Why would a dashboard filter change to matches(advanced)?

Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 28, 2020

If this is happening for some users only:

We have seen this happen when a user doesn't have the model specified in a dashboard's field filter in their model set, or also when the model for that dashboard field filter hasn't been configured. In this case, the dropdown for the filter options will be missing—it won't actually say "matches (advanced)," although the filter value uses matches (advanced) syntax. For example, here is what the filter edit modal might look like for a user who doesn't have access to the field the "Date" filter is based on:

Screen Shot 2020-09-28 at 4.54.29 PM.png

Note that all there are blank entries for the model, explore, and field. Here is what it might look like on the dashboard:

Screen Shot 2020-09-28 at 4.49.46 PM.png

Notice that the filter options dropdown is missing.

This happens because the default value of a filter is always stored as advanced syntax, which is then translated to the appropriate filter option based on the field type. But the type is part of the field, so the translation step won't happen if the user doesn't have access to the field itself.

 

If this is happening for all users:

In this case, we should see the "matches (advanced)" option still show up:

Screen Shot 2020-09-28 at 4.53.38 PM.png

This is not a model access issue. Instead, it is most likely an unexpected behavior - please reach out to Looker support.

This is basically because we don't always deserialize the same way we serialize.

For example:

  • 'Is any time' gets changed back to 'matches advanced'
  • 'Is between' also gets changed back to 'matches advanced'

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Version history
Last update:
‎04-05-2021 03:16 PM
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