open Bulk Replace on suspicious values without filtering.

Double-click to filter at once

When you double-click a value:

1. The filter is applied with no confirmation.
2. The card shows a Filtered chip (or Excluding, if you used Exclude), and the badge beside the Explore toggle updates.
3. The grid shows only the matching rows.
4. The cards to the right recalculate on the filtered rows.

In chart views, double-clicking a bar also drills into it. A Drill path appears so you can step back to All.

Worked example: find the cause of a defect spike

Each filter narrows the rows the next cards describe. This is called progressive discovery.

1. Double-click "Fabrication Line Beta" on the line_name card. The grid drops from 2,847 rows to 892.
2. Read the cards to the right. The shift card now shows Day 60%, Evening 25%, Night 15%. The defect_severity card shows Critical 35%, which is unusually high. The date card shows a spike in the weeks of March 15–22.
3. Double-click "Critical" on defect_severity. The operator_name card now shows 3 operators behind 80% of critical defects.

Other patterns that work the same way:

• Category, then numbers: double-click "Enterprise" in customer_tier; the revenue card to its right shows the Enterprise revenue spread.
• Time, then category: double-click "Q4 2024" on a date card; the product_category card shows Q4 performance.
• Outliers: double-click the highest bar on an amount card; the customer_name and region cards show who and where.
• Several filters: "West" (3,200 rows), then "Electronics" (1,850), then "Q4 2024" (420).

Common investigations with Explore Cards

• Inconsistent values: spot variants such as "Apple Inc.", "Apple Inc" and "Apple Incorporated" on a text card, click them, then use Replace all values like this (Bulk Replace) to standardize.
• Outliers: double-click an extreme bar (for example prices at $999,999), check the other cards for date, category and source, then decide whether to exclude the rows with a Conditional Filter.
• Time patterns: double-click a spike on a date card and read the cards to its right for the cause; save the period as its own View if you need it again.
• Segments: filter by a main attribute, refine with more filters, then save the segment as a View or a task.

Shortcuts in the card's More options menu

The card's More options (⋮) menu offers shortcuts. With values selected, and when you can edit the View, it opens the matching function in the Functions panel with your selection filled in, so you can review it before applying.

For all column cards, the menu also has:

• Add to dashboard…, when you can create or edit dashboards in the project. See Add an Explore Card to a dashboard.
• Copy values to clipboard: copies the selected values with their counts, or every value if none is selected, as tab-separated text. Ctrl+C does the same when values are selected.
• Export list as CSV.
• Export Image as PNG (chart views only).

Manage and clear explore filters

The filter badge beside the Explore toggle shows how many explore filters are on, including Search, Ask and Compare cards. It shows whether or not the panel is open. The × beside it clears all explore filters.

Click the badge to see the list. Each row shows the column and what it is filtered or excluded to, in plain words, such as region and West.

How several filters combine

• Several cards use AND: filtering region to West, product_type to Electronics and status to Active shows only rows matching all three.
• Several values on one card use OR: selecting "Active" and "Pending" on status and clicking Filter shows rows with either value.

Why card order matters

Cards filter the cards to their right. When you change or clear a filter on a card, filters on the cards after it are cleared, because those cards were showing values from the earlier selection. A card with a filter moves toward the front of the row. A card showing a subset because of an earlier card's filter has a filter icon in its header.

Remove filters

• One filter: use Clear this card's filter (the close button in the badge list, or on the card's Filtered chip).
• All filters: click Clear filters in the badge list, or the × beside the badge.

Save explore filters as a pipeline task or a new View

Explore filters are temporary. To keep the logic, click the Use these filters button (⋮) beside the filter badge. It shows only while explore filters are on, and not in preview mode.

Explore filters compared with Conditional Filter tasks

More on the task: Filter rows.

Add an Explore Card to a dashboard

You can turn a column card into a dashboard tile. Open the card's More options menu and choose Add to dashboard…. The dialog is titled Add "column" to a dashboard, with the column's name.

Who can use it: the item shows to people who can edit the View's pipeline. It is greyed out, with the tooltip "You can't create or edit dashboards in this project.", when your project role does not let you create or edit dashboards. The Ask, Search and Compare cards can't be added: they filter rows and have no chart.

Choose the dashboard and page

Under Dashboard, pick Existing or New dashboard.

A dashboard reads from one View, so a card can only go on a dashboard built on the same View. If there is none you can edit, the dialog opens on New dashboard and explains why. If there is exactly one, it is picked for you.

For an existing dashboard, choose under Page:

• New page: adds a page, named From Explore unless you type another name.
• Existing page: adds the tile to a page you pick from the list.

If the dashboard already has a page with the name in the New page box, the dialog picks that page under Existing page, so repeat adds collect on one page. A new dashboard gets the tile on its first page.

The line at the top confirms where the tile goes, for example "Adding to Sales board → page "From Explore" · as a draft". The button names the dashboard: Add to "dashboard" or Create "dashboard" and add.

How each card becomes a tile

The right side previews the tile, with its title (for example "Count by city") and "All of" the View name. Notes under the preview list what changes.

Dashboards group dates by month, quarter or year. A card grouped by day, hour, minute or second becomes a month tile, and the note says so. The tile keeps the card's Show values by setting (count, distinct count, sum, average, min, max or std dev).

What does not carry over:

• Explore filters: the tile shows the whole View. The note reads, for example, "Your 2 explore filters aren't added to dashboards."
• Drilling in: a card you drilled into shows every value on the tile.
• Unrun steps and preview: dashboards show the View's last run. A banner warns you if the View has steps that haven't run, or if you are previewing an earlier step.

After you add the tile

The tile goes into the dashboard's draft, so viewers don't see it until you publish. A message confirms "Added to" the dashboard and page, with an Open link that opens the dashboard in a new tab with the tile highlighted. The data editor stays where it was.

If the add fails, the dialog says why, for example "Couldn't add the tile. The dashboard is being saved by someone else. Try again." If a new dashboard was created but the tile wasn't added, adding again puts the tile on that dashboard instead of creating a second one, and Open the empty dashboard opens it.

Troubleshooting Explore Cards

Related

• Text, number and date cards: every control on each card type.
• Ask, Search and Compare cards: filter by a sentence, a search term or a box on a scatter plot.
• Browse columns: open several columns as cards at once.
• Metrics: numbers that update as you filter.
• Filter rows: the Conditional Filter task your explore filters become.
• Find and replace values: Bulk Replace, opened from a text card.
• Add and change charts: edit the tile once it is on a dashboard.