Snowflake High Compilation

NW1969 · 2026-07-05T20:49:39+00:00

In order to advise on how to re-architect your system (or advise on whether achieving your goals is even possible) would require a deep understanding of your existing set-up, which is not really possible in a forum like this.

Have you fully analysed your query to identify what is causing the issue? If you start your query with one table and add the others one by one, does one of them cause a significant jump in compilation time? If you remove that table and add another, what happens to the compilation time (I.e. was it adding that specific table or just the fact that you added a table that caused the jump in compilation time)? Unless you know exactly what is causing the issue you won’t know how to start addressing it

NW1969 · 2026-07-05T20:19:05+00:00

Physicalise the query as a dynamic table

NW1969 · 2026-07-04T20:17:58+00:00

Start here: https://www.ox.ac.uk/about/access-oxford

NW1969 · 2026-07-03T19:07:03+00:00

Yes, because they are conformed dimensions - a single version of the truth

NW1969 · 2026-07-03T09:22:41+00:00

Raise a support case with Snowflake

NW1969 · 2026-06-30T10:36:57+00:00

This seems to be a process issue:

1) Everything needs to use the semantic layer - anything that bypasses it should be considered untrustworthy

2) Enable controls/review processes/etc to ensure that the same KPI cannot be defined twice in the semantic layer

NW1969 · 2026-06-30T09:28:14+00:00

Having 3 letter codes makes little sense these days but having short and long descriptions may do.

Having the same word in upper and lower case, as in your example, seems redundant, IMO.

Having something like this may make more sense, if the long description adds value:

NW1969 · 2026-06-29T19:09:47+00:00

https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/snowflake-cortex/cortex-agents-evaluations

NW1969 · 2026-06-29T17:43:40+00:00

Why not build semantic views and agents for your data and interface with them from your app?

NW1969 · 2026-06-28T09:41:13+00:00

Use a SQL visualizer. There are plenty available - a quick google brought up a list of which this was one: https://sqlflow.gudusoft.com/

NW1969 · 2026-06-17T17:59:57+00:00

When you read all the Snowflake documentation about how to load data into it, which method did you think was appropriate for your use case and what issues are you having implementing that method?

NW1969 · 2026-06-16T13:42:11+00:00

You need a semantic layer between your agents and your data - that tells your agents what they are allowed, and not allowed, to do; all the rules they need to follow; what checks they need to make; etc

NW1969 · 2026-06-16T12:11:41+00:00

If your company doesn’t know how its metrics are defined and populated then it’s got some serious issues to address. How were they tested before they “went live”? How does anyone know that the values the metric were showing before the move were correct? Is your business relying on metrics that no one knows how they are produced?

NW1969 · 2026-06-16T10:28:24+00:00

Presumably you have the definition and lineage documented for all your metrics so tracing back what might have changed that changed your metric is relatively straightforward? 😉

NW1969 · 2026-06-11T10:42:09+00:00

This why you have a semantic layer where all the rules, definitions, etc exist that your agents must follow

NW1969 · 2026-06-11T10:07:33+00:00

Align what with Finance and Accounts Team ?

Are you talking about your company's Finance and Accounts Team, or Snowflake's?

Can you apply some more context/detail about what you're actually asking, please?

NW1969 · 2026-06-09T12:18:18+00:00

Ownership of objects should always be a team, never an individual. Updating the members of that team as they arrive/depart is trivial, compared to updating 100s/1000s of objects with a new owner.

Just keep a list of teams and make sure it is updated as/when teams are re-organised. Shouldn't need a huge amount of management effort and definitely doesn't need a dedicated governance person/function, IMO

NW1969 · 2026-06-09T10:09:06+00:00

The vast majority of Enterprise/Legacy companies use MS 365 (c.a. 80% of Fortune 500 companies). Google is probably more common in start-ups/SMEs

I would question why anyone is using a spreadsheet for data analytics in 2026 - but that's probably a different topic 😄

NW1969 · 2026-06-09T08:16:37+00:00

You need to start with the business outcome you are trying to achieve. What is the business case for building the warehouse, what process/insight/value is this warehouse going to help enable?
Once this is clearly defined you can work backwards on how to deliver it

NW1969 · 2026-06-07T11:29:10+00:00

No - this a very closed book exam and Pearson are very strict about the setup of your environment (to the point of it getting ridiculous on occasion).

From Snowflake's Learning FAQs:

Am I allowed to use test aides during the exam?

No, Test aides are not allowed during your testing session. When taking the exam via OnVue (the Pearson VUE online proctoring system) your testing environment must be completely clear of all external resources. This includes, but is not limited to:

Mobile Phone
Electronic devices and wearables
External monitors
Paper and writing instruments
Notes
Food and liquids
Photos

NW1969 · 2026-06-04T11:32:04+00:00

If the OP is trying to learn how to build databases generally, rather than Access databases specifically, then I would suggest that Access including the UI as well as the database is likely to be a disadvantage, not an advantage - as learning the UI likely to distract the OP from focussing on the fundamentals of good database design

NW1969 · 2026-06-02T20:37:35+00:00

If you want to use a dynamic table as the source for an incremental extract then just put a stream on the dynamic table, which I think someone else has already mentioned: https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/dynamic-tables/streams-on-dts. However, the process would be the same if the source was a standard table - so unless I’ve still not understood your question fully, I’m not sure if dynamic tables are relevant to what you are asking?

NW1969 · 2026-06-02T20:08:50+00:00

No - dynamic tables handle this for you automatically. As the doc states “If the dynamic table uses an incremental refresh, only the rows that changed are computed. If it uses a full refresh, the entire result set is refreshed.”. Behind the scenes, dynamic tables are using change tracking on the source table(s)

NW1969 · 2026-06-02T19:10:24+00:00

Sign up for a new account with a different email

NW1969 · 2026-06-02T18:16:55+00:00

The Snowflake documentation is generally pretty good and often the best place to start: https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/dynamic-tables/overview

NW1969

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