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Previously internal product knowledge now available for you to explore!

  • 1,744 Topics
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1744 Topics

Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I use the IN operator in table calcs or custom fields?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: May 3, 2019 This is a feature request: https://feedback.us.pendo.io/app/#/case/17680  Workarounds Custom FieldsYou can do it with the matches_filter function in custom fields, which basically lets you replicate a "matches advanced" filter string.matches_filter(${view_name.field_name}, `string1,string2,...`) Table CalculationsTry this:contains(concat("California~", "Alabama~", "Alaska~", "Hawaii"),${users.state}) position(concat(list("Value1", "Value2", "Value3"), ","), ${view.field_name})>0  This content is subject to limited support.                  

4340
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can you use the field value as the else in a CASE?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 7, 2019 No, not in the Looker Case-When statement!However, you can accomplish this in the sql parameter with a CASE WHEN statement.Example:dimension: country_bucketed {type: stringsql: CASE WHEN ${country} = 'United States'THEN 'United States of America'ELSE ${country}END;; } Note: If you leave out the "else" condition with a Looker case parameter, Looker will bucket everything else as a null This content is subject to limited support.                 

4770
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can you do nested if in liquid?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 21, 2019 Yes! Source though it may be less confusing if move one of the conditions into a new field like a yesno {% if template == "index" or template == "page" %}{% assign correct_template = true %}{% endif %}{% if correct_template and settings.slideshow_enabled %}<div class="container main content">...</div>{% endif %} This content is subject to limited support.                 

8720
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can non-admins sudo as an admin?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: May 29, 2019 No. Non-admins can be granted the sudo permission but they will not be able to sudo as a user who has the administrator role.These non-admin users will simply not see an option to sudo in the users panel for admin roles.From the docs:Users can sudo (in other words, act as and temporarily inherit the permissions of) another user by clicking the Sudo button on the Users page.The sudo permission does not allow a non-admin to sudo as an admin, but a non-admin could potentially escalate their privileges by using sudo, so exercise caution. This content is subject to limited support.                 

1420
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

There was a problem running the queryKnowledge Drop

Last Tested: Oct 8, 2019This is a super generic error so you'll need to do more digging. However, these questions should get you started in determining why this is happening.if you haven't already done so, confirm where you are seeing this error. We've had it reported from Explore pages and Merged Results, but other cases could exist. Are there any console errors in the developer panel in the browser? Does the query fail with this message every time? If you change the query does the error still show up? If you open this same query in Sql Runner does it return results? Find the query that failed with this message in the queries panel and click "details", what does it say there?  This content is subject to limited support.                  

11030
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I get a dropdown menu for my filter?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 6, 2019 Yes, you can! If a dimension has a case: parameter (see this link), filtering off that dimension will produce a dropdown menu like this:NOtesThere needs to be at least three distinct labels that the dimension can output in order to get the "+" symbol next to the filter. Otherwise your filter looks like this: You will not be able to have an empty value in the filter. The filter is either on (selected) or off (not selected). This content is subject to limited support.                 

8110
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How can I fix broken tiles on a lookless dashboard without the content validator?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 21, 2019 1) Go to the broken dashboard, select 'Get Dashboard LookML' from the gear icon2)) Grab the LookML.3) Paste the LookML into a new dashboard in the model4) Update the LookML to correct any renamed objects (dimensions, measures, models, filters, etc.)5) Navigate to the LookML Dashboards space and open the dashboard6) Use 'import to space' to re-create a new UDD with the fixes applied. This content is subject to limited support.                  

680
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

If a LookML dashboard uses explores from two or more models, do you need to include that dashboard in all of those models?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: Jul 16, 2020 No, you do not - a LookML dashboard only needs to be included in a single model to be viewable.Note, however, that the dashboard filters of a LookML do not have a way of denoting model. In other words, if Model A is the model including your LookML Dashboard, all dashboard filters of type: field_filter must reference fields that are in Model A.Workarounds:Change the filter type to not be field_filter (for example to type Date, Number, or String). Note that with this option, filter suggestions will not populate because filter suggestions require filter to be type: field. Get rid of all dashboard filters that reference the model you are not including the dashboard on. This content is subject to limited support.                 

3740
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Dynamic rolling week bucketsKnowledge Drop

Last Tested: Mar 6, 2019 Objective:To compare data over a dynamic 7 day timeframe/buckets(For example if today is 15th March, the 7 day bucket is from 8thMarch-14th March, next bucket is from 1st March - 7th March etc for the entire dataWhy:Sometimes you want to do a complete 7 days(excluding today) vs previous 7 day analysis of sales.Currently when we use 'week' timeframe in the dimension_group, it is based on the default 'week-start-date'. And there is not a way to change the week-start-date dynamically to 'yesterday' everydayHow:This can be accomplished by creating a new dimension using some hacky sql within it.So here, we are taking -1th day(Yesterday) for 8days (using interval) (-1+8=7days) and that puts in this specific date across all rows. This dimension can then be selected in our explores for dynamic grouping.dimension: adjusted_week_dimension {type: stringdatatype: datetimesql: TO_CHAR(DATE_TRUNC('week', (created_date )::timestamptz AT TIME ZONE 'America/Los_Angeles'-((EXTRA

4260
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What is the differences between label and view_label?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: May 10, 2018 The label attribute will change how the field is displayed when you explore it, or have it in a dashboard.The view_label attribute will change the view that references it. It's a really way to re-group things, especially if you've got a few different types of fact tables involved.For example if we have a LookML field user_facts.number_of_users:Giving it a "label" of 'count' will make it display as USER FACTS Count. Giving it a "view_label" of 'users' will make it display as USERS Number Of Users (and it'll also be grouped under users in the field picker)   If you do both, you've got USERS Count You can find more information about this in this community article! This content is subject to limited support.                 

1060
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I have several LookML projects in the same GitHub repo?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: Dec 27, 2018 Yes you can, but is not recommended.Best practice is one repo per project always. Otherwise you have multiple projects updating one repo, that can mess with the code a fair bit if not set correctly. If the project is set up to be read-only on one project, that is an exception. This content is subject to limited support.                  

2630
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can Looker support large custom map layers?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 23, 2019 You bet! Even though you probably don't want to load a topoJSON larger than 5mb directly into the IDE (or the browser), there's a straightforward way to utilize large map layers in Looker, only downloading the bits you need at any given time to keep things manageable.Procedure is outlined here:  This content is subject to limited support.                  

690
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Perform Merge on already existing explores (query IDs)Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: Feb 7, 2020 ProblemSometimes, we have a few explores already created and then realize that we want to merge them together. Thankfully, we can follow this hack and get the merge results quickly, without having to recreate the explores in the merge modal.SolutionThe below URL is the form you want.https://[LOOKER_HOSTNAME]/merge?qids%5B%5D=[QID1]&qids%5B%5D=[QID2]Replace [LOOKER_HOSTNAME] with your base Looker URL, such as mycompany.looker.com Replace [QID1] with the first query you'd like to merge on. Replace [QID2] with the second query you'd like to merge on.Got More Queries?To add additional queries to the merge, continue the pattern. That is, add &qids%5B%5D=[QIDX] to the end of the URL.The Automated SolutionSo now we know that we can make a merged result by piecing together the merge URL manually using individual query IDs. But, is there a faster way to do this?Yes! We can use @izzy’s Merge Monster: http://merge.monster/. Merge Monster is a tool that lets you sa

5100
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Converting seconds to mm:ss formatKnowledge Drop

Last Tested: Jul 8, 2020 Objective:Imagine we have time value in seconds and we want to display as mm:ss in the front end. For instance, 123 seconds should be 2.03. We can do this using Liquid!Example: Here, we are assuming that we have 123 seconds.html: {% assign seconds=value | modulo: 60 %} {{ value | divided_by: 60 | floor }}:{% if seconds < 10 %}0{% endif %}{{ seconds }} ;;  Here, we are first assigning the variable seconds to our value.Then, in the first part for "minutes", before the colon, we are taking the floor of given value (for eg: 123/60=2).In the second part for "seconds", after the colon, since we've assigned our value to seconds, we are then taking the modulo of the value (for eg: 123 mod 60=3)The tricky part here is that we want the final output to show 2.03 rather than 2.3, and this needs to be done for all the seconds that are less than 10. So, to incorporate this logic, we have used ':{% if seconds < 10 %}0{% endif %}{{ seconds }}', which says that if seconds

4270
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How do I use extends with dimension groups?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jul 29, 2019 In general, extends will bring through all of the base view field's parameters for a field with the same name in the extending view. However, dimension groups are unique in that they generate field names that are different from the actual name of the dimension group (a dimension group called "created" will generate "created_time", "created_date", etc.). Therefore, if you want to override the timeframes parameter in the dimension group of an extending view, you'll need to re-specify type: time in the extending dimension group, even if it's already specified in the base dimension group, because type: time is what actually tells dimension groups to generate these field names. Example: This will not override the timeframes in the created dimension_group in test1.view: test2 {extends: [test1]dimension_group: created {timeframes: [month, year]}} This WILL override the timeframes in the created dimension_group in test1:view: test2 {extends: [test1]dimension_group: cr

1350
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How do I put line breaks for a long URL or other string in LookML without interrupting the string?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 6, 2019 Use the {% comment %} tag:dimension: test_link {sql: '1' ;;link: {label: "test google with line break"url:"https://google{% comment %}{% endcomment %}.{% comment %}{% endcomment %}com"}}Note that line breaks just add %20 into the URL so this would only be necessary if that will cause a problem in the link. This content is subject to limited support.                  

5040
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How can I get an entire dashboard to scroll horizontally instead of vertically?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 1, 2020 Because user-defined dashboard are always created using the newspaper layout, there is a limit to how many elements you can fit horizontally. Therefore, the trick is to use layout: static for the LookML dashboard so that you can define the dashboard width and element width yourself: https://docs.looker.com/reference/dashboard-reference#layoutExample:- dashboard: test_wide_2title: Test Wide 2layout: staticwidth: 5000tile_size: 100elements:- name: hello_worldtype: textheight: 2width: 10top: 0left: 0title_text: "very wide"- name: hello_world2type: textheight: 2width: 10top: 0left: 10title_text: "very wide2"- name: hello_world3type: textheight: 2width: 10top: 0left: 20title_text: "very wide3" This content is subject to limited support.                   

1310
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why am I seeing Deploy Failed JGIT FetchCommand failed: unknown host?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: Jul 3, 2018 There are a couple of possibilities:The Looker server can't resolve the name for the git service host. The Looker server can't connect to the git service host via ssh. Use Test Connection to get more information about which step in the connection the error is coming from. This content is subject to limited support.                

780
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why am I getting a warning for the explore or field parameter in my LookML dashboard filter?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: Jan 21, 2019 The explore parameter is a valid parameter only for type: field_filter LookML dashboard filters. Like a UDD field type filter, this is the only filter type that queries a field in an explore to pull suggestions from—all other filter types do not need to query a field.This throws a warning:filters:- name: order_datetype: date_filterexplore: ordersfield: orders.order_date This does not throw a warning:filters:- name: order_datetype: field_filterexplore: ordersfield: orders.order_dateYou can reference these docs for more information. This content is subject to limited support.                 

460
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

In a table calculation, how do I fill all of the null values of a column with the last non-null value of that column before the current row?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: Jan 21, 2019 index(${calculation_1}, max(offset_list(if(is_null(${calculation_1}), null, row()), -1 * row() + 1, row()))) There are a few steps in this formula:Get the row number for each non-null row using the row() function Use offset_list to get a list of all of those row numbers from the first row to the current row Take the max of that list of values, which will be the row number of the last non-null row Use the index function to get the value of the field for that row number  This content is subject to limited support.                 

21860
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Does SQL Runner use cache?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: Aug 30, 2018 No, it doesn't. While explores, looks, and dashboards may use cache, SQL Runner executes the query directly against the database.If it looks like SQL Runner is caching, check to make sure that it isn't the database doing that. Some databases such as Redshift may be doing result caching. This content is subject to limited support.                 

590
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Is it possible to merge two Looks, instead of two explores?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: Mar 15, 2021It is not currently possible to merge saved Looks directly, but there is a feature request here which you can vote on. This content is subject to limited support.                 

750
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I have a filtered measure of type number?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 6, 2019 No. Cite Docs.ExplanationThe filter for a filtered measure has to be applied prior to the aggregation. For a number type measure, the aggregation has already been done in the other measures it is referencing in the sql parameter, so there's no way to apply the filter.For most use cases, you can just use filters in the other measures that your number type measure is referencing, per the doc. One exception to this is a max or min on a date field, where the aggregation must be done in the sql parameter.WorkaroundsUse CASE WHEN inside the measure to emulate filtering. The below example is a MAX of created_date which is filtering on the field status having the value complete :MAX(CASE WHEN status = 'complete' THEN created_date ELSE NULL END) Perform the filtering in other measures that are not of type number.measure: count_complete { type: count filters: { field: status value: "complete" } } measure: count_total { type: count } measure: percent_complete { type: numb

6280
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Some Useful Looker Keyboard Shortcut TipsKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 20, 2019 Some keyboard shortcuts, hidden functionality, and buttons you didn't know exist!Find the last query you ran: Click your account in the top right of the instance > History > click on any of those to re-open the query! Click the i in the field picker to open up an awesome info menu that saves you going into LookML. To sort by multiple columns, Shift + Click on the headers. On a chart with lots of series, Option + click the Series in the legend to select only that one! This content is subject to limited support.                  

2290
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Folding LookML (Collapsing code)Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: Jan 21, 2019 LookML can be folded with the little arrows next to the row number of a specific dimension or measure. It can also be done via the settings of the LookML file. The following link has detailed instructions on how to use folding.https://docs.looker.com/data-modeling/getting-started/lookml-validation#foldingOnly bracketed LookML blocks will be collapsible by default, but it is possible to make any block of code collapsible by using brackets inside comments, as described here. Example:# my long list of dimensions { dimension: user_id {description: "Unique ID for each user that has ordered" # ... (lots more LookML) ... sql: ${TABLE}.most_recent_purchase_at ;;}# } / my long list of dimensions This content is subject to limited support.                  

3670
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago

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