Adding a Data Refresh Date on Dashboad

[stuckeyam]

Has anyone added a refresh date to your dashboards? I want to make it so that a user would notice it, but not a prominent piece of the dashboard. I’m new to looker, so I think so far I’ve just done some really obvious things, but my method doesn’t allow me to resize the tile as small as I’d like it to be.

[Eric_Lyons]

Hi @stuckeyam, would you want a specific tile in addition to the information that appears automatically next to the run button?

E.G. if the dashboard was just run it shows “just now”.


 

If there is a field in the database that appears when the ETL occurs, you could add that as a single value vis tile. Another option may be to use a tile based on system activity, but the user running the dashboard would need the see_system_activity permission to view that information.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,
Eric

[stuckeyam]

Hey @Eric_Lyons, thanks for the response. The run time doesn’t really relate to our refresh timestamp because our ETL only runs nightly. We’ve added the “batch end timestamp” to a metadata view that we’re pulling in, but I just can’t figure out a good way to format it. I’ve tried the different tile options you’ve mentioned, but they all just look a bit odd in relationship to the dashboards they’re on.

Ideally I’d like something that’s obvious to a user so that we don’t have to constantly field answers, but it’s not so big that it takes over the dashboard.

Thanks,

Allison

[Ezra_Wolfe · Accepted solution]

We have the same issue. Our ETL runs 4x an hour. So we’ve added this in a tile at the bottom of the dashboard. I doubt most users notice it, and not sure I would say it’s elegant but it works. 

[Shiva_ranjani_T]

Hi @Ezra_Wolfe can u tell how u added the last site activity update .

[Ezra_Wolfe]

This application has a "last activity" date stored in the database. Use used that value as a dimension in a single-value visualization in Looker.

[Shiva_ranjani_T]

HI @Ezra_Wolfe I have a last update date in my database so consider if i need to show with the timezone how to achieve this.
e.g 2024-01-02 12:00:00 PM Eastern Standard Time.

I need to display like this in the dashboard.

can u help me on this.

[stuckeyam]

Thanks @Ezra_Wolfe! That’s kind of what I ended up doing too, but including some additional metadata along with the timestamp. When we had it anywhere near the top, it felt clunky, but at least it’s on the dashboard somewhere.