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2111 Topics

Aleksandrs_Vederniko
Looker Staff
Aleksandrs_VedernikoLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How to test if Fileshare (NFS/EFS/GFS) is correctly mounted and accessible from all nodes in the clusterKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 3, 2020 run ps -ef|grep java|grep looker from CL on each node. Verify that --shared-storage-dir path is the same on each node.   Test the ability for nodes to write and other nodes to read from the shared storage using path found in step 1. You can do this by creating a file from node1 with touch /mount_path/file.txt For example, if the path to the shared storage directory from step 1 is /lookershare/modelshare , then command will be touch /lookershare/modelshare/file.txt Once you have created a file from node1, try to see in node2 & all other nodes in the cluster can read it with ls -ltr /mount_path/file.txt   Loop through all nodes in the cluster This content is subject to limited support.                   

560
Aleksandrs_Vederniko
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Aleksandrs_Vederniko
Looker Staff
Aleksandrs_VedernikoLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How to pull Look ID from Look download slugKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 22, 2018 You can find this in System Activity history explore. Assume you have a Look slug in, say, a download page like this: https://instance.looker.com/looks/mNKz7MjnndQrCKFwWP8V2Q4H8gZ57R4p.csvThis is the system activity URL you'll want to use on your instance.https://instance.looker.com/explore/system__activity/history?fields=look.link,look.public_slug&f[look.public]=Yes&sorts=look.link&limit=500&column_limit=50&vis=%7B%7D&filter_config=%7B%22look.public%22%3A%5B%7B%22type%22%3A%22is%22%2C%22values%22%3A%5B%7B%22constant%22%3A%22Yes%22%7D%2C%7B%7D%5D%2C%22id%22%3A0%2C%22error%22%3Afalse%7D%5D%7D&origin=share-expanded Then add a filter on the Public Slug, which is the part that comes before the file extension and after the /looks/. (in this example it's mNKz7MjnndQrCKFwWP8V2Q4H8gZ57R4p ) This content is subject to limited support.                   

2450
Aleksandrs_Vederniko
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Aleksandrs_Vederniko
Looker Staff
Aleksandrs_VedernikoLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How do I edit a dashboard's tiles via the API?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 1, 2019 In the update_dashboard call in the 3.0 API, dashboard_elements array is read-only and cannot be altered, so this call can only be used to edit simple properties of the dashboard, such as the title. However, as of Looker 5.14, there are calls you can make in API 3.1 to edit a dashboard's tiles. Here are the steps you can take:Use the dashboard_dashboard_elements call to get the query information for all of the dashboard elements. Edit the parameters in the query body for each tile you want to edit. Use the create_query call to get a new query id from the edited query information for each tile. Use the update_dashboard_element call on each tile to change it over to the new query id.Besides editing tiles, you can also add and delete tiles via these new endpoints, as well as adjust other dashboard features such as layout and filters. This content is subject to limited support.                  

2040
Aleksandrs_Vederniko
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Aleksandrs_Vederniko
Looker Staff
Aleksandrs_VedernikoLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What does `--scheduler-query-timeout` flag control?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 10, 2018 This is NOT a query timeout for when the query is actually executing. What this is, is the amount of time, once a scheduled job is changed to executing, that it will wait to get a connection to the database, and if it can't get a connection to START the query, then it hits this timeout and fails out.EXAMPLE: So imagine you have a connection pool of 5 set in the connection settings, and I kick off a dashboard with 5 queries that each take 20 minutes to run. Now say a schedule gets kicked off, because the connection pool is full, the query gets queued to get a connection, if it hits scheduler query timeout waiting to get one of those connections, it'll fail.  This content is subject to limited support.                  

440
Aleksandrs_Vederniko
Looker Staff
1 year ago
A
Looker Staff
adina.katzLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I use a Look or Dashboard as my homepage?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 11, 2019 You can use any Looker URL as a homepage. Check it out in docs: https://docs.looker.com/admin-options/settings/homepage This content is subject to limited support.                  

280
A
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.                   

120
A
Looker Staff
1 year ago
A
Looker Staff
adina.katzLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

error "orphaned job finalized by Scheduler::Custodian"Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 25, 2019 The custodian was removed in Looker v6.6, so only older versions of Looker will show this message.The custodian ran during the Looker start up process and cleaned up any schedules that haven't completed and have no chance of completing. An example of this is a schedule that is in the "execute" state but there is no query running on the database for this schedule.So that error message indicated that the schedule was cleaned up by the custodian because there was no change of completion. This content is subject to limited support.                   

430
A
Looker Staff
1 year ago
A
Looker Staff
adina.katzLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why don't I see the gear menu next to the Run button or the three dot menu at the top right corner of the tiles in an embed dashboard?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 22, 2019When the embed user has no permissions for anything that would appear in that menu, the menu is left out. This content is subject to limited support.                   

390
A
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.                   

140
A
Looker Staff
1 year ago
A
Looker Staff
adina.katzLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I remove the from cache/ last run at time from the top of a dashboard?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 25, 2019 Nope. You can vote for this feature request here: Hide staleness time in Dashboards/ last run time/ from cache message This content is subject to limited support.                    

40
A
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Turning off Group to Role Mapping on SAML / LDAPKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 6, 2020 If you turn off group to role mapping but continue to use SAML / LDAP as your auth method, you may run in to an issue with permissions due to shadow groups persisting after this option is turned off. If you're lowering permissions for some users, they may still have the elevated permissions due to the shadow groups.You can turn back on group to role mapping with lower permissions to ensure that users don't get permissions you don't intend (though make sure you've turned on alternate login for specified users so Admins don't lose privileges and get locked out!) This content is subject to limited support.                  

250
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why does the Results tab show data but my table visualization doesn't?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 22, 2018 Check to see if there is anything hidden.This discrepancy could be from table calculations. Check to see if "No"s are being hidden from the visualization. If we're hiding those to effectively filter on a table calc, we could see all the results in the Results tab, but still show No Results in the visualization. This content is subject to limited support.                  

2370
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Formatting text on multiple linesKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 20, 2018 You can use html and some liquid to format text to appear on multiple lines. This can be useful if you have a dimension that has really long strings as values and you want to see the text on multiple lines in a single value visualization. Note, not all visualization types support this. Some ignore the html formatting.Here is some code that will put a new line after every two words:html: {% assign words = {{value}} | split: ' ' %} {% assign numwords = 0 %} {% for word in words %} {{ word }} {% assign numwords = numwords | plus: 1 %} {% assign mod = numwords | modulo: 2 %} {% if mod == 0 %} <br> {% endif %} {% endfor %} ;; This html parameter is to be included in the definition of the dimension/ measure.You can increase the number of words that appear on a line, by changing the 'modulo: 2' portion to 'modulo: n' This content is subject to limited support.                  

5520
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

max allowed drift time between clustersKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 28, 2018 Max allowed drift is 20 seconds! If it is more then that, you would need to update your NTP.Note that our install docs specifically state you need to use ntpd, chronyd or similar to keep their time in sync.https://docs.looker.com/setup-and-management/on-prem-install/installation#enable_ntpd_or_chronyd This content is subject to limited support.                  

60
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What gets stored in the /looker/.cache/ directory?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 14, 2020 The .cache directory in a looker instance is the local cache layer that can contain any cache usage. This could range from query results, to other internal objects such as internal representation of a Looker user or model. There's also use-case where the cache stores large pieces of data during an asynchronous operation.Side-note:There's also a .cache directory in packages/docs This content is subject to limited support.                  

590
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What is the parent_id for my folder?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 22, 2020 Use Case:We want to find metadata about our content so we hit the all_content_metadatas endpoint which requires parent_id as a parameter. How do we find that the parent ID of the folder we're interested in?Use the folder_parent endpoint, which will take in folder_id as a parameterGet the folder_id we want the metadata for (can be found in the URL when we go into the space, the # in the example below) ie. https://[INSTANCE_NAME]/folders/# Pass the folder_id to the folder_parent (parent_id will be returned as id field from this endpoint Use the returned id from step 2 as the parameter for our all_content_metadata endpointparent_id=1  is the "Shared" folder https://[INSTANCE_NAME]/folders/home parent_id=2 is the “People" folder https://[INSTANCE_NAME]/folders/users parent_id=3 is the “Embed Users” folder https://[INSTANCE_NAME]/folders/embed_users parent_id=4 is the “Embed Groups” folder https://[INSTANCE_NAME]/folders/embed_shared  This content is subject to

840
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Dealing with reserve Words in AthenaKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 13, 2020 Scenario:We have a table in that we want to query in Athena, whose column name is one of the reserved words. How can we get around this and select the column without having the update/change the name within the database table? As referenced in the Athena Doc, we'll see that 'group' is listed as a reserved word, which will prohibit us from querying for that table in our select statement.Solution:As stated in the docs, we'll want to add double quotes around the reserved word when querying it in SELECT statements. Adding double quotes around the column name to sql parameter will equate to that within Looker.By adding the double quotes around the column name in the SQL parameter of our LookML definition, Looker encloses the quotes that around in the field name in the generated SQL which will then allow us to select our reserved word column. This content is subject to limited support.                  

1360
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How to unlink OAuth from the Google Drive action in Action HubKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 8, 2020 ScenarioI've hooked my Google Drive to Looker via OAuth as documented here to be able to send data (explores, looks, dashboards, etc.) directly to my google drive., but how do I unlink it if I want to send to another account?tl;drOn Google-side go to https://myaccount.google.com/permissions In the Third-party apps with account access section hit "Remove" for the Looker App integration Within Looker we should be prompted to login again via Action and our prior OAuth account is unlinkedConceptTypically with Action Hub integrations, we can enable the feature within Looker, but won't have the ability to update integration accounts or anything authentication related since Looker doesn't keep those credentials. Often times to unlink Action Hub integrations, we'll need to go on the 3rd party application-side and find integrated apps to unlink rather than within Looker. This content is subject to limited support.                  

900
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can you add a Look to dashboards-next?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 9, 2020 Yes. However, you can only add a Look to dashboards-next through the "Save to Dashboard" option on the Look. Dashboards-next does not have an "Add Look" or Look selection menu like legacy/original dashboards has.Also, notice there are two options. Clicking "Save to dashboard" will save the look as a query title. Clicking "Save Look to dashboard" to reserve the link to the look You can vote for this feature request here in case you would like to do it differently: Ability to Add Look to Dashboards-Next without having to go to the Look and Click Save to Dashboard . This content is subject to limited support.                  

470
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Creating Primary Key for repeated nested field in BQKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 3, 2020 If you run into a BQ challenge where no primary key was present in any of the nested fields, records could be identical, so a PK couldn't be created through field concatenationA solution is to define the PKs in the join as below.  join: view__repeated_field {     view_label: "View: Repeated Field"     sql: LEFT JOIN UNNEST(ARRAY(           (SELECT AS STRUCT *,GENERATE_UUID() as id           FROM UNNEST(${view.repeated_field}))           )) as view__repeated_field;;     relationship: one_to_many   } Once created, you then add the id dimension to your nested view and concatenate it with the parent view's primary key.dimension: id {hidden: yestype: stringsql: ${TABLE}.id ;; } dimension: PK {hidden: yesprimary_key: yestype: stringsql: concat(${id}, ' ' ,${parent_view.primary_key_field}) ;;} This content is subject to limited support.                  

4210
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can you disable email/password login when SAML / Okta is configured?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 29, 2018 Yes - it is disabled by default.Looker email/password logins are always disabled for regular users when SAML Auth is enabled. This option allows alternate email-based login via /login/email for admins and for specified users with the login_special_email permission.Turning this option ON is useful as a fallback during SAML Auth setup should SAML config problems occur later, or if you need to support some users who do not have accounts in your SAML directory. This content is subject to limited support.                  

1140
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I create API credentials for an embed user via the API? If not, can I sudo as a user via the API?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 1, 2020 It is not possible to create API credentials for an embed user, so you should use the login_user endpoint to sudo as an embed user instead. (This endpoint also works for non-embed users if you want to run API calls as those users without creating API credentials for them.) This content is subject to limited support.                  

1160
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Error parsing liquid: Liquid parse exception: parser error "extraneous input '{{' expecting....Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 15, 2020 In Looker 7.10 old Liquid syntax is throwing this error:LookML Warnings (1)Error parsing liquid: Liquid parse exception: parser error "extraneous input '{{' expecting {Str, '(', '[', DoubleNum, LongNum, 'capture', 'endcapture', 'comment', 'endcomment', RawStart, 'if', 'elsif', 'endif', 'unless', 'endunless', 'else', 'contains', 'case', 'endcase', 'when', 'cycle', 'for', 'endfor', 'in', 'and', 'or', 'tablerow', 'endtablerow', 'assign', 'true', 'false', Nil, 'include', 'with', 'empty', 'blank', EndId, Id, RawEnd}" on line 1, index 32orders.view:25 (the_look22:orders) Look for a dimension with syntax like:dimension: status {type: stringsql: ${TABLE}.status ;;html: {% assign label_data = {{value}} %}{{label_data}};;} The warning is coming from the {{value}} in the {% .... %} and you can fix this by removing the double parentheses like:dimension: status {type: stringsql: ${TABLE}.status ;;html: {% assign label_data = value %}{{label_data}};;} This may also show up

6930
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Is there a way to link to a specific tile on dashboard or point to a specific area on a dashboard using url?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 5, 2019 Looker currently do not have a way to anchor to specific position on a dashboard.There is an feature request for this here: Web anchor to tiles in dashboards This content is subject to limited support.                  

2330
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why are my explore filters not getting added when I drill down on a measure?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 15, 2019 It is most likely because the measure may have filter defined, i.e it is a filtered measure. When you have a filtered measure AND you also have filters on the front end for the same measure, when we drill on this measure, it takes only the filtered measure and does not combine both the filters.Another reason could be because the filter is on a measure, which results in a HAVING clause. That HAVING clause only makes sense for the original query, so the drill query won't include the measure filter. This content is subject to limited support.                  

790
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
1 year ago

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