# Metabase
How to create real-time dashboards with Metabase
You can use [Metabase](https://www.metabase.com/) to create real-time dashboards
based on the data maintained in Materialize.

## Database connection details

To set up a connection from Metabase to Materialize, use the native
[PostgreSQL database driver](https://www.metabase.com/docs/latest/administration-guide/databases/postgresql.html)
with the following parameters:

Field             | Value
----------------- | ----------------
Database type     | **PostgreSQL**
Host              | Materialize host name.
Port              | **6875**
Database name     | **materialize**
Database username | Materialize user.
Database password | App-specific password.
SSL mode          | Require

For more details and troubleshooting, check the
[Metabase documentation](https://www.metabase.com/docs/latest/administration-guide/databases/postgresql.html).

## Configure a custom cluster

<p>To direct queries to a specific cluster, <a href="/materialize/35604/sql/alter-role" >set the cluster at the role
level</a> using the following SQL statement:</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code class="language-sql" data-lang="sql"><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="k">ALTER</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="k">ROLE</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">&lt;</span><span class="n">your_user</span><span class="o">&gt;</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="k">SET</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="k">CLUSTER</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">&lt;</span><span class="n">custom_cluster</span><span class="o">&gt;</span><span class="p">;</span><span class="w">
</span></span></span></code></pre></div><p>Replace <code>&lt;your_user&gt;</code> with the name of your Materialize role and <code>&lt;custom_cluster&gt;</code> with the name of the cluster you want to use.</p>
<p>Once set, all new sessions for that user will automatically run in the specified
cluster, eliminating the need to manually specify it in each query or
connection.</p>


## Refresh rate

By default, the lowest [refresh rate](https://www.metabase.com/docs/latest/users-guide/07-dashboards.html#auto-refresh)
for Metabase dashboards is 1 minute. You can manually set this to a lower
interval by adding `#refresh=1` (as an example, for a `1` second interval) to
the end of the URL, and opening the modified URL in a new tab.

Because Metabase queries are simply reading data out of self-updating views in
Materialize, setting your dashboards to auto-refresh at lower rates should not
have a significant impact on database performance. To minimize this impact, we
recommend carefully choosing an [indexing strategy](/sql/create-index/)
for any objects serving results to Metabase.

[//]: # "TODO(morsapaes) Once we revamp quickstarts, add Related pages section
pointing to a quickstart that uses Metabase"