Table Counts

sumner-williams
New Contributor II

Hello,

My company loads a lot of tables into a databricks schema. I would like to build a dashboard on what has been loaded, but SQL commands like select * from information_schema do not work. Instead we have SHOW TABLES {FROM} LIKE {}; And that fails to work in a dashboard, but does work in Queries.

From a Notebook, I can get a list of all tables. When I do display(tables) that can go into a notebook, but I lose all of the widgets. So I can't do anything like count() or create a pivot table, etc.

Are there ideas on how I can start making a dashboard of what is loaded into a schema?

Thank you 

 

 

BS_THE_ANALYST
Databricks Partner

Just trying to rule out some of the lower-hanging stuff. When you run your SQL statements i.e. 

 select * from information_schema
  1. Are you using the correct namespace syntax i.e. {catalog_here}.information_schema
  2. Are you using Unity Catalog?

Example of the first point:
I'd try both SQL Editor & Notebooks to rule anything out.

Screenshot 2025-08-16 125408.png

Command:  

SELECT * FROM CATALOGHERE.information_schema.tables;

I wonder if you have sufficient privileges when you're trying to write the query. Please let us know the error message

All the best,
BS

 

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