Snowflake annotations

Annotations in Grafana allow you to overlay event data on your graphs, making it easier to correlate metrics with specific events like query failures, warehouse scaling, or data loading operations. For an overview of annotations, refer to Annotate visualizations.

Before you begin

Ensure you have configured the Snowflake data source.
Your dashboard must already be saved before creating annotations.
Annotations only work with the following visualization types: time series, state timeline, and candlestick.

Annotation query format

Your annotation query must return at least a time column. Optional columns include:

Column	Description
`time`	Required. The timestamp for the annotation.
`timeEnd`	Optional. End time for region annotations (creates a highlighted range).
`title`	Optional. Short text displayed on the annotation marker.
`text`	Optional. Detailed description shown in the tooltip.
`tags`	Optional. Comma-separated tags for filtering annotations.

Create an annotation

To create an annotation query:

Open your dashboard and click Dashboard settings (gear icon).
Select Annotations in the left menu.
Click Add annotation query.
Select your Snowflake data source.
Enter your SQL query.
Click Save dashboard.

Annotation examples

The following examples show common annotation patterns for Snowflake.

Track failed queries

Show when queries have failed to help correlate with performance issues:

SELECT 
  start_time AS time,
  CONCAT('Query Failed: ', query_type) AS title,
  CONCAT('Error: ', error_message, '\nWarehouse: ', warehouse_name, 
    '\nUser: ', user_name) AS text,
  'query-failure,error' AS tags
FROM snowflake.account_usage.query_history
WHERE start_time >= $__from
  AND start_time <= $__to
  AND execution_status = 'FAIL'
ORDER BY start_time

Track warehouse scaling events

Monitor when warehouses scale up or down:

SELECT 
  timestamp AS time,
  CONCAT('Warehouse: ', warehouse_name) AS title,
  CONCAT('Cluster count changed to ', cluster_number, 
    '\nEvent type: ', event_name) AS text,
  CONCAT('warehouse,', warehouse_name) AS tags
FROM snowflake.account_usage.warehouse_events_history
WHERE timestamp >= $__from
  AND timestamp <= $__to
  AND event_name IN ('SCALE_UP', 'SCALE_DOWN', 'RESUME_WAREHOUSE', 'SUSPEND_WAREHOUSE')
ORDER BY timestamp

Track data loading operations

Annotate when data loads complete or fail:

SELECT 
  last_load_time AS time,
  CONCAT('Load: ', table_name) AS title,
  CONCAT('Status: ', status, '\nRows loaded: ', row_count, 
    '\nFile: ', file_name) AS text,
  CASE 
    WHEN status = 'LOADED' THEN 'load-success'
    WHEN status = 'LOAD_FAILED' THEN 'load-failed,error'
    ELSE 'load-partial'
  END AS tags
FROM snowflake.account_usage.load_history
WHERE last_load_time >= $__from
  AND last_load_time <= $__to
ORDER BY last_load_time

Monitor authentication events for security visibility:

SELECT 
  event_timestamp AS time,
  CONCAT('Login: ', user_name) AS title,
  CONCAT('Client: ', client_ip, '\nAuth method: ', first_authentication_factor,
    '\nStatus: ', is_success) AS text,
  CASE 
    WHEN is_success = 'YES' THEN 'login-success'
    ELSE 'login-failed,security'
  END AS tags
FROM snowflake.account_usage.login_history
WHERE event_timestamp >= $__from
  AND event_timestamp <= $__to
ORDER BY event_timestamp

Track task executions

Monitor scheduled task completions and failures:

SELECT 
  scheduled_time AS time,
  query_start_time AS timeEnd,
  CONCAT('Task: ', name) AS title,
  CONCAT('Database: ', database_name, '.', schema_name, 
    '\nState: ', state, '\nDuration: ', 
    DATEDIFF('second', query_start_time, completed_time), 's') AS text,
  CASE 
    WHEN state = 'SUCCEEDED' THEN 'task-success'
    WHEN state = 'FAILED' THEN 'task-failed,error'
    ELSE 'task-skipped'
  END AS tags
FROM snowflake.account_usage.task_history
WHERE scheduled_time >= $__from
  AND scheduled_time <= $__to
ORDER BY scheduled_time