Introduction to Celiq
The fastest ways to start with Celiq — explore the one-click demo workspace, or connect your own warehouse.
When to use it: You are new to Celiq and want to see it working with data, with the least setup possible.
Where to find it: The Try with demo data button in the Welcome modal that appears the first time you open a new workspace, or the Connect your warehouse option beside it.
Who can use it: Everyone — Luminary, Weaver, Tracer, and Lens. Loading the demo requires the Weaver role or above.
There are two ways to start with Celiq. If you want to see the product working with real data in seconds — no credentials, no modeling — load the one-click demo workspace. If you are ready to point Celiq at your own data, connect a warehouse and follow the Quick start.
Overview
When you first open a new workspace, Celiq shows a Welcome modal with two choices: Connect your warehouse or Try with demo data. The demo is the recommended starting point. One click loads a fully populated project — an ecommerce semantic model, governed metrics, and pre-built dashboards — running against a public sample dataset. Nothing is faked: every query executes against a live warehouse, exactly as it would on your own data.
The rest of this section explains the core ideas, the supported warehouses, and the step-by-step path to your first answer. Use the table at the end to jump to whatever you need next.
When to use it
| You want to… | Start with |
|---|---|
| See Celiq working immediately, with zero setup | Try with demo data (the demo workspace) |
| Model and explore your own company's data | Connect your warehouse + the Quick start |
| Understand the building blocks before you start | Key concepts |
Concepts
- Demo workspace — a workspace flagged as a demo (
is_demo). It is pre-loaded with sample content and auto-expires after a fixed window. A banner across the top reminds you it is a demo and how long it has left. - Demo project — the project the demo loads, named Demo Store Analytics. It reuses Celiq's read-only system sample connection, so you do not enter any credentials.
- Sample dataset — the public BigQuery
thelook_ecommercedataset (bigquery-public-data.thelook_ecommerce), a realistic, anonymised apparel-ecommerce dataset with 100k+ orders. - Reveals, metrics, and Mosaics — the demo ships with reveals across orders, customers, products, and marketing; three certified metrics; and five pre-built Mosaics (dashboards).
Getting started
Prerequisites:
- A Celiq account and a workspace. If you do not have one yet, create an account first.
- The Weaver role or above to load the demo into a workspace (Luminary and Weaver can; Tracer and Lens explore content once it exists).
To open it: when you enter a fresh workspace, the Welcome modal appears automatically. If you dismissed it, you can still connect a warehouse from the connections area — see Warehouses.
Step-by-step
Open a new workspace
Sign in and open your workspace. On a workspace with no data yet, Celiq shows the Welcome modal: Build your semantic layer. Query it in seconds.
Click “Try with demo data”
Choose the Try with demo data option (marked Recommended). The button shows Loading demo data… while Celiq provisions the demo project. This calls POST /api/onboarding/load-demo behind the scenes — there is no form to fill in.
Land in Discover
When the demo is ready, Celiq takes you straight to Discover on the new Demo Store Analytics project. The five demo Mosaics are built, three metrics are certified, and Orion already knows the business context.
Explore
Open a Mosaic to see a dashboard, browse the model in Discover, or ask Orion a question such as “what drove revenue last month?”. Because it runs on a real warehouse connection, every result is live.
Convert when you’re ready
A banner at the top of every demo screen reads: You're exploring a demo workspace with sample ecommerce data. Click Create your account → to start the signup flow and keep going with your own data.
Examples
The demo loads the ecommerce domain, which models the thelook_ecommerce dataset. Once you are in the demo, you are working against tables like the one below — the same dataset you would point a BigQuery connection at if you connected it yourself:
-- The demo's underlying sample dataset (public BigQuery)
SELECT COUNT(*) AS order_count
FROM `bigquery-public-data.thelook_ecommerce.orders`;The three metrics certified out of the box in the demo are:
| Metric | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Revenue | Total revenue over time |
| CAC / Marketing ROI | Customer acquisition cost and ROI by channel |
| Return rate | Return rate and refund value |
Best practices
- Start with the demo, even if you have your own warehouse. It is the fastest way to see how reveals, certified metrics, Mosaics, and Orion fit together before you model your own data.
- Open a Mosaic first. The pre-built dashboards (Growth Overview, Product Performance, Customer Cohorts, Operations, Marketing) show what a finished workspace looks like.
- Ask Orion early. Orion is primed with the demo's business context, so its answers are grounded from your first question.
- When you connect your own data, read Warehouses first to confirm your warehouse is supported and gather the connection details you'll need.
Tips
A demo workspace is temporary — it expires 7 days after it is created, and expired demos are cleaned up automatically. The banner shows the days remaining (for example, Expires in 6 days.). You can extend a demo once for another 7 days from inside the workspace.
Common mistakes
Trying to load the demo as a Tracer or Lens. Loading the demo into a workspace needs the Weaver role or above. If you only have Tracer or Lens access, ask a Weaver or Luminary to load it, then explore the content they create.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Welcome modal does not appear | The workspace already has data, or you dismissed the modal | Use the connections area to add a warehouse — see Warehouses |
| "Failed to load demo. Please try again." | The load-demo request did not return a project | Click Try with demo data again; if it persists, sign out and back in, then retry |
| The "Try with demo data" button is missing | You do not have the Weaver role or above | Ask a Luminary or Weaver to load the demo for you |
| Demo content is gone | The demo workspace passed its 7-day expiry and was cleaned up | Create your account to convert the demo to a permanent workspace before it expires, or load a fresh demo |