Shouldn't the symmetric_aggregates parameter apply to joins rather than explores?

tnebesar
Participant III

I’d like the ability to turn off symmetric_aggregates for particular joins where fan out is expected and OK. Wouldn’t it make more sense to apply the parameter to particular joins rather than entire explores?

Also, even when I tried turning off symmetric aggregates for an explore, Looker still doesn’t allow me to use measures that result in fan out. If I’m explicitly turning off symmetric aggregates, I’d think Looker wouldn’t evaluate fan out anymore and would simply generate/run the SQL with the join and sums, etc.

Here’s an example use case where fan out from a many to many join is OK. We have different “custom lists” of items for reporting. Items are on multiple lists. If I wanted total sales for 2 different lists, the many to many join with fan out is OK.

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Maddie
Participant IV

Hi Tnebesar,

I thing you should bypass the symmetric aggregates if you set the relationship between the tables to `one_to_one` (even if it’s not in practice). This way, Looker will not try to resolve any fanout.

However, in the above scenario I would recommend using some derived tables for this where the sales is rolled up at item level.

Best,

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