Manage universal result cache (Beta)

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This documentation describes one or more public beta features that are in development. Beta features are subject to quick, iterative changes; therefore the current user experience in the Sigma service can differ from the information provided in this page.
This page should not be considered official published documentation until Sigma removes this notice and the beta flag on the corresponding feature(s) in the Sigma service. For the full beta feature disclaimer, see Beta features.

Sigma allows you to cache recent queries to reduce warehouse compute costs and improve performance. The cached queries are stored in the configured external storage integration for your Sigma organization, such as AWS, GCS, or Azure.

When a query is executed, Sigma generates a cache key and checks the configured storage integration for matching results. If Sigma finds a match (cache hit), it returns the cached results instead of executing the query against the warehouse. If Sigma does not find a match (cache miss), it executes the query against the warehouse and caches the results for future use.

This document explains how to enable and manage the universal result cache in Sigma.

System and user requirements

To manage the universal result cache, you need the following:

You must be assigned the Admin account type.
You must have a storage integration configured. For information on configuring a storage integration, see External storage integration overview.
The cloud region of your Sigma organization must match the cloud region of your storage integration.

Limitations

Universal result cache is not supported for Snowflake or BigQuery connections, which use native result caching instead. It is available for all other connection types.

Enable universal result cache

To enable the universal result cache for a connection:

From the home page, select Administration.
Select Connections.
Select the connection you want to enable the universal result cache for.
Select Edit.
In the Result caching section, turn on the Enable result caching toggle.
Select Save.

Manage cache duration for a workbook

You can manage the cache duration to control how long Sigma uses cached results for a workbook. The default cache duration is 10 minutes.

To change the cache duration for a workbook:

Open the workbook you want to change the cache duration for.
In the workbook header, click the down arrow () next to the refresh button ().
In the menu, select Data refresh.
In the Data refresh settings modal, adjust the Cache duration field to the desired duration.
Select Save.

The workbook now refreshes results based on the new cache duration.

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If you select Refresh in the workbook header, Sigma bypasses the cache and refreshes the workbook with the latest data from the warehouse.

Identify queries from the cache

You can identify queries that are served from the universal result cache in the query history:

Open the workbook you want to view the query history for.
In the workbook header, click the down arrow () next to the refresh button ().
In the menu, select Query history.
For each query, review the Execution path column to identify queries that are served from the cache.

Queries served from the universal result cache have an Execution path of Warehouse (cache).

Set a time to live (TTL) for cached queries in your external storage integration

You can set a prefix-filtered time to live (TTL) on cached query objects in your external storage integration to delete cached queries after they are no longer in use. Sigma recommends configuring a TTL of 2 days for cached results.

To see configuration recommendations for your external storage integration, refer to the documentation for your cloud provider: