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Technical Tips & Tricks

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

Who is the user Testy McTestFace and where did they come from?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 13, 2020 This user is the default option for Fabio's SSO Embed tool. https://fabio-looker.github.io/looker_sso_tool/This user can be created by anyone with the Embed secret found in admin/embed. Further Reading: Testy's Origin Story: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/world/europe/boaty-mcboatface-what-you-get-when-you-let-the-internet-decide.amp.html This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

System Activity History: Result source is "stale_cache"Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 28, 2020 If the value for the History table's Result Source field is "stale_cache", this can be the result of an instant dashboard. When instant dashboards are turned on, the results can return from a cache that has expired (aka "stale" cache).The dashboard should rerun when this happens. This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can we define a view: parameter within a Model file? An explore: within a View file?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 28, 2021 This is technically possible, but we recommend against it, mainly for readability and organizational purposes. There are very few instances where it would be recommended/preferable to do this.You can technically define any object you want inside any file. The LookML parser starts at a model file, and then prepends the model file with any files in include: statements, making one "giant file". So, in this way, it doesn't really matter which file view or explore objects are defined in.For best practices, it is much cleaner to keep all explores inside model files, to keep view objects inside view files, and to only define one view per view file. You may encounter atypical types of modeling either in discourse examples, like this one, where we give an example like this:connection: "bigquery_publicdata_standard_sql" explore: persons {join: persons_cities_lived {....join: persons_phone_number {.....}} view: persons {} view: persons_cities_lived {....} view: persons_p

romain.ducarrougeLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

SQL RUNNER & DATABASE (HowTo): Create Schema in SQL RunnerKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 23, 2018 It is possible to create a new schema in the database by sending the command from SQL Runnereg: CREATE SCHEMA schema_name ; (Redshift syntax)⚠️ One thing to know is that the schema may not appear in the system after the creation until a table is added to the schema! ⚠️ User must also have CREATE permission on db http://docs.aws.amazon.com/redshift/latest/dg/r_GRANT.html This content is subject to limited support.

molly.lippsettLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Does "Merge by Email" overwrite a SAML credential if one already exists?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 13, 2019No - "Merge by Email" triggers if and only if an existing account with a matching saml_user_id doesn't already exist This content is subject to limited support.

molly.lippsettLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What is the `POST webhooks/projects/[project]/deploy` call I see in logs?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 29, 2020This is the call Looker makes when creating and pushing a new branch This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can non-admins have certain admin privileges? System Activity, PDT panel, queries, logs, etc.Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 21, 2019 Currently, the only admin privileges you can give to non-admins are:see_queriessee_logssee_userssudosee_schedulessee_pdtssee_datagroupsupdate_datagroupssee_system_activity (new as of 5.20)(from permissions list)It's not currently possible for non-admins to:manage authentication systems manage actions in the Action Hub create or edit users edit/test connections from the Admin panel 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

Why are my stacked column series not maintaining a constant series order from low to high?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 26, 2018 Most likely you have chosen the Series Order option from the main EDIT > Plot menu. When using Stacked or Stacked Percentage plot (either column or bar), you have the choice to use:Default Descending AscendingDefault will maintain the constant series order for each column/bar. But Descending/Ascending will order each column from low to high or vice-versa. So you could see Series A at the top of one column but at the bottom of another column.More details on our Chart Options in our Documentation here. This content is subject to limited support.

samLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Does Content Validator check all content, regardless of access?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 2020 No. The Content Validator only checks the content that the user who runs it has access to.This means that a developer might break someone else's content, and the Content Validator would not complain for them.For this reason, we recommend that an Admin be the one to run the Content Validator to make sure that they can catch everything. You might build this into a PR process where the Admin switches to the the developer's branch (rather than sudo and assume their permissions) and then run the Content Validator before approving the PR. This content is subject to limited support.

jamesnestlerLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Migrating Repos: Will 'reset Git connection' preserve all branches?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 9, 2020 Yes and No.On the remote repo: Only the prod branch and the branch that makes the initial commit will be preserved. From there, other developers should make a commit from their dev branch or you should follow the Advanced Solution outlined here to preserve all branches.In the local Looker repo: All branches are preserved, but will not be automatically all be pushed to the new remote. This content is subject to limited support.

david.chiaramonteLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How do I break and change a field reference for a single explore?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 20, 2019 Will the break-the-field-reference-to-find-and-replace-in-Content-Validator method not work for your use case because we want to change specific content in specific explores? Try adding a fields parameter like:fields: [ALL_FIELDS*,-view_name.field_name_we_want_to_break] This will surface "Unknown field" errors in the Content Validator, but only for the specific explores you break (as opposed to breaking the field reference in the view file and having the reference break everywhere). This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I use a '_' in my folder name?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 27, 2020 You most certainly can. There is a possibility you will see this error:include: references a project '_foldername' not in the manifest for 'projectname' The folder name with the '_' possibly contains a model and view files. If you try to include each view file by name, you may see this error. To ensure that you no longer see the error, include all views with wildcard characters. include: "*.view" This content is subject to limited support.

mandy.chanLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What happens when we have from and view_name together?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 21, 2019 When you use from and view_name together, from tells Looker what view to actually pull from and view_name can literally be anything. (per Paola)So for example, say we have something like this:explore: extension_hidden { extension: required view_name: any_name_that_i_want join: products { sql_on: ${products.id} = ${any_name_that_i_want.id} ;; type: left_outer relationship: one_to_one }} explore: order_items_3 { extends: [extension_hidden] from: orders} The SQL generated in the UI will look like this:SELECT any_name_that_i_want.id AS `any_name_that_i_want.id`,products.brand AS `products.brand`FROM demo_db.orders AS any_name_that_i_wantLEFT JOIN demo_db.products AS products ON products.id = any_name_that_i_want.id This content is subject to limited support.

Kento_TomineCommunity Admin

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can we automatically select previous year based on user input filter value?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 28, 2021 Yes! I believe there are other way to do, but I hope it can be useful! ( BigQuery StandardSQL)At high level, we want to use sql_always_where parameter with Liquid Parameter to achieve this:STEP 1Add an unquoted type parameter field in your visualization:view: view_name {...parameter: base_year {type: unquoted}} STEP2Add a sql_always_where parameter in your Explore. In a sql_always_where parameter, we want to use Liquid parameter to define BETWEEN condition based on user input (parameter filter value):explore: explore_name {sql_always_where:cast(${view_name.year_from_dimension_group} as int64) -- target fieldbetween({% parameter view_name.base_year %} - 1) -- filter value - 1and {% parameter view_name.base_year %} -- filter value;;} This content is subject to limited support.

molly.lippsettLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What could cause the "condition" field to be blank in an alert?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 12, 2020This can happen when you create an alert on a field in a pivot and the value becomes null - since there isn't a value for the pivot column, Looker treats it as if it never existed. The pivot columns are purely based on data and not defined in LookML or the DB itself, so if it's not in the results, we don't know about it.We can fix this issue by not limiting the data to one row, and instead showing a range, so that the pivot data are included. This will allow the alert to still function. This content is subject to limited support.

srinija.godavarthiLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What map geometries are supported?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 12, 2020We support lines and polygons. Points usually come from the db and use our location type This content is subject to limited support.

swhiteLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Datatype parameter for dimension groupKnowledge Drop

Last Tested: Jul 3, 2018 The datatype parameter is a parameter for a dimension_group: of type: time.This parameter tells Looker what datatype to expect coming from the database and consequentially how to transform it into the timeframes you specify in the timeframes: parameter. eg. if the column is an epoch in the database put datatype: epoch.Link to Docs This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why am I seeing "Error: comparison of String with 0 failed" when downloading an XLSX file?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 20, 2018 This was an error that was appearing on release 5.10, that should be fixed in later versions.As a workaround, you can try downloading unformatted results. This content is subject to limited support.

quinn.morrisonLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How are scheduled tasks distributed on a cluster?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 5, 2018 Schedule execution is distributed equally across the cluster. Each node will run the scheduler thread amount (default 10 per node and 2 render tasks per node).For example, if you have a 3 node cluster with default settings, you can have 30 concurrent schedules (assuming none were rendered tasks) or 6 concurrent schedules (if they are rendered tasks). You can change default scheduler thread and render job limit with startup flags on Looker. This content is subject to limited support.

maxcorbinLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Error: Misconfigured proxy in front of your Looker serverKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 7, 2018 ErrorThere appears to be a misconfigured proxy in front of your Looker server. HTTP DELETE to Looker are failing.HTTP PATCH to Looker are failing.HTTP PUT to Looker are failing.HTTP POST to Looker are failing. Possible SolutionCheck to see if you have the ublock origin browser extension. This can cause problems with Looker. This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can you limit the number of accounts that can login to Looker if you are using Google Authentication?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: Jul 3, 2018No, you cant. If you are using Google authentication, then anyone with a Google account in that domain will be able to create a user in Looker.However, if you set up authentication so that the default user role is empty, then they will have to be explicitly given permissions to do anything in Looker, they will just get an empty home page. This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What is the schemas option used for in the "New LookML Projects" page?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 12, 2017 Since creating new projects generates LookML files, the schemas option declares which schemas to generate files from.If you have 2 schemas you want to generate files from, you'd enter them in comma separated format (i.e. schemaone, schematwo) in that field If you leave it blank, LookML files are generated using the default schema, which is listed as the database in the connection settings. This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Is it possible to open Product Ideas? in a new tab/window from Looker?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 31, 2020 At this time NO - the Pendo team looked into this but it's a bit difficult because of how the access token behavesThe workaround/workflow would be to open Looker in another tab to then access Product ideas This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Getting this Google Cloud Storage error: "Couldn't load form..."Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 29, 2018 Couldn't load form: Could not send webhook to "https://actions.looker.com/actions/google_cloud_storage/form". {"success":false,"error":"Internal server error."} (Webhook ID: cd0aa2cbf1521f77004514fa17f1c51c) This error most likely means that the private_key entered was not copied correctly from the API json output from Google Cloud PlatformSample Output from GCP:Input those as follows: This content is subject to limited support.

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