Real time aggregates

Continuous aggregates do not include the most recent data chunk from the underlying hypertable. Real time aggregates use the aggregated data and add the most recent raw data to it to provide accurate and up to date results, without needing to aggregate data as it is being written. In TimescaleDB 1.7 and later, real time aggregates are enabled by default. When you create a continuous aggregate view, queries to that view will include the most recent data, even if it has not yet been aggregated.

For more detail on the comparison between continuous and real time aggregates, see our real time aggregate blog post.

Use real time aggregates

You can enable and disable real time aggregation by setting the materialized_only parameter when you create or alter the view.

Procedure: Using real time aggregation

1. For an existing table, at the psql prompt, disable real time aggregation:

   ALTER VIEW table_name set (timescaledb.materialized_only = true);

2. Re-enable real time aggregation:

   ALTER VIEW table_name set (timescaledb.materialized_only = false);