---
title: "The investigation workflow | Grafana Labs"
description: "Search, filter, select a metric, then share or continue in Explore"
---

> For a curated documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). For the complete documentation index, see [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt).

# The investigation workflow

A typical investigation moves through five steps. You can skip a step or go back.

| Step                  | What you do                                                        | What you get                                                                     |
|-----------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| **Choose and search** | Select a data source, then type keywords in the metric search bar  | Metrics that match the search                                                    |
| **Filter**            | Select **Add label**, then a label name, operator, and value       | A smaller set of metrics                                                         |
| **Select**            | Select the metric                                                  | A visualization for that metric type, plus the **Breakdown** tab                 |
| **Investigate**       | Open **Related metrics** or **Related logs**                       | Other metrics with similar names, or a count of matching log lines               |
| **Share or continue** | Select **Explore** on the panel, **Copy URL**, or **Add bookmark** | The visualization in Explore, a link to this page, or a bookmark in this browser |

**Related metrics** lists other metrics with similar names and common prefixes. **Related logs** shows how many related log lines match the metric so you can continue in a logs workflow.

**Copy URL** copies the current page address. It is not stored in the app. **Add bookmark** saves the data source, filters, selected metric, label breakdowns, and time range in this browser only. Bookmarks are not synced across browsers or devices. To share a view with someone else, use **Copy URL**.

A **Query results** tab can also appear when your Grafana instance includes the Prometheus query results component. It shows the raw query results for the metric.