Looker Connect Training

Help Center

Documentation

Community

Cloud Certifications

Technical Tips & Tricks

Previously internal product knowledge now available for you to explore!

  • 1,744 Topics
  • 371 Replies

1744 Topics

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

My custom TopoJSON is freezing my browser! What do I do?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 13, 2020Check the filesize of the TopoJSON. We recommend a 2MB or less file. Sites like mapshaper.org can help with cutting filesize, by reducing the number of shapes. 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

How do I change the user that appears on the Pull Request emails?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 14, 2020 If you're connecting via HTTPS, this will be tied to the credentials entered for that connection. Either reset the Git connection with different credentials or take advantage of user attributes to allow multiple credentials.If you're connecting via SSH, the user on the pull request emails will be the user that initially put the deploy key into the repo from Looker. It's a repo side user, not a Looker user. This post has more context on why our PR system works that way.So, to change that user, you'll need to delete the deploy key on the repo side, then reset the Git connection in Looker. The user that puts in the deploy key will be the user that shows up on those emails. This content is subject to limited support.                  

160
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
quinn.morrison
Looker Staff
quinn.morrisonLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Is there a way to tell the difference between a devmode PDT and a production PDT from looking at `looker_scratch`?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Dec 18, 2017 There isn't, but dev mode PDTs will not appear in the Admin > PDTs panel. So you could cross reference that list with the tables in the scratch schema This content is subject to limited support.                  

160
quinn.morrison
Looker Staff
1 year ago
noah.kawasaki
Looker Staff
noah.kawasakiLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I set the caching policy for an individual Look or Dashboard?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 24, 2018 No, currently you can set the persist_for parameter for the model and explore level.There is a feature request open for votes for more granular caching settings This content is subject to limited support.                   

160
noah.kawasaki
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What does a bad cron string look like in logs?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 3, 2018You will see something like: ArgumentError::Bad Vixie-style specification /10 This content is subject to limited support.                  

160
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
noahmac
Looker Staff
noahmacLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Network Requirements for Instances Connecting to MarketplaceKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 22, 2020 These are our network requirements for instances connecting to our Marketplace backend:• HTTPS port 443 should be open or able to access https://marketplace-api.looker.com• SSH port 22 should be open or able to access https://github.com• GIT port 9418 should be open or able to access https://github.comYou should be able to access the content you're interested in after adjusting these rules. This content is subject to limited support.                 

160
noahmac
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Lan
Looker Staff
LanLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Pending File Branch pop up - GitKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 14, 2021 That message indicates that you need to save and commit your changes before switching branches if you haven't done yet."Pending Files Branch": {"value": "Please save and commit your changes before creating or switching branches." } This content is subject to limited support.                  

160
Lan
Looker Staff
1 year ago
A
Looker Staff
adina.katzLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Does a change to a parent PDT cause child PDTs to rebuild?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 30, 2019 Yes. When there is a change to the parent PDT, the child PDTs hash changes and will rebuild with the reason "initial creation". This content is subject to limited support.                   

160
A
Looker Staff
1 year ago
kevin.dunn
Looker Staff
kevin.dunnLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why is the PDT Event Log - Action Data column null?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 26, 2020 If pdt_event_log.action is like 'trigger%', 'regenerate%', 'reap%', that row is deleted after 5 days. But if the pdt_event_log.action_data contains any data at all after 5 days, action_data is overwritten with NULL for that row. This content is subject to limited support.                  

160
kevin.dunn
Looker Staff
1 year ago
kevin.dunn
Looker Staff
kevin.dunnLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How to find a full commit/tag SHAKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 10, 2020 The commit Tag/SHA is accessible inside of Looker's commit history, as well as inside of the remote repo.Inside of Looker's commit history, you can right click on a commit to copy the address - The SHA will be the last portion of the URL:​​Inside of the remote repository, you can navigate to the commits page and copy the SHA from there (this example is GitHub):​ This content is subject to limited support.                  

160
kevin.dunn
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Beginner's guide to distributed systems (Clustered/loadbalancing)Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 27, 2019 Imagine that you have been tasked with carrying water from a well to the town. You have to meet the demands of the town with how much water to bring. We'll use this as an analogy to define our terms:High Concurrency: This is purely the amount of volume of water you can carry. You can either increase your concurrency by getting a bigger bucket of water (more powerful server: "vertical scaling") or getting multiple buckets of water (clustered servers: "horizontal scaling"). Both achieve the same end goal, but unfortunately you can't get an infinitely big bucket of water, the largest they sell is 10 gallon buckets. If you want to carry more water, you'll need to get more buckets at this point.High Availability: If you drop a bucket on the way, then there's a crack and all the water spills out. It doesn't matter how big your bucket is, if it has a hole, that water starts to leak. If you want to make sure you don't lose water, you need multiple buckets (a cluster),

160
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
srinija.godavarthiLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can you change the timezone of the time that is appended to files that are being scheduled?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 18, 2020 Tldr: no.The timezone that determines the timestamp that is appended to end of file names, is the system time zone. For Looker hosted instances, that will always be UTC, (just like how it is for logs and system activity)All of the looker servers have UTC as the system time but some self-hosted servers are random timezones: https://docs.looker.com/admin-options/tutorials/timezones#system_time_zoneSelf-hosted instances could have different timezones. This content is subject to limited support.                  

160
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Element 'x' is already defined - LookML DashboardKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 1, 2019 If you see this error it means that one of your dashboard elements, like a title, has a duplicate name. That needs to be cleared before moving on. This content is subject to limited support.                  

160
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 do I need to specify the type of my dimension?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 16, 2018 Chat tip: Inputting type parameter of dimension isn't required but will default to String if nothing is specified.Specifying a parameter for your dimension isn't required but if not specified will default to String. However, specifying parameters could provide additional functionality.Example: Number Parameter FunctionalityTable Calculations Custom Measure Filter optionsFor more information about dimension types check out our docs.  This content is subject to limited support.                  

150
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
ryan.bouquet
Looker Staff
ryan.bouquetLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why Are My Dashboard Filters Becoming "Matches(Advanced)" for Some Users?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 4, 2020 This has to do with model permissions and filters of type: field. Ensure the users affected have model access to the fields used in the filters.We do this for security reasons. The dropdown menu in a filter can give clues as to what type the field in question is, and we don't want to expose any LookML information for a field that a user does not have permission to access otherwise. This content is subject to limited support.                    

150
ryan.bouquet
Looker Staff
1 year ago
quinn.morrison
Looker Staff
quinn.morrisonLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How do I prevent embed users from accessing the global Shared folder?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jul 9, 2020To prevent embed users from accessing the global shared folder (not their group shared folder) you can manage access on the Shared folder to only grant access to non-embed users. To do this, you can create a new group, i.e. "Users with Access to Shared folder" and add all non-embed users to it. In Admin --> Content Access, you can then manage access on the Shared folder and add this new, non-embed user group to it. This content is subject to limited support.                  

150
quinn.morrison
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Peggy_Beard
Peggy_BeardMember
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why is lookVR spinning when I choose a look?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 6, 2018 LookVR doesn’t show error messages well at the moment. Ensure the user you are using with LookVR has credentials to see the look you are trying to view in VR. You can test this by sudoing as the user in Looker and opening the look in the native Looker UI.It is also helpful to find find lookvr in steam and right click it and choose Properties > Local Files> Browse Local files and in the folder LookVR_Data there is a file called output_log.txt This content is subject to limited support.                  

150
Peggy_Beard
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I use a dimension in a sql_trigger_value?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Dec 1, 2020 Currently no. You can, however, select from ${view.SQL_TABLE_NAME} This content is subject to limited support.                  

150
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
maxcorbin
Looker Staff
maxcorbinLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How do I get raw/JSON responses from the Ruby SDK?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 18, 2018 You can tell the SDK client object to only return raw responses by setting the raw_responses attribute to true when you first set up authentication.This isn't always a good idea, but it can be useful when you don't need to utilize any of the features that come with Sawyer. require 'looker-sdk' looker = LookerSDK::Client.new({:client_id => ENV['LOOKER_ID'],:client_seccret => ENV['LOOKER_SECRET'],:api_endpoint => ENV['LOOKER_URL'],:raw_responses => true})  This content is subject to limited support.                   

150
maxcorbin
Looker Staff
1 year ago
maxcorbin
Looker Staff
maxcorbinLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

If someone loses their ability to save_content, what happens to their looks and schedules?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jul 4, 2018 Their Looks remain intact but they lose the ability to delete or edit those Looks.Their schedules also remain intact if you remove the save_content permission (or even the schedule_look_email permission). This content is subject to limited support.                   

150
maxcorbin
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Lan
Looker Staff
LanLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

publish as db view in multiple projects / modelsKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 11, 2021 What happens if you publish db view in multiple projects or models?It will create a db view for each model -- given that all model belongs to the same projectsIf a PDT is included in two models in two projects, it will only create one stable view for one project This content is subject to limited support.                   

150
Lan
Looker Staff
1 year ago
david.chiaramonte
Looker Staff
david.chiaramonteLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Does Looker validate imported LookML from project import?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 27, 2020 Nope!This is outlined in our docs here. Specifically:This is a good option when the same team owns both projects and can validate changes in both places before pushing to production.This means that errors will only surface in their respective projects, so devs will want access to both the base_project as well as the destination_project to validate LookML changes in both places before pushing to production. This content is subject to limited support.                  

150
david.chiaramonte
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

For self-hosted on GCP, can the internal database by CloudSQL?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 10, 2020Yes, GCP CloudSQL's MySQL database can be used as Looker's internal database This content is subject to limited support.                  

150
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Jira/Fivetran Custom PermissionsKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 27, 2019 Jira has multiple ways in which you can provision users access to see projects and issues. Permission can be provisioned at the user level, group level, project role level, or custom field level. All of this information is stored in multiple tables and include different join relationships depending on which type of permission has been assigned.The following code can be used in a sql_always_where parameter in explores to limit each user from seeing issues/projects that they do not have access to seeing in JIra. SQL_ALWAYS_WHERE:${issue.id} in( --reporter - issue level; field: issue.assigneeSELECT i.id as issue_idFROM jira.issue iINNER JOIN jira.project p on i.project = p.idINNER JOIN jira.permission_holder ph on p.permission_scheme_id = ph.permission_scheme_idINNER JOIN jira.user u ON i.reporter = u.idWHERE ph.permission_id= 'BROWSE_ROJECTS' AND ph.type='reporter' AND u.email = '{{ _user_attributes['email'] }}'group by 1UNION--current assignee - issue level; fi

150
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How is the "Estimated Time" for a query calculated?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 2020  Looker uses the time it took to run that query last time to predict estimated time. However, it uses the query parameters to determine this, not the SQL, so if you drastically change a LookML definition the estimate may be wrong.If the query hasn't been run before, Looker does not show an estimate. This content is subject to limited support.                

150
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago

Badges

  • Friendly Face
    sbrylowskihas earned the badge Friendly Face
  • Helpful
    carriehas earned the badge Helpful
  • Community Star
    carriehas earned the badge Community Star
  • Friendly Face
    carriehas earned the badge Friendly Face
  • Community Star
    Dawidhas earned the badge Community Star
Show all badges
Terms of Service