GCP – Work at warp-speed in the BigQuery UI

Data analysts can spend hours writing SQL each day to get the right insights. So it’s crucial that the tools in the Google Cloud Console make that job as easy and as fast as possible. 

Now, we’re excited to show you how BigQuery’s Cloud Console UI has been updated with radical usability improvements for more efficient work, making it easier to find the data you need and write the right SQL quickly. The new capabilities span the entire SQL workspace experience across three feature areas:

1. New multi-tab navigation
2. New resource panel 
3. New SQL editor

New multi-tab navigation

One of the most popular requests for BigQuery has been to support tabs. Now you can work on multiple queries at once and iterate faster with tabbed navigation:

• Multitask by working on a new query time while you’re waiting for another query to run.
• Compare queries or results sets side-by-side by splitting your tabs to the left and right.
• Reference a table schema while you’re authoring a query: just click the table to open its tab.
• Reference history at any time with the panel at the bottom of the workspace.
• Reduce your browser’s memory footprint by avoiding the overhead of opening the Cloud Console in multiple browser tabs.

New resource panel

Now it’s easier than ever to find relevant data at your organization:

• Your resources and search results are loaded dynamically as you need them so your workspace is more responsive. 
• The navigation buttons for transfers, scheduled queries, and administration have been moved to a collapsible panel on the far left to give you more space for writing queries!
• Before, you needed to know the exact name of a project prior to pinning it to your resources panel on the left-hand side of the page if you wanted to see resources in that project. Now you can expand a search to find resources outside your pinned projects with a single click on “Broaden search to all projects”.
• Pin and unpin projects fast with a single click on the pin icon next to each project.

New SQL editor

Finally, we’ve updated the SQL editor itself with support for tons of new features. In addition to faster performance, you get as-you-type suggestions for SQL functions and metadata like column names and time-saving IDE capabilities to help you write faster, powered by Monaco:

• Find/replace text within the editor
• Multi-cursor and multi-selection support
• Collapse and expand line sections
• Type F1 in the editor to see dozens of other handy new shortcuts and features.

While the features are in preview, you can hide them with the “Hide Preview Features” button.

If you encounter issues, let us know with the Send Feedback button in the top right of Cloud Console.

Get started by visiting BigQuery’s Cloud Console UI. Happy querying!