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The Kitchen Table

Explore the product knowledge we've built up together

2114 Topics

Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

In what timezone does the table calculation now() return?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: Jul 3, 2018 In databases that support timezone conversion, now() returns the time in the timezone set in the Query Time Zone property of the database connection for the explore.In the case that the database does not support timezone conversion, now() returns the time in the timezone of the Application Time Zone in the general settings admin page. This content is subject to limited support.                 

1121
vmd98
1 month ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How do BigQuery OAuth connections work with GCP IAM?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 26, 2020 BigQuery customers have the option of using OAuth for BigQuery connections. (The other option is service accounts). These connections are "directly integrated" with GCP Identity and Access Management (IAM). This provides user-level authentication (OAuth) and authorization (IAM). Every query is run as if that user was running the same SQL when directly logged in to the BQ console.Key features and constraints of OAuth + IAMUsing OAuth as the authentication mechanism ensures that IAM permissions are enforced per user. Every query is run as if that user was running the same SQL after they logged in to the BQ console. Examples of per-user security controls include: Only having access to the correct datasets Only having access to the correct authorized views Applying row level controls implemented using authorized views Per-user caches are available Per-user BQ resource limits are available PDTs and shared caches are disabled under per-user authentication This

4301
Q
1 month ago
V
Looker Staff
vishal.dharmadhikariLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I update my dashboard with a new custom slug using update_dashboard?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 10, 2021 Yes, we can update the dashboard with a custom slug but please note dashboard slugs are required to be 22 characters long.If we try to use the update_dashboard endpoint with a slug that's less than 22 characters, we'll see the following error message. # Node SDKconst dashboard = await lookerSDK.ok(lookerSDK.dashboard("123"))const test = await lookerSDK.update_dashboard("123", {slug: "slugtest"});# Results in this errorerror: {message: 'The first argument must be one of type string, Buffer, ArrayBuffer, Array, or Array-like Object. Received type undefined',type: 'sdk_error'}, This content is subject to limited support.                  

3853
R
2 months ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why do I have more rows in my drill table than my count_distinct measure indicates?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: March 15, 2021 If multiple rows have the same value in the column which is being aggregated with a count distinct, you could see this behavior. The drill will show distinct combinations of the dimensions you've indicated in that measure's drill_fields parameter, which might be more numerous than the distinct values counted by your count distinct aggregation.Example:If you have a count distinct on ID that shows 1 in the column, and if more fields are selected in the drill down, you could have this:id value1 A1 B1 CThere is 1 distinct ID, but is getting expanded in the drill.Also, in cases where count is being filtered using a CASE WHEN statement in the sql parameter of the field you're trying to drill into, this CASE WHEN condition doesn't get factored in to the drill filters, which can also cause a discrepancy. This Community post describes using a filtered measure instead of a CASE WHEN to resolve this issue.  This content is subject to limited support.                  

5401
divya_bennett
2 months ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Refused to display 'https://somedomain.com' in a frame because it set 'X-Frame-Options' to 'sameorigin'Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 7, 2018 Let's conquer this beast.First things first. What the heck is an origin?It's the combination of protocol, domain, and port:{protocol}://{domain}:{port} --> https://developer.mozilla.org:443 OK, Got it. What about sameorigin?It's a policy designed to prohibit the display of resources from a particular origin in the page of another, different origin. When Looker is embedded in an iframe, that iframe requests and displays data from Looker's origin, which is different than the parent page's origin. For example, if I embed a dashboard from a Looker instance in https://www.w3schools.com/tags/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_iframe, their origins are not the same.Where does X-Frame-Options fit in?The X-Frame-Options ​HTTP response header can be used to indicate whether or not a browser should be allowed to render a page in an iframe. Tying this back to sameorigin, when the X-Frame-Options header is set to sameorigin, that means the iframe won't allow its contents to be r

61931
francofgp
2 months ago
Peggy_Beard
Peggy_BeardMember
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Is it possible to use the API to get the sql query for a look or exploreKnowledge Drop

Last tested: May 21, 2019 Yes! You can get the query ID and then use run_query with result_format=sql https://docs.looker.com/reference/api-and-integration/api-reference/v3.1/query#run_query This content is subject to limited support.                  

621
S
2 months ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How to preserve JS Embed Event message passing across page changes in iFrameKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 10, 2020 When navigating pages within an iFrame, the embed domain is dropped from the iFrame src then the parent page will no longer receiving messages. Meaning that if you are using JS embed events and are intending those to persist across page changes you will want to make sure that the "links" you are navigating to from within the iframe have the embed_domain= parameter (containing the parent page origin) appended to them. This content is subject to limited support.                  

1072
jamesc633
2 months ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

If a user schedules Looks and then is disabled will the scheduled Looks still go out?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Dec 2020 If the schedule was created by a user that is now disabled, the schedule will fail.The error in the schedule history will tell you that the User is not enabled. Contact your Looker administrator to reassign this scheduled report to an enabled user.This content is subject to limited support.                

2881
mitchellposluns
2 months ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Selected articles about Looker API & SDK use cases

We have gathered a list of community and help center articles covering some major API & SDK use cases. We hope this makes it easier for you to browse and navigate. The code examples are for demo purposes only. For any further questions on those use cases please post a comment under those articles directly. GeneralI Mastered Looker’s Interactive API Docs. What Now?Introducing the API Explorer: Interactive documentation for the Looker API & SDKsDefault API port on GCP and Azure (why can’t I connect to the API for instances hosted on Kubernetes)Quickstart: Looker API Ruby SDKWhy is my API call returning a 403 Forbidden error?Easily loading JSON to a dataframePostman & Looker (1)Postman & Looker (2)Is there a limit to the number of API requests you can send at one time?Migration from API 3.0 to 3.1: Change Log & Notes Data export and DeliveryRun Looks from Google Spreadsheetes Using Looker APICreating a Data Dictionary Using Looker’s APIGenerating a Data Dictionary in G

10280
anggi wijaya
2 months ago
jamesnestler
Looker Staff
jamesnestlerLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How do I hide one of my pivot columns?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 16, 2020 If you find yourself here, +1 this feature request: https://feedback.us.pendo.io/app/#/case/17612We're here, and we want to hide the "other" column:We can accomplish this with pivot_index or pivot_where.You'll need to create a table calculation for each column you want to show, then hide the original measure.pivot_index(${your_measure_here},column_to_show)This ends up looking like this:And in the visualization looks like this: This content is subject to limited support.                  

19774
liz233
2 months ago
Vincent
Looker Staff
VincentLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I change font size in visualizations?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: Jul 11, 2019 It is currently not possible in all visualization styles. But this time we have font control over values in the following visualizations - Bar, Column, Scatterplot, Line, Area.We can also create a “single value visualization" out of a scatterplot which allows us to edit the displayed font size.However, we can use html tags to control font size for the time being.dimension: big_string { html: <p style="font-size:30px"> {{value}} </p> ;; type: string sql: ${TABLE}.string ;; } This content is subject to limited support.                  

31631
Rishi
2 months ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Putting a Dashboard or Look on a TV , Raspberry Pi, Airtame, Display, BroadcastKnowledge Drop

Last Tested: Dec 9, 2019 You can only put a dashboard on a TV if the streaming service you use will allow you to log in to Looker. This isn't possible with a Raspberry Pi or Airtame since they only take a web address and don't let you navigate or use any input.The options here are public look or SSO embed.As of Looker version 6.24, content can be made public but restricted by IP address - so a public look could be made accessible to the Raspberry Pi's IP address and prohibited for all others.Looker doesn't have the notion of public URL for dashboards, and probably never will since you can achieve the same using SSO embed. Just have the raspberry Pi web server generate an SSO Url with a particular embed user configuration and you're done.Presumably, the Looker content they want to display on the TV screen will need to be refreshed periodically (dashboard refresh?). It's recommended that the Raspberry Pi device generate a new SSO URl periodically as well, perhaps daily. This content is s

2251
SarahDhoo
2 months ago
Diego Solorzano
Looker Staff
Diego SolorzanoLooker Staff
posted in Technical Tips & Tricks

How to install "Google BigQuery Performance" by Datatonic Marketplace Block in Looker

This guide will explain how to install "Google BigQuery Performance" by Datatonic block in Looker-hosted instances. Open your Google Cloud Console, in the BigQuery service. Click on "Create dataset" under your project section. Choose your project ID and a Dataset ID of your choice. For this guide we will use "looker_app_audit_log" as Dataset ID. Optionally choose a location. Then click "Create Dataset".NOTE: Once the dataset is created, a service account should be linked to it. This service account should also have access to Looker so that data can be used. You can add one by clicking on the "Sharing" button when viewing the dataset details. Once the dataset is created, click on the GCP console search bar and look for "Logs Router". In that Logging section click on the "Create Sink" button. Name the sink as you want, select sink service as "BigQuery dataset" and select the dataset that was created on step 2. Set the inclusion filter as the following and then click create: resource.

0
Diego Solorzano
Looker Staff
2 months ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How to pass a filter condition to a derived table AND keep it in the main queryKnowledge Drop

Last tested: March 2021 The ProblemI need a condition to appear in the WHERE clause of my derived table, but I also need it to appear in the WHERE clause of my main Looker-generated query. So my final query should have the same condition in both places, like so :WITH derived_table AS ( SELECT * FROM table WHERE <condition>)SELECT * FROM derived_tableWHERE <condition>Solution 1: Using a filter fieldIn Docs, we have a great example of using a filter field to pass a condition into a derived table.view: customer_facts { derived_table: { sql: SELECT customer_id, SUM(sale_price) AS lifetime_spend FROM order WHERE {% condition order_region %} order.region {% endcondition %} ;; } filter: order_region { type: string }}However, this only passes the condition into the derived table. The condition will not appear in the main query.To have the condition appear in the main query, we take advantage of the fact that the sql parameter of a filter field is placed directly into the WHERE cla

47811
R
2 months ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How are Out-of-Date PDTs Managed?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 22, 2018 Persistent Derived Tables are automatically reaped by Looker based on the following rules:If refresh is tied to a particular time (e.g. set via 'persist for'), then the PDT will be reaped from the database 1 hour after the persistence window expires.PDTs in Dev-Mode are treated as persist-for 24 hours until they are pushed to Production.If refresh is tied to a SQL Trigger Value, the PDT will continue to be built as long as it exists in a Production model. They will be reaped 1 hour after the associated Production model is deleted.Datagroups behave based on the sql_trigger within them. This content is subject to limited support.                  

831
M
2 months ago
margaret.abercrombie
Looker Staff
margaret.abercrombieLooker Staff
asked in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why Doesn't My Table Calculation Work in My Visualization?

The ProblemThe data is set up how you would like, but when you select the visualization type, Looker says that the visualization is incompatible with your data (e.g. it requires one dimension and one measure).  The ExplanationEven though the “Percent Profit” table calculation is performing a mathematical operation on my existing field, because I only reference a dimension in my table calculation, Looker will group and treat my table calculation as a dimension. ex: (${products.retail_price}-(${products.retail_price}*0.9))/3 Since the table calculation is still treated as a dimension, we are not meeting the measure requirement for the pie chart visualization.   The SolutionTo meet the measure requirement for the pie chart visualization, I will need to make sure a measure is referenced in my visualized fields. To do this without changing my data I can Add a measure to my query   Edit my table calculation to include + ${products.count}*0 at the end of it ex: ((${products.retail_price}-(${

1
dnavia
2 months ago
romain.ducarrouge
Looker Staff
romain.ducarrougeLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How do I make a Look/Dashboard full screen and remove the Looker banner? (Presentation and Embed mode)Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 24, 2021 You can add /presentation/ or /embed/ in the URL of an explore, Look or dashboard. Both will make the content full screen and remove the top navigation bar. For dashboards next, you can add a parameter, print_mode=true to the URL. (/dashboards-next/1234?print_mode=true)There are subtle differences between the two, but it's most important to note that /embed/ will show exactly the way that embed users will see the content. This content is subject to limited support.                   

10045
S
3 months ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I download a dashboard as a CSV or PDF via the API?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 27, 2019 For PDF: Yes. Use create_render_task() to schedule a job to render a dashboard (or other content) as a PDF file.Use render_task(id) to check the status of the render task. When it completes, use render_task_results() to fetch the PDF file.Note that PDF files are binary data, not JSON text. Client apps calling the render_task_results() may need to take special steps to fetch the HTTP response body as binary data, not as json text.For CSV of dashboard data: Yes, with some work. We don't offer an API to run all queries for a dashboard and return all the results. What you can do is fetch the dashboard, iterate through its tiles and find all the queries it refers to, and run those queries via the API, in CSV format. Don't forget to apply filters!If you are familiar with the SDKs, there are some examples there as well:Python: https://github.com/looker-open-source/sdk-codegen/blob/master/examples/python/download_dashboard_pdf.pyRuby: https://github.com/looker-open-so

19344
vishnuprasadb
3 months ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Override Look Filters in the URL

Looker will not be updating this content, nor guarantees that everything is up-to-date. We often want to use a saved look as a sort of template and then dynamically override specific filter values, such as when we embed Looker into another application.This post shows you how to do this.Overriding Filters The following example shows a Look where the default value for Orders Created At is saved as on the day 2017-11-01. We see this URL (replacing <instance_name.looker.com> with the URL to your company's instance):https://<instance_name.looker.com>/looks/:id: In this case, toggle=fil appears in the URL, because we have expanded the filters box to show the value.   We can override the filter value by visiting a URL and changing it to this:https://<instance_name.looker.com>/looks/:id?f[orders.created_date]=7+days Looker automatically rewrites the URL into a unique query ID (qid) parameter representing this ad hoc query, just like on an Explore page. This is the format o

7582
y7tuit026
3 months ago
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
srinija.godavarthiLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can we use Angular for the extension framework?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 7, 2020Angular is not supported right now. In theory, any application framework can be used to build an extension, but we highly/strongly recommend React. Potentially, you could use a converter like this, but our engineers suggest it would not be an optimal development process. With React, we provide a build setup that is guaranteed to work. We cannot guarantee this with other JS frameworks right now. This content is subject to limited support.                  

791
markjuan458
3 months ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What does the MD5 function do?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: March 2021  MD5 is just a hash that turns strings into hashes.It's useful for making IDs out of a concatenation of several fields, which makes it valuable for joins. Looker uses it in symmetric aggregates.Example:select md5('Amazon Redshift'); md5 ---------------------------------- f7415e33f972c03abd4f3fed36748f7a (1 row)Great blog explaining it. This content is subject to limited support.                

6271
chris.seymour
Looker Staff
3 months ago
romain.ducarrouge
Looker Staff
romain.ducarrougeLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Force download when clicking on url/link - ExploreKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 1, 2018 Using the html and links parameter in Looker we can send the user to another page.We can also use this to have the content be downloaded when the user clicks on the link. To do this we would choose our data to download:Let's assume this is the data we want: https://localhost:9999/explore/system__activity/history?fields=history.connection_name,look.title,query.count,history.is_user_dashboard&pivots=history.connection_name,history.is_user_dashboard&f[history.connection_name]=looker%5E_project&sorts=query.count+desc+0,history.connection_name,history.is_user_dashboard&limit=500We will use the url above updated to include details on the format to download and add the parameter to download like so:https://localhost:9999/explore/system__activity/history.csv?fields=history.connection_name,look.title,query.count,history.is_user_dashboard&pivots=history.connection_name,history.is_user_dashboard&f[history.connection_name]=looker%5E_project&sort

751
susin007
3 months ago
ryan.dunlavy
Looker Staff
ryan.dunlavyLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Custom SMTP vs. default SMTPKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jul 1, 2019 By default, all Looker mail will go through our 3rd party SMTP service  -- Sendgrid.When a schedule is ready to send content to an email destination after the query has finished running, it will be passed on to the mailer. The mailer bundles the content in an email with headers, a link back to Looker, and then sends it on to the SMTP service.With default SMTP, the email will go to Sendgrid which will then send it on to the email address the content was intended for.With a custom SMTP setup, the email will be sent to the email server that is configured in the Admin panel. That SMTP server can do whatever filtering, blocking or transforming it likes before sending the mail on to the final destination. Description of Fields:Mail ServerThis needs to be only the domain name (e.g. smtp.my-email-server.com) without the scheme (https://) and also without any path. Even a trailing slash will be considered a path (e.g. smtp.my-email-server.com/ will not work)FromThis wil

6462
Kenny Ning
3 months ago
Lan
Community Admin
LanCommunity Admin
published in Video Tutorials 🎥

Video Tutorial: Send data from Looker to BigQuery through Cloud Functions and Looker Action

Activate your business intelligence by sending data from Looker to third-party services, making insights closer and easier for end users to take action. In this video, Martin and I explain the architecture and code example of sending data from Looker to BigQuery through Cloud Functions and Looker Actions API. For a more in-depth community discussion, please click here Video and code example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hzb-j_VfnI  

2760
Lan
Community Admin
3 months ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What is a cURL API call, and what does it look like?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 4, 2020 cURL is a command-line utility available on most Unix/Linux based operating systems which can be used to make an HTTP network request and receive the response either interactively as you type or in a bash shell script. cURL can make any kind of HTTP requests, configure request headers, and upload data in request bodies for POST, PUT, and PATCH requests. For quick-and-dirty testing or exploration of an HTTP service or REST API, curl is a simple but powerful tool.As with any use of the Looker API, the first thing you need to do when using cURL is call /login to authenticate and receive an access_token. The access_token can then be used in subsequent calls to the Looker API.For example, you would do the following (Replacing XXXXX with the appropriate credentials):curl -d "client_id=XXXXXXXXXX&client_secret=XXXXXXXXX" https://mycompany.looker.com:19999/login This will return a response that looks something like:{"access_token":"4QDkCyCtZzYgj4C2p2cj3csJH7zqS5RzK

9661
N
3 months ago

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