Explore tabs, views, and queries

Explore provides three mechanisms for managing parallel investigations and preserving your work: tabs, saved views, and saved queries. Each serves a distinct purpose. Use them together to run investigations efficiently without losing context.

Tabs

Tabs let you run multiple queries in parallel within a single Explore session. Each tab maintains its own independent state — query, filters, time range, and visualization — so you can compare results across different configurations without rebuilding your work.

Open and manage tabs

• Select the + icon next to the tab bar to open a new tab.
• Each tab starts with the default Explore state (empty query, default time range).
• Switch between tabs by selecting the tab label.
• Close a tab by selecting the x on the tab. Closing a tab discards its state.

Use cases for tabs

• Compare log volume across two different services during the same time window.
• Run a query on logs in one tab and spans in another to correlate events.
• Build and test a new query in one tab while keeping your reference query open in another.

Tab limits

You can have multiple tabs open simultaneously. Tabs are session-scoped — they do not persist when you close the browser or reload the page. To preserve a tab's configuration, save it as a saved view before closing.

Save and restore tab configurations

When you want to return to the exact configuration of a tab in a future session, save it as a saved view.

• From the active tab, select Save view in the Explore actions menu.
• Give the view a name and confirm.
• To restore: open Saved views, find the view, and select it to load the configuration into the current tab.

Saved views

A saved view captures the complete configuration of an Explore session, including:

• The active query (Lucene or DataPrime)
• Applied filters
• Group by and aggregation settings
• Selected time range
• Visualization type
• Column layout

Use saved views when you want to return to a specific investigation setup without rebuilding it from scratch.

What a saved view captures

Create a saved view

1. Configure Explore with the query, filters, time range, and layout you want to preserve.
2. Select Save view from the Explore actions menu (top-right of the screen).
3. Enter a name for the view.
4. Select Save.

The saved view appears in the Saved views list. Select it at any time to restore the full configuration.

Manage saved views

• Rename: Open the saved views list, find the view, and select rename.
• Delete: Open the saved views list, find the view, and select delete. Deletion is permanent.
• Update: Load the view, make changes to the Explore configuration, then save again under the same name to overwrite the existing view.

Share a saved view

To share a saved view with a teammate, use the Copy URL action from the Explore actions menu after loading the view. The URL encodes the current configuration, including the saved view state.

Saved queries

A saved query stores only the query logic — the search expression, group by fields, and aggregations — without capturing the visual layout, time range, or column configuration.

Use saved queries when you want to reuse a specific query expression across different sessions, time ranges, or views.

Save a query

1. Build a query in the search bar or Query Builder.
2. Select Save query from the query bar or Explore actions menu.
3. Enter a name for the query.
4. Select Save.

The query is saved and available in the Query catalog.

Query catalog and history

The query catalog lists all your saved queries. Use it to:

• Browse and search saved queries by name.
• Load a saved query into the current Explore session.
• Delete saved queries you no longer need.

Query history is a separate list of queries you have run recently, stored automatically. Use it to:

• Revisit a query you ran earlier without having to retype it.
• Load a recent query into the search bar and continue from where you left off.

Query history is session-aware but persists across sessions for a limited period. It is not shared with other users.

Use them together

Tabs, saved views, and saved queries work best when used in combination:

• Use tabs for parallel investigations within an active session.
• Use saved views to preserve the full context of an investigation and return to it later.
• Use saved queries to build a library of reusable query expressions you apply across different views and time ranges.
• Use query history to quickly revisit queries you ran recently without saving them explicitly.

Example workflow

1. Open Explore and start investigating an incident with a query in tab 1.
2. Open a second tab to compare a related service without losing the first query.
3. Save the first tab's configuration as a saved view named "Incident 2026-03-29 – service-a".
4. Save the core query as a saved query named "Error rate by severity" for reuse in future sessions.
5. Share the URL with a teammate so they can load the same view.