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The Kitchen Table

The Kitchen Table

Explore the product knowledge we've built up together

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Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Who ran the lookML validator (logs)Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 7, 2020 Get the project name Search for (replace MY_PROJECT_NAME with your project) GET /api/3.1/projects/MY_PROJECT_NAME/validate, {} Log lines after will show ID associated with userExample Log-lines: 2020-10-07 19:01:48.697 +0000 [INFO|99e1501dbf617994|http_core] :: Request from 127.0.0.1 |c27cb18bed62c29b| GET /api/3.1/projects/contentaccess/validate, {} 2020-10-07 19:01:48.704 +0000 [INFO|99e1501dbf617994|db:looker] :: (0.005524s) SELECT * FROM "ACCESS_TOKEN" WHERE ("LOOKUP_ID" = 'J7KttgkX') LIMIT 1 2020-10-07 19:01:48.705 +0000 [INFO|99e1501dbf617994|db:looker] :: (0.000101s) SELECT * FROM "USER" WHERE "ID" = 1 This content is subject to limited support.

1 year ago

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What JDBC driver does Looker use to connect to the internal database?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 12, 2020 For a HyperSQL backend, Looker uses the HyperSQL JDBC driver.For a MySQL backend, Looker uses the MariaDB JDBC driver. This content is subject to limited support.

400

1 year ago

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

samLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Moving Averages in Table Calculations

Last tested: Sep 2020 You can make a moving average of a value in Looker with this simple table calc using offset_list:mean(offset_list(${value},0,7))For every row, this will give you the average of the 7 rows below. You can change the number of rows (it's the last parameter) to increase your window. You can also change the 0 to wherever you'd like the window to start. Positive numbers will move down, and negative numbers move up. So to get average of the ten values above you, you can do:mean(offset_list(${value},-10,10))This Help Center Article explains in more detailMoving average with dynamic number of rowsWe can get another level of flexibility by passing a parameter value into a table calc using a dimension:parameter: period { type: unquoted suggestions: ["1", "2", "3", "4", "5", "6", "7", "10"] } dimension: parameter_taker { sql: {% parameter period %} ;; type: string }And adapting our rolling average calculation from this:mean(offset_list(${inventory_items.coun

21850

1 year ago

samLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Error: Could not send webhook to hooks.slack.com/services. missing_text_or_fallback_or_attachmentsKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 2019 This error comes up when someone tries to send a webhook to Slack directly. You probably want Lookerbot, or the Slack Action Hub integration.This is because Slack expects specific formatting for how the data comes in via webhook and we cannot change how we format webhooks in Looker. This content is subject to limited support.

1420

1 year ago

samLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Who can use System Activity?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: June 2020 Admins, and any user with the `see_system_activity` permission, can use the System Activity explores and dashboards. This content is subject to limited support.

860

1 year ago

samLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Git Error: "There was an internal server error while trying to commit."Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 2020 This is Git's generic error message; it doesn't tell us anything by itself. Steps to troubleshoot:Make sure the Git user has write permissions to the Git repository (outside of Looker). Reset the Git connection in Looker and hard refresh the page. Run the Git Connection Test to get more details. Look at the Looker logs at the exact time that the error occurred; they will have a better error message. If your Looker deployment is hosted by Looker, please open a Looker support request so we can check into your logs for you. (Be sure to let us know exactly the timestamp when the error occurred. It may help to refresh your page to get the error to appear again in order to get an accurate timestamp.) This content is subject to limited support.

2200

1 year ago

samLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Lookerbot Error: "s3: access denied"Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 2019 You'll want to check that all the keys have write access and are set up according to the repo. One useful tidbit is that the access keys need the s3:PutObjectAcl permission. This content is subject to limited support.

400

1 year ago

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What happens when an actively logged-in user is disabled by a second user? Does the first user's session immediately end?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Dec 3, 2020 Yes. They are immediately logged out and see the above screen. This content is subject to limited support.

1 year ago

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Weekly Rollup CalculationKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 17, 2020 Like many people out there, you like to automate processes and cringe at the idea that is "manual." Contrary to popular belief, also like many people out there you like to create weekly rollup ranges in you Explore. Well by golly do I have a solution for you.The Dirty:(${week_field} >= add_days(-1 * mod(diff_days(date(2008,01,01), now()) + 1, 7), now()) AND ${week_field} <= add_days(28,now()) AND (extract_years(${week_field}) = extract_years(now())))OR(${week_field} <= add_days(-1 * mod(diff_days(date(2008,01,01),now()) + 1, 7), now()) AND ${week_field} >= add_days(-28,now()) AND (extract_years(${week_field}) = extract_years(now())))To-Note: Order of the two filter conditions doesn't particularly matter here. The only substitutions necessary are swapping out week_field for your week date field.The first filter condition calculates for 4 weeks from now. Whereas the second calculates for weeks prior to now. Within each calc we are comparing a week fi

710

1 year ago

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Expand Tables in PDF - APIKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jul 20, 2020 We have the pdf_paper_size option for the render_task() endpoint, so where's the Expand Tables option, like in the UI?There isn't one. Pendo feature request here.WorkaroundUse anything from the ScheduledPlan set of endpoints. Instead of downloading, we are creating a schedule of the dashboard to deliver this as a PDF. We can use the create_scheduled_plan() endpoint, since this gives us the long_tables option."long_tables": true This should give us the same behavior as expanding tables in the UI. For one-off downloads, we should be able to use scheduled_plan_run_once() for this. This content is subject to limited support.

1080

1 year ago

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Query execution failed: - FULL OUTER JOIN cannot be used without a condition that is an equality of fields from both sides of the joinKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 28, 2020 We see this happen in Standard SQL (BigQuery uses Standard SQL as the default dialect). It comes up when we have multiple conditions for one join using OR - apparently Standard SQL doesn't like this.The workaround here is to join this table multiple times, once for each new condition. If we're using multiple conditions due to null values, we can then add a COALESCE() like: COALESCE(table1.customer_name,table1_alias1.customer_name,table1_alias2.customer_name) in the SELECT statement.If we're writing this in the Explore definition itself, we'll want to make use of the from parameter (joins) and join the same underlying view multiple times to the base explore - then, we'll want to make sure that we bring the correct fields into the explore per joined view, depending on which of the multiple conditions each view is associated with.The cited Stackoverflow article helps describe the behavior a bit further with a full example.cite: Stackoverflow This content is subje

5560

1 year ago

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

RendererNoDataError, while rendering pdf/png.Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 19, 2020 2020-04-08 10:05:54.770 +0000 [INFO|0097a|event:render] :: Render job data not found by user 12020-04-08 10:05:54.772 +0000 [ERROR|0097a|] :: Looker::Render::RendererNoDataError : Render job 9d16e8a23065a16edc63f09c21a04a51 data not found uri:classloader:/helltool-component-build/lib/helltool/render/manager.class:491:in `get_render_results' uri:classloader:/helltool-component-build/lib/helltool/controllers/render_controller.class:163:in `block in GET /render/result/:slug/:filename'2020-04-08 10:05:55.021 +0000 [WARN|0097a|http] :: (0.306463s) Request complete: 500 /render/result/9d16e8a23065a16edc63f09c21a04a51/Internal%20Price%20Checker%202020-04-08T0304.pdf One of the possible causes that might trigger this exception that I came across was the fact that time was out of sync on one of the new nodes that were added to the cluster. We essentially treat nodes that have a bad heartbeat as impostors. It'll still pick up tasks but it won't be allowed to talk to th

420

1 year ago

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I migrate System Activity Dashboards?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 13, 2020 YESScenario:I have a System Activity Dashboard that I've created on one of my instances and I want to migrate that over to another instance.How to (LookML Dashboard way [not gazer]):Access the System Activity Dashboard and get a copy of the lookML version of the dashboard Navigate to your other instance and go into the IDE of one of your existing projects Add the lookML dashboard file Paste your dashboard lookML from step 1 into this file Navigate to your model file and add an include statement to include dashboard lookML file. Go back to the LookML Dashboard file and click the upside down triangle and we should be able to see a View Dashboard option. Another way to access your newly migrated System Activity Dashboard is to access it from the LookML Dashboards Folder (All Folders > LookML Dashboards) Steps 4-6:Explanation:As you'll see when we get the LookML Dashboard file for our System Activity Dashboard, the model that it's based off is called system__ac

730

1 year ago

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How do I embed in Salesforce?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 18, 2019 We have an article on how to privately embed Looker in Salesforce on Community: https://community.looker.com/embedding-looker-powered-by-looker-75/embedding-looks-and-dashboards-into-salesforce-sfdc-561OKay, but what if i want to use sso embed?If you are using SSO embed, you'll most likely want to create unique embed URL parameters based on the credentials of the Salesforce user. Normally this function would be performed in a script in your internal app, but you can use Salesforce Apex to write the script to generate your embed URLs inside Salesforce itself. You can retrieve the current Salesforce user’s email address, then use that to create a unique external_user_id from that address and specify permissions, models, user attributes, etc. accordingly. Here is an example script: https://github.com/looker/looker_embed_sso_examples/pull/3/files This content is subject to limited support.

5510

1 year ago

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How do access_filter, sql_always_where, full_suggestions, and bypass_suggest_restrictions work with filter suggestions?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 1, 2020 To understand how these parameters interact with filter suggestions, it's important to understand the full_suggestions parameter first. Here is the principle to remember:full_suggestions: no means the filter suggestion query will run against the view. full_suggestions: yes means the filter suggestion query will run against the explore.For a basic explore, the default value for full_suggestions is no. This is intended to make filter suggestions more performant, since the query can run against a single table without any joins, without using any of the logic defined in the explore. However, you can manually set full_suggestions to yes instead, and the query will use the logic of the explore that you are in, along with any of the joins that are required to query that dimension in the explore.Sql_always_where, ALWAYS_JOIN, and access_filterWhen the explore has the sql_always_where, always_join, and/or access_filter parameters, the default value of full_suggestions s

4130

1 year ago

samLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How secure are Public Look URLs, and can I make them more secure?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: June 2021 Public Looks are completely public. In that way, they are not at all secure.However, the URL is a random hash, which should be unguessable. In that way, they're fairly secure.You can make your Public Look more secure by setting up IP allowlisting on your Looker instance. This content is subject to limited support.

220

1 year ago

samLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I use Self-Signed Certificates with Lookerbot?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 2019 The source of truth to answer this question is the lookerbot repo. It says:If your Looker instance uses a self-signed certificate, Lookerbot will refuse to connect to it by default.Setting the NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED environment variable to 0 will instruct Lookerbot to accept connections with invalid certificates. Please ensure you have thouroughly evaluated the security implications of this action for your infrastructure before setting this variable.This should only impact on-premise deployments of Looker. Do not set this environment variable if Looker hosts your instance. This content is subject to limited support.

110

1 year ago

samLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How to write a PDT Trigger Value that rebuilds multiple times per dayKnowledge Drop

Last tested: June 2019 The ProblemI want to set a PDT Trigger value which rebuilds twice a day. The docs only say how to build once a day! In this example, let's say I want to build at 0900 and 1700 daily.A SolutionWhen approaching trigger problems, it helps to envision a table of desired values. In this case, you want to make sure that the trigger value changes at 0900, but doesn't change back at 0901. It needs to be exactly the same value from 0900 to 1659, then change at 1700, then be the same value from 1700 to 0859 the next day. In tabular form:Time Value 0859 0 0900 1 0901 1 1659 1 1700 0 1701 0 We can achieve this pretty easily with a CASE WHEN!CASE WHEN [current time is between 0900 and 1700]THEN 1 ELSE 0ENDGeneral FormGenerally, for n desired times:CASEWHEN [current time is in between time 1 and 2] THEN 1 WHEN [current time is in between time 2 and 3] THEN 2...WHEN [current time is in between time _n-1_ and _n_] THEN _n-1_ELSE _n_ END This content is su

1220

1 year ago

samLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How can I find out who added a dashboard tile to my dashboard, and when?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 2021 You can't see this in the UI at the moment, but you can use the dashboard explore in System Activity to see the created date of each dashboard element.https://[HOSTNAME]/explore/system__activity/dashboard?fields=dashboard_element.created_date,dashboard_element.id,dashboard_element.type,dashboard.id,user.name&f[dashboard.id]=999&sorts=dashboard.id+desc&limit=500&query_timezone=America%2FLos_Angeles&vis=%7B%7D&filter_config=%7B%22dashboard.id%22%3A%5B%7B%22type%22%3A%22%3D%22%2C%22values%22%3A%5B%7B%22constant%22%3A%22999%22%7D%2C%7B%7D%5D%2C%22id%22%3A0%2C%22error%22%3Afalse%7D%5D%7D&dynamic_fields=%5B%5D&origin=share-expandedNote: Make sure to replace the [HOSTNAME] above by your company url, and then filter on the proper dashboard ID!If you need to know which element ID corresponds to which query, you'll have to use the "get dashboard" API call.There is a feature request you can vote for to add this metadata on the system activit

2590

1 year ago

samLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Error: 'time' param is not within 5 minutes of the server's system timeKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 2020 This error comes up for SSO embed URLs. Basically, there are two main reasons: The link needs to be hit within 5 minutes of it being generated. Try generating the link again. The time on the server generating the URL is actually 5 minutes off of the time on the Looker server. Check what the servers think the current time is with the date command line call. This portion is mentioned in our docs right here: https://docs.looker.com/reference/embedding/security#sso_embed_parameters"The signed part of the URL contains a timestamp. Once the URL is used to sign on, that time must be +/- 5 minutes from the current time." This content is subject to limited support.

310

1 year ago

samLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Error "Could not find a view named x" when extending a viewKnowledge Drop

Last tested: April 2020 When extending a view, remember to include the view you're extending.include: "base.view"view: new {extends: [base]}Make sure that the string inside include is the filename (what you see on the list on the left hand side), and that the string inside extends is the actual view name. (The string defined at: view: view_name inside the view file).Extending a view (docs)This content is subject to limited support.

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1 year ago

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The Kitchen Table

Who ran the lookML validator (logs)Knowledge Drop

What JDBC driver does Looker use to connect to the internal database?Knowledge Drop

Move the custom drill link to the end of the row.Knowledge Drop

How to preserve whitespace in string fieldsKnowledge Drop

How do I look up unused PDTs in system activity?Knowledge Drop

Anchor Tag on New Dashboards - HTMLKnowledge Drop

Moving Averages in Table Calculations

Error: Could not send webhook to hooks.slack.com/services. missing_text_or_fallback_or_attachmentsKnowledge Drop

Who can use System Activity?Knowledge Drop

Git Error: "There was an internal server error while trying to commit."Knowledge Drop

Lookerbot Error: "s3: access denied"Knowledge Drop

What happens when an actively logged-in user is disabled by a second user? Does the first user's session immediately end?Knowledge Drop

Weekly Rollup CalculationKnowledge Drop

Expand Tables in PDF - APIKnowledge Drop

Query execution failed: - FULL OUTER JOIN cannot be used without a condition that is an equality of fields from both sides of the joinKnowledge Drop

RendererNoDataError, while rendering pdf/png.Knowledge Drop

Can I migrate System Activity Dashboards?Knowledge Drop

How do I embed in Salesforce?Knowledge Drop

How do access_filter, sql_always_where, full_suggestions, and bypass_suggest_restrictions work with filter suggestions?Knowledge Drop

How secure are Public Look URLs, and can I make them more secure?Knowledge Drop

Can I use Self-Signed Certificates with Lookerbot?Knowledge Drop

How to write a PDT Trigger Value that rebuilds multiple times per dayKnowledge Drop

How can I find out who added a dashboard tile to my dashboard, and when?Knowledge Drop

Error: 'time' param is not within 5 minutes of the server's system timeKnowledge Drop

Error "Could not find a view named x" when extending a viewKnowledge Drop

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