Why queries are central to Visual DB

Your database may have millions of records, but usually you are working with a subset of records. For example, when managing a large project tracking system, you might filter to show only active tasks for your department.

Visual DB lets you define queries that load specific subsets of data—for example, a query that loads only active tasks for your department. With this targeted subset loaded into the browser, you can work very efficiently. Operations such as grouping and sorting are instant because they work on the subset in memory, not the entire database of millions of records. Features like as-you-type incremental search and offline-viewable snapshots perform well because you're working with a well-defined subset of data.

Compare this to the competition: they either limit the number of records in a table to a few tens of thousands, or attempt to handle millions of records using infinite scroll — resulting in poor grouping and searching performance because they can't fit millions of records in browser memory!

Taking it further with query parameters

For more flexibility, you can add query parameters to your queries. Query parameters let users dynamically change which subset is loaded by selecting values from dropdowns. Need to switch from viewing your department's tasks to viewing all departments? Just change the parameter value and the new subset loads instantly.

You can define multiple parameters to filter your data—for example, selecting both a date range and a department. Parameters can accept multiple values, letting users choose several options at once, such as viewing tasks for both the Marketing and Sales teams. Visual DB also supports cascading parameters, where the value chosen in one parameter determines the available choices in another. For instance, when a user selects a Product Category, the Product selection dropdown automatically updates to show only products in that category.

Once a query is defined it can be reused in Forms, Sheets and Reports, saving you time.