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Looker 3.18 Release Notes

  • 3 April 2015
  • 3 replies
  • 51 views
nbeyer
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Userlevel 3

#3.18 Release Notes


##Explore




  • Labs Feature: Redesigned Field Picker: The field picker now collapses fields by their view and date group, removes uppercase view names from fields, and changes the color of measures. Full functionality can be turned on in the Labs panel (/admin/labs). Learn more.


  • Labs Feature: Table Calculations: Ability to define calculations on the results of a query from the Explore page. Must be enabled by an admin from the Labs panel. Learn more.


  • Explore descriptions: Must be defined in the Model file using the description: parameter. Will appear on hover over the ? icon next to the Explore’s name in the field picker. See documentation.


  • Filtering by ‘OR’ in Date Fields: Press the “+” button next to an existing Date filter to add an additional filter on that field or use commas between dates when using Matches (Advanced). Learn more.

  • The relative time a query ran now appears next to the run button (e.g. 3 minutes ago)

  • When no sort is specified on a query with tiered dimensions, results will be sorted by the default tier order


Transformations/Persistent Derived Tables




  • Production and Developer Mode share the same persistent table if the SQL has not changed. Also, when a user builds a persistent derived table (PDT) in Developer Mode and pushes the updated model to production, production will use the already-built PDT if the SQL has not changed. See documentation.


  • "Rebuild Derived Tables & Run" will now cause only that user’s query to wait for a rebuilt table. All tables required for this query will rebuild in the background and will be switched out when complete; no other queries will be impacted by the use of this button (i.e. one user pressing this button will no longer block other users) See documentation.


##IDE & Model Management




  • Commit history in the IDE, including links to version control providers for customers who have set those up through Looker. Access history from the drop down next to the “Push” button. Learn more.


  • Highlighted changes in diffs to make reading commits easier. Learn more.


  • Setup & support for additional version control providers - Set up version control for LookML files within Looker using Bitbucket, GitLab, Stash, GitHub Enterprise, or any Git server that can use an SSH key for authentication. Learn more.


  • Project sync upon first push - Once git setup is complete, new projects created by one user are automatically added to all users’ developer modes without requiring users to rebuild their directory. Learn more.


##Dashboards and Visualizations




  • Ability to Schedule Dashboards as PDF attachments to emails (requires PhantomJS if self-hosted) and must be enabled in the Labs panel


  • Ability to mix Cartesian chart types on a single query. From the visualization configuration tab on the Explore page, indicate the series_name: <chart_type>. Any series that does not have an explicit type declared will use the chart type selected. Does not work for stacked charts. Learn more.


  • Reference lines for the Y-Axis can now be defined through the UI. Learn more.


  • Y-Axis Maximum can now be set independently of the Y-Axis Minimum. See documentation.


  • Ability to set a custom Y-Axis Tick Density. Learn more.

  • Null points will no long appear on donut charts


##Spaces



  • Ability to delete multiple looks at once within a Space. See documentation

  • Spaces search now includes model name in result set

  • Move/Copy/Delete now available from gear button on each Look in a Space


##General Improvements & Tweaks



  • Dimensions of type: int now sort numerically instead of alphabetically

  • Support for Datavirtuality databases

  • Location field types are now fully supported on Oracle, BigQuery, Redshift, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Greenplum, MS SQL Server, Aster, and Teradata

3 replies

Alison

Hi Wil,


Thanks for answering. That clarifies the PDT section very nicely. Very exciting developments!


On the explore descriptions piece, however, the documentation Nicole links to says to add it in the model file but for the field picker you would add a description in a view file. So I went and tested the documented example syntax in a Looker environment that is on version 3.18. What I believe Nicole is referring to is that you can now describe the explore itself in the model file to make a (?) appear by the Explore’s name at the top of the field list (field picker) section of the Explore page.


I think the main part of my confusion stemmed from the screenshot on the documentation page. The screenshot looked like it was just referring to a dimension. Dimension descriptions had existed before, so I wasn’t sure why it was being mentioned in the release notes. Because of how far the image on the documentation page is cropped and what seem to be some style changes to how the Explore name gets displayed I got mixed up.


For the record, I think adding (?) to the navigation menu would be too confusing (and hard to implement).


Thanks again for responding!

J

Yes, that’s right.



We changed the way we display these on the Explore page to make descriptions much more useful. Most customers were not using descriptions before, but they should consider it now (not sure if you folks at Braintree were using it).

Alison

Nicole, I read the documentation page, and I understand what I think you’re trying to say, but it still isn’t clicking for me. The Explore list is a menu with a dark background but the screenshot in the documentation shows what looks like a dimension. Are you saying there are now hover over question marks on the Explore menu? Or something else?



Do you mean “has not changed.”?

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