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The Kitchen Table

Explore the product knowledge we've built up together

2115 Topics

molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Alias in filter suggestionsKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 30, 2020 If you're using an ID, you may want to use a more human-friendly suggestion for that ID for users to select.Unfortunately, we currently can't alias filter suggestions without parametersBut as a workaround, you might suggest creating a concatenated field that uses the human-friendly field you want to suggest and the ID, and then uses a contains clause in the filter instead of = This content is subject to limited support.                  

270
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

sdk[object Object] (node:node_number) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Error: Error: ESOCKETTIMEDOUTat sdkErrorKnowledge Drop

Last tested: May 29, 2020 (async () => {const sdk = LookerNodeSDK.init31();const dashboards = await sdk.ok(sdk.all_dashboards("id, title"));console.log(dashboards);})(); when running the above, you could see the error on the article's title because you had the wrong base url in the API settings. This content is subject to limited support.                  

210
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Does the description fields parameter have a character limit?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 30, 2020 Probably but not that we know of - we tested this parameter with 2,000 characters on a local instance.Based on our testing, it looks like if there is a technical limit, you would would hit a limit on what would appear in the browser before hitting the technical limit. This content is subject to limited support.                  

460
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Relative paths in html for embedKnowledge Drop

Last tested: May 18, 2020 If you use a relative path in an html parameter (ex. html : <a href="/dashboards/etc) embeds using this parameter will error. It will work fine in a link parameter.This is because Looker adds the /embed for the link parameter when it sees a relative URL, but doesn't do any extra processing for the html parameter.It may be possible to workaround this in an html parameter, by using liquid to determine if a user is embed or not (perhaps by using a particular user attribute value for embed users) and adding /embed to the path accordingly  This content is subject to limited support.                  

840
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What is the maximum frequency at which I can send schedules/alerts?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 13, 2020 1 every 5 minutes in the UI1 per minute with the APIThe other option we may have is setting a dashboard to refresh every 5 seconds. This will rerun with new queries to the database every 5 seconds, but requires the dashboard being open somewhere, and won't send an alert.There is a huge caution on this workaround because you need an incredibly performant database to handle this type of query load.  This content is subject to limited support.                  

880
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Error: Unknown access grant for modelKnowledge Drop

Last tested: May 13, 2020 The exact error seen in the UI is below."Unknown access grant for model"You may see this error if you're trying to reference an access grant that exists in only model, but in a view that is included in more than one.Access grants must exist in every model that include views that use them. This content is subject to limited support.                  

960
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How to filter on the last day with available dataKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 5, 2020 Create a yesno dimension like this:dimension: latest_date { type: yesno sql: ${created_date} = max(${created_date}) ;; }Use this dimension, set to = Yes, as your UI filter This content is subject to limited support.                  

2010
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why is my PDF download missing fields?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 21, 2020Are you in dev mode? Rendering always pulls the prod version of content, so if you created the fields in dev mode and haven't pushed to prod, your render jobs won't have the new fields. This content is subject to limited support.                  

160
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Filter with Python SDKKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 22, 2020 Using the Python SDK, you create the filters argument in the form of a dictionary, ex:filters={"view.field_name": value}If you want a contains filter, you can use wildcards, ex:filters: {"view.field_name" : "%containstring% "} This content is subject to limited support.                  

440
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Does deleting a user affects that users boards?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 28, 2020Nope! That board will just be left with no owner. This content is subject to limited support.                  

50
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I pass the query timezone in a dashboard link?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jul 17, 2020Yes!We can add a query parameter to a dashboard link like this&query_timezone=America/New_York to specify which timezone we want the dashboard to run in. If that is not specified it will run in the user-specific timezone by default. This content is subject to limited support.                  

200
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Welcome to Looker link not allowing user to set passwordKnowledge Drop

Last tested: May 19, 2020If a user clicks the "Activate" link on the "Welcome to Looker" user setup email and is brought to the regular login page rather than the setup password page, check if the instance is using email authentication. If another authentication type is being used, Looker will expect that type of login, unless the user also has alternate login credentials This content is subject to limited support.                   

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

Can we set user attribute values temporarily in an API session?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 17, 2020 Not exactly - API calls use the user attributes of whoever's credentials are being used.We can use the set_user_attribute_group_values call to set user attributes, but these will persist past the API session - if you wanted to revert the user attribute values after the session, it would need to be done in another call. 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

Help! SAML overwrote my user names!Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 30, 2020 This is expected - Looker rechecks the IdP every time a Looker user is authenticated and the first and last names would sync with SAML provider even if you changed them in Looker.Make sure, therefore, to have whatever names you want your users to have configured on the SAML side. This content is subject to limited support.                  

50
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Action Hub error: Errno::ECONNREFUSED: Connection refused - Failed to open TCP connection to localhost:xxxxKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 13, 2020 The Action Hub server has to be hosted separately from the Looker host with a publicly resolvable URL. This error may happen if you are trying to host on the same machine.In one case, the problem seemed to be fixed by configuring "ACTION_HUB_BASE_URL" environment variable on the Action Hub host This content is subject to limited support.                  

1220
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Do we have any limitation of size to store a user attribute value type string?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 14, 2020 it looks like the max size of a user attribute is absolutely massive. From the code, it looks like it's 16777216 charactersThat said, I'd definitely suggest caution since storing massive strings is probably going to lead to performance issues down the line (or maybe even immediately) since these values will likely have to be stored in memory wherever they go This content is subject to limited support.                  

1060
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Does deleting a user affect that user's alerts?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 28, 2020 Unlike scheduled plans, alerts do not get deleted when a user does.The alert ends up remaining on the /admin/alerts panel with no owner set, and the 'reassign' button works to assign a new owner for that alert. This content is subject to limited support.                  

150
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What could cause the "condition" field to be blank in an alert?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 12, 2020This can happen when you create an alert on a field in a pivot and the value becomes null - since there isn't a value for the pivot column, Looker treats it as if it never existed. The pivot columns are purely based on data and not defined in LookML or the DB itself, so if it's not in the results, we don't know about it.We can fix this issue by not limiting the data to one row, and instead showing a range, so that the pivot data are included. This will allow the alert to still function. This content is subject to limited support.                  

340
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Table calculation to create descending row numbersKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 16, 2020 Using the row() function will get you an ascending list of row numbers. You can use this to make it descending:max(row()) - row() + 1 This content is subject to limited support.                  

7150
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How to get single value viz to report last value of running totalKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 8, 2020 Say you have a running total table calc on a dataset that's sorted by date in ascending fashion. You want to grab the value of the last row of the running total column (value for the most recent date).To do this, we can create a new table calc if(row()=max(row()),yes,no), then select “Hide No’s from Visualization”. All of the rows except for the last row will be marked “no”, so the single value viz will pick up the latest date. This content is subject to limited support.                  

2250
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Replace commas in a list field with carriage returns using liquidKnowledge Drop

Last tested: May 26, 2020 Say you have a field that shows up like a, b, c but you want it to display in a single row asa b cYou can use a Liquid for loop with the split function to achieve this!html: {% assign items = your_dimension_here._value | split: ", " %}{% for item in items %}{{ item }}{% endfor %} This content is subject to limited support.                  

750
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Wrong numbers in user_facts viewKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 6, 2020The user_facts view is rebuilt every hour on the hour, so if you are making updates to users and want to see them in system_activity, wait at least an hour after updating them for the changes to be reflected This content is subject to limited support.                  

80
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I build an application without specifying the connection in the model?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 17, 2020 As users build custom apps, they will want to find ways to share model files without including a connection parameter value.This is what constants are for! Constants are specified on install, so the connection doesn't need to be hardcoded into LookMLMore info here: https://github.com/looker-open-source/extension-template-react This content is subject to limited support.                  

100
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I use a transient schema for PDTs?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 19, 2020 What are transient schemas? https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/tables-temp-transient.html#comparison-of-table-typesCan I use them?Yes - Transient tables still need to be explicitly dropped, the difference with them and a permanent table is that there is a fail safe period for permanent tables of 7 days (in those 7 days, permanent tables can be restored with UNDROP TABLE, transient cannot) This content is subject to limited support.                  

80
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I schedule a Look to the emails listed in the Look?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jul 17, 2020 You can with the API!Retrieve the look id associated with a scheduled plan using /scheduled_plans/{scheduled_plan_id}. If you run that look using /looks/{look_id}/run/{result_format}  you’ll get the results. You could then use the /scheduled_plans/run_once to send reports to retrieved email addresses This content is subject to limited support.                  

320
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago

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