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2115 Topics

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

Content Validator for Merged ResultsKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 9, 2019 To follow along, think of a situation where you have a merged results tile which is named MR Dash. MR Dash merges the results of two explores(For example, Explore1 and Explore2) which currently belong to one model, named ModelA. Unfortunately, if you try to change the model name for Explore2 from the content validator, it ends up changing the model name for both in the case of merged results.Hence, a better way to approach this would be to convert the UDD(User defined dashboard) to a LookML dashboard, make the required changes, and then convert it back to a UDD.The steps we followed were as follows:From your dashboard tile MR Dash, retrieve the dashboard LookML. To do so, you can reference this link - https://docs.looker.com/dashboards/creating-lookml-dashboards#manually_building_or_modifying_a_lookml_dashboard Within this dashboard LookML snippet, for explore: explore2, change the model name to ModelB, and keep the model name for Explore1 as ModelA. Save this

560
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

Can I use a '_' in my folder name?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 27, 2020 You most certainly can. There is a possibility you will see this error:include: references a project '_foldername' not in the manifest for 'projectname' The folder name with the '_' possibly contains a model and view files. If you try to include each view file by name, you may see this error. To ensure that you no longer see the error, include all views with wildcard characters. include: "*.view" This content is subject to limited support.                  

340
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

What does the Ordinal Scale Type visualization setting do?Knowledge Drop

Last tested; Jan 13, 2021 The short explanation is that with Ordinal Scale Type setting, data is plotted along the x-axis as evenly-spaced, discrete entries, regardless of relative distance between data points. (https://docs.looker.com/exploring-data/visualizing-query-results/column-options#scale_type)The longer explanation:Let’s say you have a dataset like the following, where you have a gap in data from December 26th to December 27th (December 25th has data as shown in the data table, it looks empty here because it is a small number for the scale of this visualization).If you would like to show your data over the full timeframe that the data was collected, you can use the “Automatic based on Data” Scale Type (as shown above), or the “Time” Scale Type. However, if you do not want to show this gap, the Ordinal Scale Type will only plot the data from the data table. This content is subject to limited support.                  

840
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

Filtering on Last Business day of MonthKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 2, 2021  dimension: returned_last_business_day {type: yesnosql: CASE WHEN EXTRACT( day from DATEADD(day,2,${returned_date_raw}) ) = 1 AND ${returned_day_of_week} = "Friday"THEN trueWHEN EXTRACT( day from DATEADD(day,3,${returned_date_raw}) ) = 1 AND ${returned_day_of_week} = "Friday" then trueWHEN EXTRACT( day from DATEADD(day,1,${returned_date_raw}) ) = 1 then true else false END;; Basically, what this does is check to see if the second to last day of the month is Friday, if so that means that the last day of the month for that month was Saturday. If the third to last day of the month is Friday, it means that the last day of that month was a Sunday.  This content is subject to limited support.                  

1530
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

Blank Response from Server ErrorKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 27, 2020This error has surfaced a few times, and it's typically caused when we have too many filters as well as having a large row limit. Most of the time, this error is caused by the browser hitting a limit on the information to display; either reducing the filter count or lowering the row limit should allow the query on the Explore/Dashboard to run successfully! This content is subject to limited support.                  

2230
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

Having Default Label Value that's Based off a ParameterKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 10, 2020 If we're having our label for a field be based off a parameter value, sometimes we might want to have our Label have a Value that's set in the Field Picker that's different from the parameter's actual value. In order to accomplish this, we can use "field._in_query" to have this behavior here. The code will look something like this:label: "{% if view_name.parameter_name._in_query %}{% parameter parameter_name %}{% else %}Default value that Loads in Field Picker{% endif %} This way, Default value that Loads in Field Picker, will be the label of the field when it loads in the Field Picker but when the parameter is selected, the label in the visualization will be set as the parameter's value.Note that only the label in the visualization will change dynamically with the parameter. It is not possible to have the label in the Field Picker or the results table in the Data section change dynamically when you adjust the parameter value. This content is subject to limite

750
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

Change saml_user_id for a userKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 14, 2020Sometimes when we change a user's email on the IdP side, the saml_user_id doesn't change to reflect the new user's email. In order to get this to change, we'll need to clear your user SAML Credentials via API.Once you run this end point, the user should log back on and their saml_user_id should change accordingly. This content is subject to limited support.                  

610
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 are users still seeing the 30 minute logout even if they click "Stay Logged In"Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 2, 2020 There's been some instances where users click "Stay Logged In" but they'll still receive the 30 minute login notification as if persistent sessions was disabled. Try asking the users to log out, reset/clear their browser cookies, and logging back in while checking Stay Logged In.Once they're in, have them navigate to:https://www.hostname.looker.com/account/sessionsAnd check to see if their new session that was created will expire in a month. If so, have their users log out, clear cookies, and log back in! This content is subject to limited support.                  

2920
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 are my drills on running_total showing only that row?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 6, 2020 running_totals are post-generated after the query is run, and so when we drill, we only see the results generated for that row in the backend SQL Query rather than what we're seeing on the front end.There is a way to create a drill though through the html/link parameter with some URL hacking!These are the steps I followed for this workaround: "Build out" the explore you want in the drill modal. i.e if the user clicks on the running_total and they want the drill to show ID and User Name, build out a new explore with just ID and User Name. Apply a Custom Filter to this new Explore; since running_totals capture the current month and all months before it, we'll want to translate that into the filters for our drill. I set matches advanced on the date field and set two place holder date values: Once you have the explore built out and have the generic filter, click the Gear by the Run button, select "Share" and grab the "Expanded URL". Take the expanded URL and decode

660
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

${TABLE} is not allowed in the 'X' property.Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 29, 2019 If you get an e-mail with a schedule error and it says ${TABLE} is not allowed in the 'X' property, this because you are using ${TABLE} outside of a sql parameter.Example of where this would fail:dimension: test {type: stringsql: ${TABLE}.field ;;# The below html references are incorrect. Substitution operators (the ${}) can't be used in html because they evaluate to SQL.html: My values are ${TABLE}.field and ${otherfield ;;} To fix this, use liquid references instead!dimension: test {type: stringsql: ${TABLE}.field ;;# {{value}} is how you reference the value of this field, and {{viewname.fieldname._value}} is how you reference the values of other fields.html: My values are {{value}} and {{otherfield._value}} ;;} This content is subject to limited support.                  

540
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

System Activity History: Result source is "stale_cache"Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 28, 2020 If the value for the History table's Result Source field is "stale_cache", this can be the result of an instant dashboard. When instant dashboards are turned on, the results can return from a cache that has expired (aka "stale" cache).The dashboard should rerun when this happens. This content is subject to limited support.                  

340
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

SQL Error: "Syntax error at or near:"Knowledge Drops

  Last tested: Feb 2021 Overview This SQL error generally means that somewhere in the query, there is invalid syntax.Some common examples:Using a database-specific SQL for the wrong database (eg BigQuery supports DATE_ADD, but Redshift supports DATEADD) Typo in the SQL (missing comma, misspelled word, etc) Missing a sql clause (missed from, join, select, etc) An object does not exist in the database or is not accessible from the current query (eg referencing orders.id when there is no orders table joined in the current query, etc)In some circumstances, the database error message may display extra detail about where the error was raised, which can be helpful in narrowing down where to look.Error Message SQL ERROR: syntax error at or nearTroubleshooting This should generally be the first step to troubleshoot any SQL syntax error in a large query: iteratively comment out blocks of SQL to narrow down where the problem is.TIP: To make this process easier, change the group by clause to use p

761320
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

SQL Error: relation "schema.table" does not exist"Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 2021 This error message can appear when a table no longer exists but still shows in the list of tables for this schema.Error Message Error Running SQL ERROR: relation "schema.table" does not existTroubleshooting Go to the gear option next to the connection name and hit "Refresh Tables and Schema" if the table has been renamed/deleted then it will no longer show up under the reference name that is causing the error.This can also happen if the table is defined with mixed-case spelling and you try to query it without double-quotes. See this stackoverflow postIn other words, if hotelList was created with mixed-case spelling, this won't work:play_arrowSELECT *FROM hotellistLIMIT 10Because the tablename is converted to lowercase when the query is run, this also won't work:play_arrowSELECT *FROM hotelListLIMIT 10To avoid this issue, use double-quotes to use the specific mixed-case spelling as the table is defined. This will work:play_arrowSELECT *FROM "hotelList"LIMIT 10It is

34250
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

Using {{_explore._name}} to extend Explores using the `from` parameterKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 6, 2019 There are occasions when you have an explore where you need to use from to specify the view to use for an aliased Explore. If this Explore is then extended by another Explore, the fields must be referenced with the Explore name (instead of the view name) so you'll see an error if those field references don't reference the extending Explore name.In this case, we can use the liquid variable {{_explore._name}} to dynamically refer to the Explore name of the Explore being used.Exampleexplore: order_items_base {from: order_itemsextension: requiredhidden: yesjoin: orders {relationship: many_to_onesql_on: ${orders.id} = {{_explore._name}}.order_id ;;}}explore: order_items_use {extends: [order_items_base]} This content is subject to limited support.                  

4221
GenDemo
1 year ago
Nicholas_Alexander
Moderator
Nicholas_AlexanderModerator
published in Common Account Questions

Can I enable SAML on my instance?

Looking to create some added/different security to your Looker instance via SAML? Looker is well equipped for that, and multiple customers have enabled this for peace of mind, to fit their use case, or various other reasons! Have a look at this intuitive doc, on how to get started, the setup needed, and how to work with us to get this enabled!  Question on this process? Feel free to comment below

680
Nicholas_Alexander
Moderator
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Is there a way to get rid of the "Row limit reached" message, when we drill down in the explore?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 28, 2021 Not at the moment, but you can share your request with the Product team via Pendo! This content is subject to limited support.                  

2060
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

Table calculation for time difference accounting for negativesKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 1, 2020 The general logic here is, if the time diff is negative, then build own results using diff_minutes/diff_seconds, otherwise; do the calculation.if(${history.created_time}<${history.completed_time},concat("-",ceiling(diff_minutes(${history.created_time},${history.completed_time})/60), ":", abs(mod(diff_seconds(${history.created_time},${history.completed_time}),60))),to_string(${history.completed_time})) This content is subject to limited support.                  

170
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How do I update filters on a Look with the API?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 17, 2020 Get the existing query using the look endpoint Create a new query with the updated filter value using the create_query endpoint Use the query id from the response in step 2 to update the look using update_lookMore resources:Updating Look via APIUpdate Look with Filters in PythonExample with Python SDK:### GET QUERY ID FROM LOOKquery = sdk.look(look_id=44).query##CREATE NEW QUERY AND ADD A FILTERnew_query = sdk.create_query(body=models.WriteQuery(model="dogs_of_new_york", view=query.view, fields=query.fields,filters={"dog_names_of_nyc.count":100}))### UPDATE LOOK WITH NEW QUERY IDsdk.update_look(look_id=44,body=models.WriteLookWithQuery(query_id=new_query.id))###RUN LOOKresult = sdk.run_look(look_id=44,result_format="csv")print(result) This content is subject to limited support.                  

5600
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What's the difference between using Google OAuth and using Google Auth for SAML (Google-provide SSO)?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 20, 2020 SAML is just a type of SSO to Looker, in terms of what is set up in the Admin panel. The Google Auth option (which is a type of OAuth) would be typical, but you can also configure GSuite to have a SAML interface as well, and use that in the SAML setup in Looker. This content is subject to limited support.                  

1700
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can you publicly share Merged results?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jul 26, 2018 No, because you can't save them as Looks. There is a feature request you can vote on our feedback system: Save merged results as a look. This content is subject to limited support.                  

250
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Embed user doesn't see option to schedule to emailKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 17, 2020 This probably indicates the embed user is not being given the schedule_look_emails permission, or the email they are trying to schedule to is not on the Email Domain Allowlist for Scheduled ContentCheck docs for more details This content is subject to limited support.                  

400
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

JGIT FetchCommand failed: https://...git: not authorizedKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 13, 2020 This error can happen when you are using HTTPS connection with user attributes, with separate credentials for Dev and Prod mode, but the credentials for Production mode don't work. The dev user attribute credentials worked, so the git connection test passed, but the credentials entered for Prod were not authorized.This can also cause the git workflow button to not show up This content is subject to limited support.                  

1590
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Liquid for dynamic time labelKnowledge Drop

Last tested: May 13, 2020 According to Shopify docs, liquid doesn't have a native quarter timeframe, so the general method for dynamic labels won't work. We can do this lovely bit of liquid code to hack it:FOR QUARTERdimension: label_quarters_ago {label: "{% assign month = \"now\" | date: \"%m\" | plus: 0 %}{% assign year = \"now\" | date: \"%Y\" %}{% if month <= 3 %}{% assign quarter = 1 %}{% elsif month <= 6 %}{% assign quarter = 2 %}{% elsif month <= 9 %}{% assign quarter = 3 %}{% else %}{% assign quarter = 4 %}{% endif %}{% if quarter == 4 %}{% assign year3 = year %}{% assign quarter3 = 1 %}{% else %}{% assign year3 = year | minus: 1 %}{% assign quarter3 = quarter | plus: 1 %}{% endif %}Current: {{ year }}Q{{ quarter }} - 3 quarters ago: {{ year3 }}Q{{ quarter3 }}"sql: 1 ;;} FOR CURRENT MONTHlabel: "{{\"now\" | date: \"%b\" %}}" This content is subject to limited support.                  

2050
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Table calculation for pivot 'subtotal'Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 9, 2020 sum(pivot_row(if(${view_name.pivot_field} = 'condition', ${view_name.measure}, 0))) This table calculation adds up all the measures where a certain condition is met by the pivoted field. You will need to create a table calculation for each pivot value. This content is subject to limited support.                  

4260
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How long must a Looker-hosted instance be unresponsive to trigger an automatic restart?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 6, 2020 Short version5 minutesLong VersionLooker sends a request to check for availability every minute, and the request is given 15 seconds to timeout. Once 5 subsequent requests time out or fail, automatic restarts kick off This content is subject to limited support.                  

1000
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago

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