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Technical Tips & Tricks

Previously internal product knowledge now available for you to explore!

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Eric_LyonsLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How to display the values along the diagonal here in one columnKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 18, 2020 When we have data along a diagonal and we want to display it in a single column, we can use table calculations to do this! pivot_index(index(${users.count},max(row())-row()+1), row()) This content is subject to limited support.

kevin.dunnLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why do I see `_1` appended to field name aliases in generated SQLKnowledge Drop

Last tested; Mar 24, 2020 This happens when a field name has upper-case letters. Because LookML is case sensitive, we append a _1 to the field name alias in the generated SQL to avoid any potential collision with a field that has the same name with different case.Generated SQL looks something like: SELECTview.field_name AS view_field_name_1FROM `bigquery-table-stuff` For a field that is simply: dimension: Field_Name {type: stringsql: ${TABLE}.field_name ;;} Example: ### Capital Letters ### explore: NEW_EXPLORE {from: breedsjoin: not_bites {from: bitestype: left_outersql_on: ${not_bites.breed} = ${NEW_EXPLORE.breed_name} ;;relationship: one_to_one}}### GENERATED SQL ###SELECTNEW_EXPLORE.breed_name AS new_explore_breed_name_1,1=1 AS new_explore_dummy_1FROM dogs_of_new_york.breeds AS NEW_EXPLOREGROUP BY 1ORDER BY 1### Lower case ###explore: new_explore {from: breedsjoin: not_bites {from: bitestype: left_outersql_on: ${not_bites.breed} = ${new_explore.breed_name} ;;relationship: one

jesse.carahLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What git commands are executed under the hood when the "Deploy to Production" button is pressed?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 15, 2018 You are in dev mode, working on a branch dev-john-smith-wxyz in the local repo in the looker/models-user-123/project-foo directory.When you commit, you commit to the local repo under looker/models-user-123/project-foo and also push your changes to the shared repo - github.com/my-company/project-foo - under the branch dev-john-smith-wxyz.When you deploy to production, Looker first checks that all the commits in github.com/my-company/project-foo branch master are reflected in dev-john-smith-wxyx. If they are not, then you will need to pull changes and merge. Once that is done, you can deploy to production again. Looker will push dev-john-smith-wxyx to the master branch on github.com/my-company/project-foo. When that succeeds it will also then pull master from github.com/my-company/project-foo to the master branch in the local repo in looker/models/project-foo.If you have pull requests set up, instead of deploying to production Looker will create a pull request a

Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Where do I get LOOKER_WEBHOOK_TOKEN for lookerbot?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 21, 2019 The lookerbot setup instructions mentions a webhook token. You can find this at the bottom of the admin panel in your Looker instance. This content is subject to limited support.

molly.lippsettLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

When do you see "Revert Uncommitted Changes" vs. "Revert to Production" in the git menu?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: Feb 21, 2021You will see "Revert Uncommitted Changes" in the git actions menu when you've saved changes, but haven't committed them yet. You will see "Revert to Production" when you've committed changes.* You will see both if you've committed some changes and saved others.*Note: Revert to Production only shows in your personal "dev-" branch. Check out the full command list for git actions. This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What happens when a non-admin user is given `see_users` on a closed system?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: Jul 3, 2018 A user granted this permission can see all users in all groups on an instance, even on a closed system. Non-admins with the see_users permission can see ALL users in the system, not just those in their same user group. This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What purpose does the `sql:` clause in a Templated Filter serve?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 23, 2018 The sql: clause in a Templated Filter gets injected directly into the WHERE clause of your query.For example we can add this to the sql: of a filter :filter: place_where_the_user_can_input_something { type: string sql: {% condition %} ${client} {% endcondition %} ;; } Which, when utilized in the UI, generates a filter only field that generates the following SQL in the WHERE:Note: that within the definition of the filter we can refer to the filter itself (without naming/scoping it) by using {% condition %} instead of the more familiar {% condition filter_name %} or {% condition view_name.filter_name %} syntax.Note 2: The same behavior displayed above would be achieved by including the templated filter reference (but this time fully scoped) in the sql_always_where: at the explore level. i.e.: This content is subject to limited support.

fernanda.meloLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Create connection API - generate Base64 encoded certificateKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 11, 2019 When creating a new connection using the create_connection(body) API you need to pass the certificate body for server authentication.To create this string you can run in a terminal the following command line:cat yourjsonfile.json | base64ORcat yourp12file.p12 | base64Wrap the result in quotes and use that as the value for certificate.For BigQuery certificate (string): (Write-Only) Base64 encoded Certificate body for server authentication (when appropriate for dialect).,file_type (string): (Write-Only) Certificate keyfile type - .json or .p12,--> you don't give a filename to the API to upload, you have to put the content of the file into the API request as a Base64 encoded string value This content is subject to limited support.

MorganLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Unexpected WITH near XXXKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Dec 1, 2020 This is one example of an error you can get by using a CTE in a derived table. See this post for more info.More examples:BigQuery:Syntax Error: Expected \"(\" or keyword SELECT but got keyword WITH at... This content is subject to limited support.

maxcorbinLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How long do async query results last for?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 12, 2018 If Instant Dashboards are enabled, then async query results are kept for 30 days.Otherwise, the default time-to-live (TTL) for an async query result set is 5 minutes. This can be changed by setting the --async-results-cache-time startup flag to the number of seconds that results should stay in cache:--async-results-cache-time=3600# set result TTL to 1 hour This content is subject to limited support.

samLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why aren't my new LDAP/SAML Users Showing up in Looker?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 2019 Those users still need to log in. Looker does not automatically create their account when they get added in the LDAP/SAML application. Rather, Looker creates the users when they first authenticate into Looker.Reference the Docs for: SAML, LDAP, Google Auth and OpenID. This content is subject to limited support.

jonathonLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What LookML parameters take liquid output and tags?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 14, 2020 It can work with various parameters as below:A = Works with the action parameterDV = Works with the default_value (for dashboards) parameterDE = Works with the description parameter at the field level, but will not work with description at the Explore levelF = Works with the filters (for dashboard elements) parameterH = Works with the html parameterLA = Works with the label parameters at the field level, including the label parameter, view_label parameter, group_label parameter, and group_item_label parameter, but will not work with label parameters at the model, Explore, view, or reference line level, or with label as a subparameter of linkLI = Works with the link parameterS = Works with all LookML parameters that begin with sql (e.g. sql, sql_on, and sql_table_name)You can reference this doc to determine the allowed usage: https://docs.looker.com/reference/liquid-variables#liquid_variable_definitions This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Are Trash and Unused Content spaces only available to Admins?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: Jan 21, 2019 Yes, only Admin users will be able to see the Trash and Unused Content Spaces/folders.Here are the docs for further reading. This content is subject to limited support.

mandy.chanLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why is liquid not working with fiscal timeframes?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 20, 2020 Check if you're using ._value vs ._rendered_value.Looker isn't able to output a date in the fiscal format without string formatting. For example, Looker will generate SQL to return 2020-12 and then on the front end, turn it into a string like so: FY2020-Q4. If we use ._rendered_value, it'll grab the value after front-end formatting. This content is subject to limited support.

vishal.dharmadhikariLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Error in logs: `Java::OrgPostgresqlUtil::PSQLException : This connection has been closed`Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 17, 2010 Possible reasons for seeing this error message include:The connection between Looker and the DB closed before the query could finish executing (timeout error) There could be a "networking" component involved that's forcing the connection between Looker and the database to close after a certain amount of time. This usually is in the forms of either a "proxy" or a "load balancer" that's in front of our database. Usually, if there is a networking component involved with this behavior, there is a consistent amount of time before our connection to the database get's closed off (i.e it's always 60 seconds). This content is subject to limited support.

romain.ducarrougeLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why is there 2 / in the SSO embed url? ( like /login/embed//embed OR company.looker.com//login/embed)Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 3, 2021 /login/embed//embedThis is normal!With our scripts we end up with: https://your_company.looker.com/login/embed//embed encoded version:https://your_company.looker.com/login/embed/%2Fembed instead of:https://your_company.looker.com/login/embed/embed The path is /login/embed/ (that is the route that the server is responding to) the first URL parameter for that route is the target_url (which needs to be url encoded).The first slash separates the /login/embed from the target url and the second is part of the target url.So you can think of it like this:/login/embed/<target_url> where the target url is /embed/dashboards (but url encoded)If you omitted the first one, you wouldn’t be able to log in (because the /login/embed%2Fembed%2Fdashboards route doesn’t exist. And if you omitted the second one (`%2F`) you would successfully log in but when you got redirected after login, you’d go to https://your_company.comembed/dashboards which ALSO wouldn’t work (because `

rufusLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What happens if every recipient of a schedule clicks unsubscribe?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 22, 2021 The last recipient will be prompted with a message indicating that unsubscribing from the schedule will delete it and ask for confirmation.The schedule will then be deleted if you click OK. This content is subject to limited support.

maxcorbinLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

URI (Universal Resource Identifier) for Looker embedKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jul 3, 2018 A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is a string of characters used to identify a resource within a network of computers, such as the World Wide Web. A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is a kind of URI that also implies the means for retrieving the referenced resource.A URI takes the following generalized form:scheme:[//[user:password@]host[:port]][/]path[?query][#fragment]You can read more about the components of the generalized form here, but for Looker URLs we can pare this down to something more specific:scheme://host[:port]/path[?query]If your path or query strings contain special characters like '/' or '?', you'll need to percent-encode them so that they won't be confused with URI syntax elements. For example, '/' turns into '%2F' and '?' turns into '%3F'. You can easily encode and decode URLs with simple online tools, like this one. This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What happens when you clear cache & refresh on a clustered instance?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 19, 2017 First things first: See this post for information on clustered instance caching behavior.If you clear cache and refresh a query that happens to be cached on node A, Looker will make sure to clear cache on node B so that queries run on that node don't pull from cache. This content is subject to limited support.

david.chiaramonteLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I start Looker with java -jar looker.jar start?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 5, 2019 You can but it doesn't mean you should. Using java -jar looker.jar start instead of our startup scripts in our docs means that the Looker process boots with Java's default memory allocation. And Java's memory allocation is much smaller than what we recommend in our docs. Because of this, the Looker process can crash and yield 502 errors with:NoMethodError : undefined method `exception' for java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: GC overhead limit exceeded:Java::JavaLang::OutOfMemoryErrormessages in the logs. For best results, always recommend using the startup scripts! This content is subject to limited support.

molly.lippsettLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why does production code not match dev after pushing to production (dev says up to date)?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: May 6, 2019If the project is set up to use Pull/Merge requests, we need to set up the deploy webhook to trigger when pull requests are accepted.More Resources:Help CenterDoc This content is subject to limited support.

adina.katzLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Does adding the always_filter parameter affect all looks and tiles previously created?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 14, 2018 Yes.Adding always_filter to an existing explore definition adds the set of filters with the default values to any Looks, Explores, or dashboard tiles based on that explore, including previously saved Looks and dashboard tiles that are based on the explore.What this means is:You can have a LookML filter for California Usersexplore: users {label: "users_california"always_filter: {filters: {field: statevalue: "California" } }}But, if you have a filter for "Texas" in the dashboard it will change to a "Texas" Filter.Fun Fact, Exploring from Tile will have "Texas" filter, editing tile will have "California" FilterDocs: https://docs.looker.com/reference/explore-params/always_filter This content is subject to limited support.

samLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why would i__looker/System Activity report a null user?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 11, 2020 This means that a user isn't tied to the record or process. One example of this is the PDT regenerator process.If you're using the History explore, check the history message, which might tell you more about this "user". This content is subject to limited support.

samLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why would you see "This project has undeployed changes, but you do not have permission to deploy"?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 14, 2020 This message usually means that the Looker user lacks the deploy permission on this model.If it's an Admin user with all permissions, this indicates a permission problem on the repo side. Run the git connection test to validate if this is the case. If so, try resetting the Git connection and making sure to give the deploy key write access, or if using HTTPS, make sure the credentials used have access. This content is subject to limited support.

srinija.godavarthiLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Hiding folders in the IDEKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 17, 2020 There's currently no way to hide folders in the IDE, but a workaround is to "tag" the current version on github, and then delete the files, then if you want to see the old files you could navigate to the tag.https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18216991/create-a-tag-in-a-github-repositoryOnce you have a tag, called for example "last-rev-with-old-lookml" then you can look at the files a https://github.com/ACCOUNT/REPO/tree/last-rev-with-old-lookml so you could bookmark that and keep it as a reference for example. This content is subject to limited support.

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