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Technical Tips & Tricks

Technical Tips & Tricks

Previously internal product knowledge now available for you to explore!

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Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How do I leverage content validator when splitting one model into two?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 18, 2020 You can move the explore into the new model, and those looks will start erroring. Then you can change the model on those looks (since the explore will be erroring, but you can change something besides what is erroring).If a group of looks all have the same error, you can change them all at once.There is a feature request for allowing content validator to work on some subset of Looks. This content is subject to limited support.

mandy.chanLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What happens to embed users if we restrict access to Looker to certain IP addresses?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 30, 2020 This will essentially be a problem.Since IP allowlist will limit incoming traffic from certain IP addresses and the VPN allows all users to come from only 1 IP address, if the embed users aren't using the VPN, they will get blocked by the allowlist rules.At the moment, the workaround is to have two instances, one for embedding and one for Looker users. This content is subject to limited support.

jamesnestlerLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why am I seeing kill_looker_support_sessions in logsKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 24, 2020 This may seem disturbing, but is pretty innocuous.There is task that runs to see if an admin has disabled support access. This is logged as kill_looker_support_sessions and doesn't actually do anything unless support access has actually been disabled. If support access has been disabled, it will log Killing all looker auth sessions. Disabling looker auth access. This content is subject to limited support.

samLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Is there a performance difference between hiding dimensions and deleting them entirely?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 11, 2020 If you don't want to use a given dimension, you have three options:Apply hidden: yes (or exclude the field from a given explore with fields) Comment out the fields in LookML using # Delete the fields from the LookMLAny of these options will help performance in the explore, since they will remove them from the field picker.Hidden fields still have to be validated, so if you're worried about validation, then choose option 2 or 3. Large comment blocks can have impact on validation times, so option 2 is the most performant. This content is subject to limited support.

srinija.godavarthiLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

"There are new commits in at least one of your remote dependencies."Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 3, 2020 if the project manifest has remote dependencies you would need to click update dependencies first. This creates a file that makes sure that the dependencies are up to date.If the remote dependency is updated you will get a new prompt to update your dependencies. This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can a Looker user submit a pull request without a remote git account/login?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 21, 2019 No, in order to submit a pull request via the Looker UI, that user must have their own remote git account.More context: We built a git development environment that separates commits by Looker users. We haven't built out pull requests for this environment, so we use the implementation of the Git service (ie Github), which means you need login credentials to that service. This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Move the custom drill link to the end of the row.Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 3, 2021 This is a great article to show how to do custom drills on a dimension or measure. But if you want to put the links at the end of the row in a table vis rather than associating it to a specific dimension, it's totally doable!First of all, we need to create a new dimension for the link to "live" on. Example below:dimension: links { sql: "link" ; }Then we need to add the links on it. Bear in mind that we cannot use {{value}} here because this dimension doesn't have a meaningful value, but we could totally use {{ view_name.field_name._value }} to grab the value from a selected field on that row. Example below:html: <a href="/looks/305?&f[users.state]={{ users.state._value }}">{{ value }}</a> ;;Now you brought the links to the end of the table vis like below: This content is subject to limited support.

samLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I control the default log creation and rotation?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 13, 2020 By default, for Looker-hosted instances, Looker keeps one running log, at looker/log/looker.log. Every day, it cuts off that log and saves it as a new file with the date in the filename. Then after a week, a script zips up those logs.If you host your own instance, then there is an option in the Admin panel to change the frequency of this log rotation. This content is subject to limited support.

milli.kochLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Where is the "Quick Help", it's missing?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jul 25, 2018 Looker doesn't currently support the Quick Help option when modeling with Old LookML/YAML.Our dashboards are in Old LookML so this means there is no Quick Help when modeling LookML dashboards.You can find dashboard parameter references here: https://docs.looker.com/reference/dashboard-reference This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can you reference environmental variables in Looker DB credential files?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 9, 2018 When creating the DB credentials file for a MySQL backend, you cannot reference environmental variables to substitute for the actual credentials.You must type the credentials in the file as they are. This is because the file is not parsed by the shell, it is read directly by the Looker application.You can lock down the path where the -d flag points as much as you want, and it can even be on an encrypted volume as long as it is accessible to the Looker application. This content is subject to limited support.

david.chiaramonteLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I use "git:" at the beginning of my repository URL?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 14, 2019 In other words, can I have something like:git://github.com/example/repo_name.gitShort answer: Not if you want to write to your repoUsing this pattern creates a read-only connection to the repo. If you are connecting to the repo via this method, go to Step 2 of this section in our git docs where our supported patterns exist. Because git: doesn't use SSH or HTTPS protocol, you won't be able to write to your repo from Looker, and thus will see READ-ONLY next to the branch name in the top left corner of the project IDE. This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can percent_of_total type measures be referenced in number type measures?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 21, 2019 No they cannot: As mentioned here https://docs.looker.com/reference/field-reference/measure-type-reference#percent_of_totalpercent_of_total measures are calculated after data is returned from your database. This means that you should not reference a percent_of_total measure within another measure; since they might be calculated at different times, you may not get accurate results. It also means that percent_of_total measures cannot be filtered on. This content is subject to limited support.

samLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why does`type: min`or `type: max` on a raw time field return NULL?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: March 2021The min and max type only work for numbers. You will want to use a `date` type and do the aggregation in SQL. measure: last_updated_date { type: date sql: MAX(${updated_raw}) convert_tz: no} This content is subject to limited support.

molly.lippsettLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can we set user attribute values temporarily in an API session?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 17, 2020 Not exactly - API calls use the user attributes of whoever's credentials are being used.We can use the set_user_attribute_group_values call to set user attributes, but these will persist past the API session - if you wanted to revert the user attribute values after the session, it would need to be done in another call. This content is subject to limited support.

paolaLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Do public URLs work with access filters?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: Apr 29, 2019 If your Look is dependent on access filters, the public URL will not work. (This includes Google Spreadsheets and Excel imports). This content is subject to limited support.

Judah_HamaouiLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Modularity: The "Building-Block" Approach to LookML DevelopmentKnowledge Drop

Last tested: May 21, 2018 Awesome video on the concepts for building a clean and scalable Looker model: This content is subject to limited support.

samLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Error "Could not find a view named x" when extending a viewKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jul 8, 2017 When extending a view, remember to include the view you're extending.include: "base.view"view: new {extends: [base]} Make sure that the string inside include is the filename (what you see on the list on the left hand side), and that the string inside extends is the actual view name. (The string defined at: view: view_name inside the view file).Extending a view (docs) This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I see user event activity in system activity? For example, seeing which users committed code?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 13, 2020 Yes, we have the /event and /event_attribute explores in system activity. Those explores will have Event Category and Event Names. The event_attribute explore has more robust information on the details of things that were changed.A few example Event Names are below:create_project login create_connection create_dashboard update_dashboard git_commit git_create_branch git_delete_branch create_role update_role create_content_metadata_access delete_content_metadata_accessCheck out this doc to see a comprehensive list of all event types.Here are some examples of cool things you can find:Event Explore use cases Event Attribute Explore use cases This content is subject to limited support.

romain.ducarrougeLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

BIGQUERY (HowTo): PDT Trigger Value for Business Hours (Specific Hours) Rebuild onlyKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 10, 2019 What to use for a sql_trigger_value to cause an hourly rebuild but only during the day (7am to 7 pm in database time) for BigQuery. SELECT IF(EXTRACT(HOUR FROM CURRENT_DATETIME()) BETWEEN 7 AND 19, EXTRACT(HOUR FROM CURRENT_DATETIME()), 0) This content is subject to limited support.

Peggy_BeardMember

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why are there duplicate groups with a 'shadowing saml config group xx' extension after the group name?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 1, 2019The SAML group is appended with the 'shadowing saml config group xx' , which will show up in the Group name in the Looker Admin Groups. When a SAML config is updated, the groups are re-mapped. Each update will increment the XX number. As long as there are members in the prior group (because those users have not logged in again), the group will continue to exist. This content is subject to limited support.

MorganLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Error Starting Looker: Version XX initial fork failed: Cannot allocate memoryKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 24, 2017 This probably means that a Looker instance is already running on this server. Kill the other process then try again! This content is subject to limited support.

romain.ducarrougeLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Quick Start card truncation rulesKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 3, 2020 In Looker v7.18 Explores have added the option to display Quick Start queries, which allow the user to click on these to load pre-defined queries on the explore to get started in there analysis faster.As these Quick Cards can populate the Explore space, they are displayed in card format. These cards contain various items, title and description for example.The rules for truncating the content in these Quick Start cards is as follows:Tool tip only displays if the description needs to be truncated Tile height is determined by the tallest tile (all other tiles inherit this height)Extra rules: All tiles have a maximum and minimum pixel height. Minimum is 115px tall. Maximum is 135px Tall. All tiles have a width of 160px.If you have a title with 1 line, the description can be max 4 lines If you have a title with 2 lines, the description can be a max of 3 lines If you have a title with 3 lines, the description can be max 2 lines If you have a title with 4 lines, the d

andrew.roseLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I enable SSL for a connection to a MySQL internal DB?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 18, 2019If you host your own instance, yes, you can. In the looker-db file that contains information about the MySQL connection, add the line "ssl: true" to enable SSL. This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why am I seeing different values when I have totals turned on then when I don't?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 23, 2019 Since totals require an extra sql query, the query is different then when totals are off and so explores with totals have a different cache then explores without totals. So it could be that results are pulling from two different caches. Try "clear cache and refresh" on both the non-totals explore and the totals explore. This content is subject to limited support.

kevin.dunnLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What does a history status of 'hold' mean?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Dec 18, 2020 It means another query with the same render key (exact same query) is currently running. We use this status to avoid having duplicate queries run against the db, and instead put one on hold so that it can pull from cache after the query successfully runs. This content is subject to limited support.

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