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The Kitchen Table

The Kitchen Table

Explore the product knowledge we've built up together

2113 Topics

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samLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What happens when an embed user connects to looker but the user already exists as a regular user in looker?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 2020 In this case a new embedded user would be created. There is no way to tie an embed user created from a script to a regular user. For any embedded user that gets created, the primary key/identifier is the external_user_id field that gets passed in.Since the embed user will be separate from the regular Looker user, and you can only have one Looker session in your browser, this also means that logging in as the embed user will log you out of your regular Looker session. Users can log in as the embed user in an incognito window if they want to avoid interrupting their existing regular Looker user session. This content is subject to limited support.

1433

10 months ago

Pieter_DeVriesLooker Staff

asked in Technical Tips & Tricks

More than three conditional/dynamic value formats. INCLUDING negative numbers

Those sweet sweet Bs Ms and Ks Huge shoutout goes to @Hugo_Selbie who came up with this formula. dimension: value { sql: CAST(${TABLE}.value as integer) ;; type: number html: {% if value > 1000000000 %} ${{value | divided_by: 1000000000 | round:2 }}B {% elsif value >= 1000000 and value < 1000000000 %} ${{value | divided_by: 1000000 | round:2 }}M {% elsif value >= 1000 and value < 1000000 %} ${{value | divided_by: 1000 | round:2 }}K {% elsif value >= 0 and value < 1000 %} ${{value | round:2 }} {% elsif value > -1000 and value < 0 %} ${{value | round:2 }} {% elsif value > -1000000 and value <= -1000 %} ${{value | divided_by: 1000 | round:2 }}k {% elsif value > -1000000000 and value <= -1000000 %} ${{value | divided_by: 1000000 | round:2 }}M {% elsif value <= -1000000000 %}

1 year ago

samLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Do we have a Pareto visualization?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 14, 2020 No, but there exists a Feature Request.However, we can imitate a Pareto chart by creating a few table calculations. Create a table calculation to compute the relative running total of the original measure. In this example, “orders.count” will be our starting measure. running_total(${orders.count})/sum(${orders.count}) Plot the new table calculation as a line. Plot the original measure as a bar. Create a table calculation for an 80% benchmark of the original measure. max(${orders.count})*0.8 Plot the benchmark as a line and add it to the same axis as the original measure.The final result will look something like this:An imitation Pareto chart using table calculations. This content is subject to limited support.

5223

8 months ago

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Mirror SAML Groups (idP group name matches Looker group name)Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 19, 2020 When "Mirror SAML Groups" is toggled on in your instance's SAML settings, it will create a new group in Looker based off of the IdP-side group you input.A question was asked, "if the IdP side group has the same name as an existing Looker group, will saving those settings merge the two groups together in Looker?" No, SAML-mapped groups are treated as a separate thing and if the group name you save when "Mirror SAML Groups" is toggled on matches the name of an existing Looker group you will see the below error when trying to save your SAML settings.group named <name of group> already exists. 'saml_group'. This content is subject to limited support.

3623

1 year ago

samLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How to Add Images to Visualizations

Looker will not be updating this content, nor guarantees that everything is up-to-date. The ProblemI have pictures that I want to show in my Looker visualization. In a dataset of companies, I could use this to replace a company name with an image in a visualization: The SolutionWe can use the html LookML parameter to have Looker render HTML instead of just showing a text value. In this case, we can use HTML's img tag to have a field just render a picture:dimension: looker_image { type: string sql: ${TABLE}.homepage_url;; html: <img src="https://logo-core.clearbit.com/looker.com" /> ;;}The text for each of the rows has now been replaced by the image defined in the img tag of the HTML. Dynamic ImagesThe next step is to make my images change based on the value of the row. We can input the value of the row into the html parameter using the Liquid variable {{value}}. We can add this to the image URL in a slightly modified version of the dimension above: dimension: brand_images { t

15253

2 months ago

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can you embed a Looker iframe in PowerPoint / Google Slides?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 8, 2020 Looking for a solution to export a dashboard of visualizations to a Google Slide deck on their template. Below were the options I was able to outline. Spoiler alert: none are ideal.(1) Python Script Overview Allows you to take a template slide deck and push viz images onto them Pros Most complete, detailed solution Works with Google Slides Very automatic solution once complete - would scale well Cons Requires significant dev time to create the solution Minor maintenance may be required to make changes over time (2) LiveSlides Overview Embed live visualizations into MS PPT presentation Pros Embed interactive visualizations into a PPT presentation Very easy to get set up Will update with live data with no work. No need to export images Cons Only available in MS PowerPoint Cannot be exported to PDF (3) Use a webhook tool like Zapier Overview Use a tool like Zapier to send a visualization from Looker and place it on slides Pr

26213

4 months ago

paolaLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can you show / hide filters on embedded content?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 8, 2020 Yes you can! The way to do this is different depending on the type of content.For User defined dashboards, you can use the embed settings option in the cog menu. (click the cog menu on the dashboard > Edit Embed Settings.) For LookML dashboards, you can use the show_filters_bar parameter in the Dashboard LookML file code for your dashboard. For example:embed_style:background_color: "#f6f8fa"show_title: truetitle_color: "#3a4245"show_filters_bar: truetile_text_color: "#3a4245text_tile_text_color: ''show_filters_bar: false For a Look, the filters are hidden by default but can be shown using the Show Filters on Embedded Looks toggle (available as of Looker 7.4). This content is subject to limited support.

18233

4 months ago

ruth.mcelroyLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Dashboard-next descriptionKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 20, 2020 The ProblemDashboard-next doesn't currently have description option in the settings panelA SolutionRevert to dashboard legacy, add description in the setting panel and then upgrade to dashboard-next again.You can vote for this feature request on our feedback system. This content is subject to limited support.

1153

1 year ago

LanCommunity Admin

published in Blog Archives

Can I temporarily stop or pause a scheduled look or dashboard from going out?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: Oct 2, 2020 Not natively in the product, but there is a feature request.Basic WorkaroundIn order to stop a scheduled look or dashboard, the user has to delete it entirely from the schedules tab in the admin pane. They would then need to recreate the schedule when they want it back.Alternative Basic WorkaroundThrough the update_schedule_plan() endpoint, we can set the "enabled'"parameter to "false". This disables the schedule, without fully deleting it. It tells Looker to skip over any possible runs for this schedule - the only nuance with this method is that if we did skip over any runs while it was disabled, when we enable this again it will run once (no matter how many skipped runs happen) right away.Other WorkaroundIf you host your own instance, you can restart looker with startup flag options to stop schedules ---scheduler-threads=0 will disable the scheduler -BUT once you bring it back, the backlogged schedules will need to runAnother workaround we can try is using a

11533

5 months ago

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

My LookML Validator is slow!Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 25, 2020 TL;DR:The bigger the project is, the longer it takes to validate. Quick wins:Be strategic about your "includes" Always including every other view may be easy for development but being strategic by using naming conventions to only include the necessary files will increase performance. Comment or delete unused explores (and joins, fields, etc) Consider splitting your project into multiple projectsCheck out this article for LookML best practices. Long answer:LookML project size (total number of lines) and unnecessary includes both affect the performance of the LookML validator.Validation is a two-step process; 1) the first pass of validation happens by loading every single file in the project, even the ones not referenced anywhere, into memory and does a full translation of the source code one model at a time looking for "compile" errors. 2) the second pass of validation starts at each model and then parses only the files referenced by that model. And then it bu

8312

1 year ago

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Advanced LookML - Liquid Use CasesKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 28, 2019 Liquid is an open-source, Ruby-based template language created by Shopify It can be used in conjunction with LookML to build a more flexible, dynamic code.Liquid code is denoted by braces { } and falls into 3 different categories:TAG: {% %}used to create logicOBJECT:{{ }}, {{ value }}output pieces of dataFILTERS:modify the output of numbers, strings, objects, and variables,denoted by a pipe character |{{ value | capitalize }} = VALUEWe can pass values through multiple filters at the same time to compute complex sums.{{ product.sale_price | minus: product.price | times: 100.0 | divided_by: product.sale_price }}Check out the following external links, there is some really good content here to get deeper into all the things Liquid can do. And handy to have for reference.Cheat SheetLiquid WikiConditional LogicWhere can I use Liquid in Looker? There are several places in LookML where Liquid can be used:The html parameterThe HTML parameter enables you to specify the

95282

1 year ago

samLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why can't I access chat?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: April 2021 If you don't see the chat option in the Help Menu:Permissions: Anyone with the develop permission can come on chat. This means that admins have this capability too. Check if the user is missing the develop permission.License type: If you have a partner license type you will not have chat access starting April 1st 2021. As for trials, trials which were initiated after Jan 5th 2021 will not have chat feature toggled on. However, the trials that were initiated before that are being turned off in a phased manner.Closed ports: If your Looker instance is customer-hosted, then your network administrator needs to open several ports on your server to connect to the chat client. If you see the chat option in the Help Menu, but clicking on it doesn't bring up the chat widget:Browser extensions: If you do not see the chat option in the help menu, but clicking it does not bring up the chat widget, check in incognito mode. Often times we've seen extensions such as Ghostery ca

8392

2 months ago

samLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How can I recover a deleted Look or Dashboard if the trash is emptied?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: March 2021 As of 4.8+, all deleted content goes to the Trash Folder. It stays there indefinitely until deleted by an admin. Any content can be restored from the Trash Folder by an admin.This card talks about how to find and restore a deleted Look or dashboard with i__looker, in the case where the deleted content has also been deleted from the Trash.If you accidentally deleted a Look or dashboard AND deleted the trash, it's possible to recover this Look or dashboard using Looker's internal model, i__looker. i__looker is the model underlying the Usage Panel in the Admin section.Recovering a deleted Look that is no longer in the trash Go to the history explore of the i__looker model. You can get there by navigating to a URL of the form: https://company.looker.com/explore/i__looker/historyReplace company.looker.com with your Looker instance's specific URL. If you know a specific time that the Look was queried, filter on History - Created Time for as specific a range as possi

30722

8 months ago

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can you join two views without a sql_on statement?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 15, 2020 Joins in explores have to have either a sql (docs) or sql_on (docs) parameter to define the relationship of one view to another.Using sql_on:explore: order {join: customer {sql_on: ${order.customer_id} = ${customer.id} ;;}} Using sql:explore: order {join: customer {sql: LEFT JOIN ON ${order.customer_id} = ${customer.id} ;;}} This content is subject to limited support.

5012

1 year ago

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Add a total's column to a stacked bar chartKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 14, 2020 Using Table Calculations, you can add a total column to a stacked bar chart. (Note: If your bar chart is not stacked, you can add a total column by simply checking the row totals box and pivoting on your dimension)METHOD 1: TOTAL COLUMN WITH BREAKDOWNStep 1: Configure your explore section so that it has one extra row than the number that you need to display. For example, in this graph we only want to display March - July, but we'll want to add 1 extra row so that we can display a total column at the end.Step 2: Create two table calculations. The first will create a column that displays the total of the series if it is the max row in the data set. The second will create a column that displays the word "Total" if it is the max row in the data set. Step 3: Hide your original dimension and measure from the visualization so that only the table calculations and the pivoted columns remain in the visualization.METHOD 2: TOTAL COLUMN WITHOUT BREAKDOWN (PRESERVES DR

14782

3 months ago

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Custom Order for Field PickerKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Dec 14, 2018 By default, the Field Picker is sorted alphabetically.Workaround: If you add spaces to the label of a dimension, then you can change where it will appear in the field picker. Additionally, the leading spaces are stripped from the UI, so it won't look ugly to your consumers.Example: dimension: aardvark {# A dimension with a name like this will usually come first in the field picker.}dimension: beta {label: " beta"# With a space in the label, "beta" will come before "aardvark!"}dimension: camel {label: " camel"# With two spaces in the label, "camel" will come before "beta"!} This content is subject to limited support.

7582

7 months ago

adina.katzLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

The PDT Regenerator ProcessKnowledge Drop

Last Tested: Nov 4, 2020 Purpose:The regenerator's purpose is to manage the building of PDTs on the scratch schema. Its major tasks are to check datagroup triggers, build new PDTs that have been pushed to production and rebuild existing production PDTs whose trigger values have changed.Number of Regenerator Threads:Every connection has one regenerator thread. Since the regenerator is only a single thread, it can only perform one operation at a time. This means that it can only check a single trigger or build/rebuild a single PDT at a time (unless parallel PDTs are enabled on that connection, then multiple PDTs can be built at a time).There is a maximum of 25 regenerator threads per instance. However, there is still only one thread per connection. This means that 25 PDTs could theoretically build simultaneously only if there were 25 different databases connected to the Looker instance. If there are more than 25 connections with PDTs enabled on an instance, multiple connections will shar

13112

9 months ago

samLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How do you reference a yesno dimension field value?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: March 2021Looker’s “yesno” dimensions return boolean values (TRUE or FALSE) rather than a string “yes” or “no”. For this reason, when SQL is involved, you don’t need to write “field == yes”, you can simply write “field”, as this will return TRUE or FALSE by itself. Here are specific examples depending on where you’d like to reference it: SQL:You can treat it as a boolean.sql: CASE WHEN ${field} THEN ...Filtered Measure: measure: first_purchase_count { type: count filters:[is_first_purchase:"Yes"]Liquid HTML{% if value == 'Yes' %} will do it.Note: it is case sensitive.Templated filter:We put a boolean in between the condition, like:derived_table: {sql:SELECT murder FROM public.rawhere {% condition filter %} murder=10 {% endcondition %} ;; }dimension: filter {type: yesnosql: ${TABLE}.murder=10;;} cite docs for type yesno , docs for filtered measures and docs for liquid variables This content is subject to limited support.

60252

1 year ago

MorganLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Are UI filters case sensitive by default?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: Jul 27, 2017 By default, case_sensitivity is on and filters are case sensitive. You can change this using the case_sensitive parameter at the model, explore, or field level. However, some dialects do not support this parameter. List of dialects here. This content is subject to limited support.

2722

8 months ago

samLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can LookML dashboards be moved to another folder?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: March 22, 2021No. LookML dashboards can only live in the LookML dashboard folder. There is this product feedback to allow functionality to move them out of the LookML dashboard folder so that they can live in other folders.As a workaround, when viewing a LookML dashboard, we can click "Copy from LookML into a folder" (documentation) from the gear menu. This will make a UDD copy of that dashboard in the folder we choose. This content is subject to limited support.

9982

4 months ago

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The Kitchen Table

What happens when an embed user connects to looker but the user already exists as a regular user in looker?Knowledge Drop

More than three conditional/dynamic value formats. INCLUDING negative numbers

Do we have a Pareto visualization?Knowledge Drop

Mirror SAML Groups (idP group name matches Looker group name)Knowledge Drop

How to Add Images to Visualizations

Can you embed a Looker iframe in PowerPoint / Google Slides?Knowledge Drop

Can you show / hide filters on embedded content?Knowledge Drop

Dashboard-next descriptionKnowledge Drop

About "Blog Archives"

Create Day of Quarter in Table CalcKnowledge Drop

User does not have bigquery.jobs.create permission in project error

Is there a way to do an "IN" or "contains" function in liquid?Knowledge Drop

Why can't I see my explore in the Explore drop-down menu?Knowledge Drop

Can I temporarily stop or pause a scheduled look or dashboard from going out?Knowledge Drop

My LookML Validator is slow!Knowledge Drop

Advanced LookML - Liquid Use CasesKnowledge Drop

Why can't I access chat?Knowledge Drop

How can I recover a deleted Look or Dashboard if the trash is emptied?Knowledge Drop

Can you join two views without a sql_on statement?Knowledge Drop

Add a total's column to a stacked bar chartKnowledge Drop

Custom Order for Field PickerKnowledge Drop

The PDT Regenerator ProcessKnowledge Drop

How do you reference a yesno dimension field value?Knowledge Drop

Are UI filters case sensitive by default?Knowledge Drop

Can LookML dashboards be moved to another folder?Knowledge Drop

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