Quick Start

Get up and running with OpenAnalyst in minutes. This guide walks you through creating an account, connecting your first data source, building a dashboard, and running your first AI-powered analysis.

Overview

This guide takes you from zero to your first working analytics dashboard in approximately ten minutes. You will create an account, connect a data source, build a visualization, and run a natural-language query against your data.

Note: OpenAnalyst runs entirely in the browser at app.openanalyst.com. No software installation is required.

Step 1: Create Your Account

  1. Navigate to app.openanalyst.com in your browser.
  2. Click Sign Up on the landing page. You can register using your email address or sign in with Google or GitHub for faster onboarding.
  3. If registering with email, enter your name, email address, and a password of at least eight characters. Click Create Account.
  4. Check your inbox for a verification email from OpenAnalyst and click the confirmation link. The link is valid for 24 hours.
  5. On first login you will be guided through a brief onboarding flow asking about your role and primary use case. These answers help personalize your initial workspace — you can update them later in Settings.

Tip: If you do not receive the verification email within a few minutes, check your spam folder. You can also request a new verification link from the login page. If you have lost your password, use the Forgot Password link on the sign-in page.

Step 2: Connect Your First Data Source

OpenAnalyst supports a wide range of data sources. For this quick start, we will connect a PostgreSQL database, but the steps are similar for any supported source.

  1. From the main dashboard, click Connections in the left sidebar, then select Add Connection.
  2. Browse the connector catalog and select PostgreSQL (or your preferred source — Google Sheets, CSV, MySQL, and others are also available).
  3. Enter your connection details in the form:
    Host:     db.your-company.com
Port:     5432
Database: analytics_prod
Username: readonly_user
Password: ••••••••••••
  4. Click Test Connection. OpenAnalyst will verify network reachability and authentication. A green checkmark confirms success.
  5. Click Save Connection. OpenAnalyst will introspect your schema and build an index of tables, columns, and relationships. This usually completes within thirty seconds for databases with fewer than 500 tables.

Warning: Always use a read-only database user for your OpenAnalyst connections. OpenAnalyst only needs SELECT permissions — never connect with a user that has write or administrative privileges.

Step 3: Create Your First Dashboard

With your data source connected, you can now build a dashboard. Dashboards are collections of charts, metrics, and tables that you can organize, share, and schedule for automated delivery.

  1. Click Dashboards in the left sidebar, then click New Dashboard.
  2. Give your dashboard a name (for example, "Sales Overview Q1 2026") and optionally assign it to a folder or team workspace.
  3. Click Add Widget in the top-right corner of the canvas. Select Chart from the widget type list.
  4. In the chart configuration panel, select your connected data source and enter a natural-language question such as:
    Show me monthly revenue for the last 12 months as a bar chart
  5. Click Generate. OpenAnalyst translates your question into a SQL query, executes it, and renders the result. You can inspect the generated SQL by clicking the View Query button beneath the chart.
  6. Drag widgets to reposition them and use the resize handle at the bottom-right of each widget to adjust dimensions. Click Save when satisfied.

Step 4: Run Your First Analysis

Beyond dashboards, OpenAnalyst provides an interactive analysis workspace where you can conduct exploratory research using conversational AI.

  1. Click Analysis in the left sidebar to open the analysis workspace.
  2. Select your data connection from the source selector at the top of the workspace.
  3. Type a question in the prompt bar at the bottom of the screen. For example:
    Which product categories had the highest return rate last quarter,
and how does this compare to the same period last year?
  4. Press Enter or click Send. OpenAnalyst will generate and execute the necessary queries, then return a formatted response that includes charts, a data table, and a natural-language summary of the findings.
  5. You can follow up with additional questions in the same thread. The AI maintains context across the conversation, so you can refine or drill down without starting over:
    Break down the Electronics category by sub-category
  6. To save the analysis as a report or add charts to a dashboard, click the Save to Report or Pin to Dashboard buttons that appear alongside each result.

Next Steps

Now that you have completed your first analysis, explore these areas to get more out of OpenAnalyst: