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Technical Tips & Tricks

Previously internal product knowledge now available for you to explore!

  • 1,744 Topics
  • 371 Replies

1744 Topics

sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How are dev branch names generated in Looker?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 27, 2021 It is a random hash per developer, per instance.As of 5.0, you can create and name shared branches as you like, as mentioned in docs This content is subject to limited support.                  

180
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Peggy_Beard
Peggy_BeardMember
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why does my project still have the "Deploy to Production" option when I have enabled pull requestsKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Dec 16, 2020Has the project been deployed to production at least once? The very first deploy can't be via pull request. This content is subject to limited support.                  

180
Peggy_Beard
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can you enable required pull requests for just some users?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 25, 2020Sort of - pull requests are enabled per project, but for all developers on that project. This content is subject to limited support.                  

180
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I use a user ID other than email for logging in to Looker?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 1, 2019 No, the only user ID you can use in Looker is an email. Logging in will always require an email/password combo.If you want to customize your login experience, consider integrating with LDAP or SAML. This content is subject to limited support.                  

180
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
ryan.bouquet
Looker Staff
ryan.bouquetLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I only publish one database view even if the view is in multiple models?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 22, 2020 Yep, using refinements!Instead of applying "publish_as_db_view: yes" in the view itself, instead we will use refinements on the one model we want to build it for. There we refine it like so: view: +pdt_name {derived table: {publish_as_deb_view: yes}} That way, the publish parameter is only applied inside the one model instead of for each model the table is included in This content is subject to limited support.                  

180
ryan.bouquet
Looker Staff
1 year ago
mandy.chan
Looker Staff
mandy.chanLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How to get filter to equal to "any value" when drillingKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 13, 2020 A user has a Look with a default date filter that's not to 'any value'When they drill into it from a dashboard, they want to change the date filter to 'any value' instead of last 7 days.The filter will just be an equal sign, like so:url: "/looks/18?&f[orders.created_date]=&f[products.sku]... This content is subject to limited support.                  

180
mandy.chan
Looker Staff
1 year ago
xin
Looker Staff
xinLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

System activity history explore: More Granular History Created DimensionKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 18, 2020 These can be useful when you have to check history counts in a smaller interval during performance investigation. For this we can create a table calculations that look like the following:Every 10 minutesif(extract_minutes(${history.created_time})<11, "0-10",if(extract_minutes(${history.created_time})<21, "10-20",if(extract_minutes(${history.created_time})<31, "20-30",if(extract_minutes(${history.created_time})<41, "30-40",if(extract_minutes(${history.created_time})<51, "40-50","50-00"))))) Every 5 minutesif(extract_minutes(${history.created_time})<6, 5,if(extract_minutes(${history.created_time})<11, 10,if(extract_minutes(${history.created_time})<16, 15,if(extract_minutes(${history.created_time})<21, 20,if(extract_minutes(${history.created_time})<26, 25, if(extract_minutes(${history.created_time})<31, 30, if(extract_minutes(${history.created_time})<36, 35, if(extract_minutes(${history.created_time})<41, 40, if(extract_minu

180
xin
Looker Staff
1 year ago
A
Looker Staff
adina.katzLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What timeframe is the "Average Build Duration" of a PDT calculated on?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 24, 2019 We only keep data in PDT System Activity explore for 30 days. This means that the "Average Build Duration" only considers the most recent 30 days. This content is subject to limited support.                   

180
A
Looker Staff
1 year ago
xin
Looker Staff
xinLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Action hub admin panel is empty or missing optionsKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 25, 2018If you see there's an empty list, or if an option doesn't appear that you expect to see, click refresh button on the page and see if all the items show up. This content is subject to limited support.                   

180
xin
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

When would my Remote Origin URL start with `ssh://`?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: March 2021  When you're using a non-standard Git port. From git docs:URLs with custom or non-standard git ports can be used with Looker by adding the non-standard port number to the git URL. For example: ssh://git@corporate.git.server.com:22/myorganization/myproject.gitPlease note that you must include the ssh:// for this to work properly. This content is subject to limited support.                

170
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
david.chiaramonte
Looker Staff
david.chiaramonteLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why aren't my embed URLs working when I send them through Slack?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 28, 2019 Sending our embed URLs via Slack causes Slack to ping the URL in an attempt to display a preview. When that fails, the recipient will attempt to hit the embed URL and it won't work because embed URLs are one-time-use, and Slack--in an attempt to preview the content--used that single-use URL.Send it in a code block using the normal ``` https://mycompany.looker.com/embed/.... ```  code block method in Slack to preserve the URLs. This content is subject to limited support.                  

170
david.chiaramonte
Looker Staff
1 year ago
david.chiaramonte
Looker Staff
david.chiaramonteLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What is the chromium_pid_files directory, and why is it empty?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 4, 2019 The chromium_pid_files directory in the looker directory contains any process IDs for actively-running Chromium rendering processes. It is used to kill old processes that were running during a shutdown when Looker is started back up.It's totally fine if this directory is empty, it just means that Looker isn't processing any render jobs currently! This content is subject to limited support.                  

170
david.chiaramonte
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can you have 2 dashboards with the same name?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 25, 2017 You cannot have two dashboards with the same name in the same space.If you try with UDDs, the 2nd version will have (Copy) at the end of the name.If you try with LookML dashboards, you get a validator error and cannot commit the new dashboard. This content is subject to limited support.                  

170
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
chris.seymour
Looker Staff
chris.seymourLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How do I return a specific nested field (subfield) in a response from an interactive API docs call?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 22, 2018 Write the name of the outer block followed by the nested fields desired in parentheses, like this: field(subfield)Example:What about from an Sdk?Example for Ruby scripts:space(447, :fields => 'id, name, looks(id, title), dashboards(id, title)')Note that all of the field names are contained in a comma-separated list in a string. This content is subject to limited support.                   

170
chris.seymour
Looker Staff
1 year ago
margaret.abercrombie
Looker Staff
margaret.abercrombieLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why Can't I Schedule System Activity ExploresKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 28, 2020 The ProblemI gave my user permission to the see System Activity and they have permission to schedule Looks, so why can't they send System Activity data?A SolutionThe user has the see_system_activity permission, but the system_activity model set was not included in the user's model set.This role allows the user to see the System Activity model, but none of the permissions listed apply to the user's access to the System Activity model. Once the System Activity model is added to the model set for the role, the user should be able to schedule System Activity data! This content is subject to limited support.                  

170
margaret.abercrombie
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can Admin users view the rendering queue?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 22, 2017 No, users cannot see the rendering queue.The rendering of PDFs and PNGs is handled by a separate process called Chromium which happens outside of the Looker UI.There is a Feature Request for being able to see rendering queue in the Admin panel. This content is subject to limited support.                   

170
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
A
Looker Staff
adina.katzLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

extension: required and validationKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 30, 2019 The extension: required parameter flags an Explore as requiring extension, which means that the Explore cannot be used on its own. The contents and settings of the Explore will only be used when the Explore is extended using the extends parameter in another Explore.What this means in terms of validation: If there are any validation errors in the base explore then these errors will not surface until the explore is extended and the extended explore inherits the errors. Essentially, there are no errors in the base explore until that explore is extended and we don't resolve the error in the extended explore. This content is subject to limited support.                   

170
A
Looker Staff
1 year ago
kevin.dunn
Looker Staff
kevin.dunnLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can non-administrators manage content for embed users/groups folders?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 25, 2020 No, most users end up managing this content in regular shared folders, and give the embed users access to those shared folders. This content is subject to limited support.                  

170
kevin.dunn
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why is my PDF download missing fields?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 21, 2020Are you in dev mode? Rendering always pulls the prod version of content, so if you created the fields in dev mode and haven't pushed to prod, your render jobs won't have the new fields. This content is subject to limited support.                  

170
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Welcome to Looker link not allowing user to set passwordKnowledge Drop

Last tested: May 19, 2020If a user clicks the "Activate" link on the "Welcome to Looker" user setup email and is brought to the regular login page rather than the setup password page, check if the instance is using email authentication. If another authentication type is being used, Looker will expect that type of login, unless the user also has alternate login credentials This content is subject to limited support.                   

170
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
jamesnestler
Looker Staff
jamesnestlerLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What happens if you delete the Looker jar, while it is running?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 26, 2020 If on Linux:In layman's terms, you're ok. In Linux, files aren't actually deleted if they're still in use. Keep a backup of the jar, just in case, but you should be fine.Per StackOverflow:a file isn't really deleted until all applications that have it opened close it. The file will be gone from the directory listing, but it still exists and can be read (and even written!) by any application with a valid file descriptor open.Per Micah:When you "rm looker.jar", the kernel is ultimately unlinking that filename from the disk block. The running looker process will have already mapped the file into memory and will still have a reference to it This content is subject to limited support.                  

170
jamesnestler
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sarah.tayeri
Looker Staff
sarah.tayeriLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why do we truncate internal db tables?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 22, 2021 Since new rows are constantly being added to tables in the internal db, it’s no surprise that the tables can grow to be unmanageably large quite quickly. Since the the internal db tables are also constantly being queried, it benefits us to keep the tables at a manageable size in order to maintain optimal performance. That’s why we prune some tables accessible via system activity. Certain tables are pruned based on the number of rows in the table, while other tables are pruned based on the number of historical days that the data represents. This content is subject to limited support.                  

170
sarah.tayeri
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Table calculation for time difference accounting for negativesKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 1, 2020 The general logic here is, if the time diff is negative, then build own results using diff_minutes/diff_seconds, otherwise; do the calculation.if(${history.created_time}<${history.completed_time},concat("-",ceiling(diff_minutes(${history.created_time},${history.completed_time})/60), ":", abs(mod(diff_seconds(${history.created_time},${history.completed_time}),60))),to_string(${history.completed_time})) This content is subject to limited support.                  

170
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

In what order does the PDT regenerator check trigger values?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: April 2021 The regenerator checks PDT triggers in a completely arbitrary order. The only rule is that if there are table dependencies, then the regenerator will check in order of those dependencies.What's a dependency?If Table A references Table B in its SQL, then we call that a dependency. For example:view: table_A { derived_table { sql: SELECT * FROM ${table_B.SQL_TABLE_NAME} ;; …This content is subject to limited support.                   

170
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why are my Two Factor (2FA) codes not being accepted?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 18, 2018 This is most commonly caused by the time on your phone and the time on Looker being out of sync. Try changing your phone time to **Automatic** or increasing the Drift time in the Looker 2FA panel. This is discussed in the setup doc.In the past, increasing drift time to '210' has worked This content is subject to limited support.                  

170
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago

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