---
title: "Your first query | Data Tactical Group"
route: "/docs/getting-started/first-query"
updated: "2026-10-23"
---

# Your first query

The selection bar across the top of the explorer is the whole interface. Set each pill once and the table beneath answers.

## The short answer

Open the explorer. It starts on the nation, industries, annual, over recent years, with the industry hierarchy nested. In the selection bar, choose an area (your state is a good first one) and leave the rest. The table shows one row per industry with employment, establishments, change, average pay and location quotient for the latest year. That is a real figure from the current vintage, and it is free.

## The detail

Each pill in the bar opens a picker in place. Areas accepts counties, states, metropolitan areas, the nation and your saved area clusters; counties outside your plan are shown greyed, with the reason. The codes picker offers each level of the classification by name, an All view that shows the hierarchy nested, and a custom list you can type or paste. Ownership defaults to all four combined; ticking a subset sums only those. Vintage defaults to the current release. To see occupations instead, change the domain to Occupation (SOC).

Click a row, or its code, to open its details: where its values came from, the reliability score where there is one, and the quarterly values behind the annual figure. Columns can be added from the column menu, and **Reset to defaults** puts the table back. Your selection is saved automatically and is there when you return.

## Related

What the markers in the table mean is on [disclosure flags on screen](/docs/data/disclosure-flags). The explorer’s controls in full are on [using the explorer](/docs/platform/explorer).

Still stuck? A person can help.

[Get support](/support)