2020 Q4 What's New Webinar Q&A

[izzymiller]

This is a wrap-up of all the questions that we didn’t have time to get to live (or had to research the answers to) during the Q4 2020 “What’s New in Looker?” webinar.

Didn’t make it to the webinar? Catch the recording here.

Mobile App

• Regarding the mobile app is there a plan for an iPad specific app? I tested on an iPad and it displays as phone sized, not filling the screen completely.
  • Yes! The work for full iPad support is slated soon. 
• Do links work in the mobile app?
  • They should work fine! If you have a more specific question or aren’t seeing what you’d expect, feel free to drop a comment here.
• Is dashboards-next supported in the mobile app?
  • The mobile app currently uses legacy dashboards, there’s no option to change the dashboard type at this time. To be clear, this just means that all dashboards will display in the legacy style— All dashboards, regardless of version, will be accessible and usable in the mobile app.
• How do user attributes work with the mobile app? We currently pass user attributes dynamically using SSO embedded dashboards.
  • Embed users won’t be able to access the mobile app, since they need to be created/authenticated using a special SSO link generated by your app. The Looker mobile app can only be accessed by full Looker users that have access to their profile page (ie: not embed users).

Dashboards-next

• What happens to Legacy dashboards in Oct. 2021?
  • We’ll be changing the url so that everything is just a dashboards/, not a dashboards-next/, likely upgrading all dashboards to the new version, and making sure everything redirects properly so as not to break any existing dashboards or links. We’ll be communicating about this regularly and well in advance, and tracking adoption of dashboards-next + remaining legacy dashboards so we can be sure we’re not pulling the rug out under any users.
• Will the dashboard URLs be changing when things sunset in Oct 2021?
  • Yes, we will be dropping the -next at that time. We’ll maintain some kind of redirect so as not to break existing -next urls, so don’t worry and bookmark freely!
• With 7.18, do the new dashboards have all the functionality of legacy?
  • I would call it 99% parity right now. There are some very small areas that still lack parity, specifically: The embedded spaces browser (only in embedded dashboards), the ability to edit view access settings directly from the dashboard, and some very small filter creation features. Other than that, we should be at parity and anything you see that doesn’t match up should be reported so we can fix it!
• Is there a way to hide all filters in the new dashboards?

  • Yes, using Embed Themes, specifically _theme={"show_filters_bar":false}

• Does dashboards next consider some options to schedule a dashboard applying several filters but receiving several attachments in just one email?
  • I’m not sure I 100% understand this question— feel free to clarify in the comments! What I think is being asked is whether dashboards-next can send multiple differently filtered versions of a dashboard in just one email. That’s not possible, you’d have to send multiple schedules with different filters, and they would be sent as multiple emails
• Do you have any planned updates for the map visualizations to allow better modifications to layout? Things like editing field names, location name, etc.
  • ​​​​​​​Yes! Nothing concrete that we can speak to specifically, but we have some map updates in the works for 2021. 
• In new dashboards, option clicking on a legend item doesn't seem to have the same behavior as legacy dashboards?
  • ​​​​​​​Thanks for pointing this out, that “hide all other series” feature doesn’t seem to be working. We’ll look into this.
• Our dashboards are saved and promoted to higher environments using LookML. Is moving to the new UX a configuration setting or how should we do the upgrade?
  • ​​​​​​​There’s a setting you can add preferred_viewer: dashboards-next to make any LookML dashboard next by default. Even for lookml dashboards that don’t have that, you can simply add -next to the URL to change them to the new UX temporarily.

    

Blocks / Marketplace

• Is there any integration for regular (non-360) Google Analytics?
  • ​​​​​​​We don’t have anything for free GA right now. The blocks that are built out on top of GA360 rely heavily on the extra data that you get with 360, so they wouldn’t work very well on top of a free GA export. We are planning to build a block for GA 4 in 2021. 
• Looks like there is Shopify integration within the Looker marketplace but it shows that it is still in beta and doesn't look like its available to install or download.
  • ​​​​​​​The Looker Shopify block should be available for anyone to install at yourinstancename.looker.com/marketplace/view/shopify. If you’re seeing an issue with that block, feel free to reach out here!
• Are any of the other Google Ads blocks available in the marketplace up to date? (esp. the BQ Transfer one)
  • ​​​​​​​Yup, everything in the marketplace should be up to date (including the BQ Transfer block). We’ve got a full team dedicated to marketplace content and keeping everything ship shape.

If you’ve got any more questions about these new features, just ask here!