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The Kitchen Table

Explore the product knowledge we've built up together

2115 Topics

V
Looker Staff
vishal.dharmadhikariLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Is it possible to turn on SAML but prevent Looker from creating users for a specific group/set of users even if they already have an account within the IDP?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 26, 2020 Yes!This can be accomplished using the SP Entity/IdP Audience (documentation) setting in the Admin > SAML settings. You can assign this field to only specific people within the IdP to be allowed to log in to Looker. If a user attempts to log in that does not have this value assigned, the authentication with fail and the user will not be able to access Looker. This will also prevent them from creating an account until they are assigned this value and can successfully authentication.Usually this is done through groups on the IdP side but different providers have different terminology. The Audience field is how they specify the group name in the Looker settings. This content is subject to limited support.                  

1130
V
Looker Staff
1 year ago
V
Looker Staff
vishal.dharmadhikariLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can self-hosted deployments run Looker behind an application load balancer (ALB)?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 11, 2021 No. Currently, only layer 4 ELBs are supported per our documentation. This content is subject to limited support.                  

370
V
Looker Staff
1 year ago
V
Looker Staff
vishal.dharmadhikariLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why are my System Activity queries being queued?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 2, 2020 There is currently a limit of one query for how many queries can be run against the internal DB at once, for both i__looker (changed in v7.10) and System Activity.You can increase this concurrency limit by either opting in to Elite System Activity or by increasing the internal DB start up flag after setting up a read replica internal analytics database. This content is subject to limited support.                   

850
V
Looker Staff
1 year ago
V
Looker Staff
vishal.dharmadhikariLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Error in logs: `Java::OrgPostgresqlUtil::PSQLException : This connection has been closed`Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 17, 2010 Possible reasons for seeing this error message include:The connection between Looker and the DB closed before the query could finish executing (timeout error) There could be a "networking" component involved that's forcing the connection between Looker and the database to close after a certain amount of time. This usually is in the forms of either a "proxy" or a "load balancer" that's in front of our database. Usually, if there is a networking component involved with this behavior, there is a consistent amount of time before our connection to the database get's closed off (i.e it's always 60 seconds).​ This content is subject to limited support.                  

360
V
Looker Staff
1 year ago
V
Looker Staff
vishal.dharmadhikariLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why can't I see my model, when trying to configure it, in the 'Manage LookML Projects' page?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 12, 2020 If the user isn't an admin, they will need the manage_models permission to be able to configure their model in the 'Manage LookML Projects' page.Permissions documentation Configuring a model documentation This content is subject to limited support.                  

2270
V
Looker Staff
1 year ago
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
srinija.godavarthiLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can you change the timezone of the time that is appended to files that are being scheduled?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 18, 2020 Tldr: no.The timezone that determines the timestamp that is appended to end of file names, is the system time zone. For Looker hosted instances, that will always be UTC, (just like how it is for logs and system activity)All of the looker servers have UTC as the system time but some self-hosted servers are random timezones: https://docs.looker.com/admin-options/tutorials/timezones#system_time_zoneSelf-hosted instances could have different timezones. This content is subject to limited support.                  

160
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
1 year ago
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
srinija.godavarthiLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Make Looker automatically restart when server goes downKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 7, 2020 Use the looker_init script in our customer scripts repo https://github.com/looker/customer-scripts/tree/master/startup_scripts . This content is subject to limited support.                  

130
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
1 year ago
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
srinija.godavarthiLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What map geometries are supported?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 12, 2020We support lines and polygons. Points usually come from the db and use our location type This content is subject to limited support.                  

310
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
1 year ago
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
srinija.godavarthiLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How to extend session timeout for embeddingKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 30, 2020 If you are using private embed, you would need to alter the inactivity logout setting: https://docs.looker.com/admin-options/security/persistent-sessions#inactivity_logout If you are using SSO embed: use the "session_length" parameter: https://docs.looker.com/reference/embedding/sso-embed#parameters  This content is subject to limited support.                  

5880
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
1 year ago
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
srinija.godavarthiLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why do I have to re-enter my pwd when I change the host, port, or dialect for a connection?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 22, 2020 We enforce this for several reasons:Prevent user error SecurityFrequently, the Admin who setup a given connection will not be the only Admin on a Looker instance, or may not always have access to the database's details. Similarly, an Admin may fiddle with connection settings and accidentally save with bad ones. Given how many background/infrastructure tasks Looker can manage (PDTs, Schedules, Etc), a broken connection can have catastrophic consequences.On the note of security, databases can have incredibly sensitive data. A bad, malicious, or compromised admin account could change the host and port to a malicious host, routing queries to an imposter server host and intercepting user/password combos. In the rare case this were to occur, sensitive PII and other data could be exposed, causing a severe data breach or data loss.For these reasons, we intentionally require changes to a connection's host, port, or dialect settings to also be accompanied by the passwor

50
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
1 year ago
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
srinija.godavarthiLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How can a VPN kill a query?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 20, 2021When we run a query in sql runner in Looker, there is a network request in which we are sending that query to your database, and the network request will be active for as long as it takes the query to finish. Essentially, a socket is maintained between the client browser and the looker server. If this socket is closed (by a user closing the tab, or a VPN killing it) then Looker will send a kill request to the database and kill the query on the db side too - which is then when the query shows up as "Canceled" in the Queries panel. This content is subject to limited support.                  

750
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
1 year ago
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
srinija.godavarthiLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I delete DCL'ers/support off my instance?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 12, 2020Yep! You can delete support users off your instance, we'll just get re-created once we sign into your instance again (with your permission). However, do not meddle with our permissions as that could prevent us from signing in in the future. This content is subject to limited support.                  

30
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
1 year ago
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
srinija.godavarthiLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Will migrating from legacy --> K8s rebuild PDTs?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 2, 2021 No, the PDTs shouldn't regenerate. The instance slug that determines the reg key is now persisted in the internal DB for hosted customers for this reason, so when the DB is copied over the slug will be copied over too and the instance will keep using the same reg key. This content is subject to limited support.                  

00
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
1 year ago
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
srinija.godavarthiLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can you embed the data dictionary extension?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 26, 2020Yes! The data dictionary: https://docs.looker.com/relnotes#data_dictionary can be embedded, You would embed this same as a dashboard or any other piece of content. This content is subject to limited support.                  

570
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
1 year ago
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
srinija.godavarthiLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

ERR_BLOCKED_BY_CLIENT in js consoleKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 31, 2020 This error in the console usually does come up a lot with local ad-blockers. https://www.keycdn.com/support/how-to-solve-err-blocked-by-clientTry disabling Adblock.If you want to keep Adblocker on, you can also allowlist the domain. This content is subject to limited support.                  

940
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
1 year ago
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
srinija.godavarthiLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Google sheets action spinning foreverKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 19, 2020 If a user is clicking on the google sheets action in the scheduler modal and it spins forever, this could mean that they have a large amount of folders in their Google drive. The delay is from the action trying to get all of their folders in the Google Drive, so the best next steps would be for them to cut down the amount of folders they have in their Drive.In case the user is unable to cut down the folders and ask a way to connect only to "My Drive". This is actually not possible within the Google Sheet actions. Because we fetch all the drive destinations and folders accessible via the account you auth in under.So other than reducing the amount of folders in the Drive destination, they could try to create a custom action from our Google Sheet Code. The code for the google sheet action is available on the [repo]. They could clone it, edit the code to perform this only and deploy the action themselves as well. Here is more context about [Building a Custom Actio

2180
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
1 year ago
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
srinija.godavarthiLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Conditionally formatting measures selected from parametersKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 17, 2021 If you have a parameter like so:parameter: labor_type_parameter {type: stringallowed_value: { value: "Hours" }allowed_value: { value: "Headcount" }}Where hours and headcount are defined like so:measure: hours {type: sumsql: (${test} / 60.0) ;;value_format: "#,##0.00"}measure: headcount{type:average sql: (${test} / 10.0) ;;value_format:  "#,##0" } You can create a measure that has html like so to conditionally format based off of parameter selection. NOTE: this will not affect the visualization, only the data table.html: {% if labor_type_parameter._parameter_value == "'Hours'" %}{{ hours._rendered_value }}{% else %}{{ headcount._rendered_value }}{% endif %} ;; This content is subject to limited support.                  

530
srinija.godavarthi
Looker Staff
1 year ago
S
Looker Staff
swhiteLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Link to Image on Google DriveKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 31, 2018 If you have difficulty linking to an image hosted on gdrive with html, you'll want to add the image ID to the URL in this form:<img src="https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=XXX"/>From this doc:https://gist.github.com/evansims/f23e2f49e3d4be793038This is also helpful: https://confluence.biola.edu/display/itservices/How+to+Embed+Images+from+Google+Drive+in+a+Web+Page This content is subject to limited support.                  

4200
S
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sidney.junior
Looker Staff
sidney.juniorLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Example: Changing embedded looks filters with Javascript EventsKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 21, 2019 This is meant for anyone who needs are looking for a working example and an explanation on changing filters of embedded private looks with javascript events. Link here:https://gist.github.com/SidneyJrLooker/47b69a4ffe7cc7ef903765a51a442e6dIf you want to test it, you will need to host your html file on your localhost.Documentation for making changes to the iframes with javascript events: https://docs.looker.com/reference/embedding/embed-javascript-events#making_changes_to_the_iframe This content is subject to limited support.                  

780
sidney.junior
Looker Staff
1 year ago
shivanisankar
shivanisankarNew Member
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why are my week dimension rows duplicating when I have the month dimension selected?Knowledge Drop

Last tested; Feb 1, 2021 You may notice that when you select the week dimension and some other fields, your data looks alright!However, when you add in your month dimension, some of your week rows are duplicating!Why is this happening? In this case, we can see 2020-12-28 getting repeated. This is because this week starts in the month 2021-012 and ends in 2021-01. There are two of the same week values, but they're getting correlated to two different months, causing the duplication.How can we fix it? We can add in a table calculation to extract the month. This will correlate the week to the month it starts in. This content is subject to limited support.                  

830
shivanisankar
1 year ago
shivanisankar
shivanisankarNew Member
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Creating a diff_quarter function in the Looker UIKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 1, 2021 Unlike several other "diff" functions (example: diff_days, diff_hours, etc) that we offer in our Looker Functions and Operators doc, we don't have a native function to create diff_quarters! In the example below, we'll create a diff_quarter function between order_items.returned_quarter and orders.created_quarter.Steps:First, we'll start by creating a diff_days_for_quarter function from the two quarters we've selected. We are extracting the months and years from each quarter and then turning that into a date. Once that's done, we are able to use the diff_days function and find the absolute value: abs(diff_days(date(extract_years(${order_items.returned_quarter}), extract_months(${order_items.returned_quarter}), 01), date(extract_years(${orders.created_quarter}), extract_months(${orders.created_quarter}), 01))) Next, we'll reference this diff_days_for_quarter function in another calculation, writing something like this: round(${diff_days_for_quarter}/91.75,0) We a

1130
shivanisankar
1 year ago
shiggins
Looker Staff
shigginsLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Looker Extension Framework Development - Edge Case QuirksKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 23, 2021 Just a brain dump of stuff I found while tinkering with the Extension Framework.FirebaseIf you want to sync stuff with a realtime database, Firebase is a good option but you will have to do something like this in your main App component to get a bi-directional sync  useEffect(() => {      firebase.database().ref(`profservices/fishes`).on('value', snapshot => {          if (snapshot.val()) setFishes(snapshot.val())      })  }, []);  useEffect(() => {      firebase.database().ref(`profservices/fishes`).update(fishes)   }, [fishes]) You can try using re-base, but I couldn’t get it to sync from Firebase as well as write to. There is an open source firebase react library with built hooks, but I haven’t used it.This actually works incredibly well and is something to consider for things like annotations, comments etc. BabelBabel will produce this weird error whenever you try to run any async/await functions;regeneratorRuntime is not definedTo fix this, chang

1480
shiggins
Looker Staff
1 year ago
scott.siegel
Looker Staff
scott.siegelLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why am I getting the error Java::JavaLang::ClassCastException: [Mentions BigQuery]Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 7, 2018 You may be getting this error because Looker's SQL Runner is unable to return Arrays in the query results. If the column is a type Array and is in the Select statement, users may encounter the error Java::JavaLang::ClassCastException:When using arrays, it may be necessary to UNNEST or convert Array to String. A couple functions that can solve for this error are:Google BigQuery UNNESTThe UNNEST operator takes an ARRAY and returns a table, with one row for each element in the ARRAY. You can also use UNNEST outside of the FROM clause with the IN operator.Converting Arrays to StringsThe ARRAY_TO_STRING() function allows you to convert an ARRAY<STRING> to a single STRING value or an ARRAY<BYTES> to a single BYTES value where the resulting value is the ordered concatenation of the array elements.See Google Documentation here for more information:https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/docs/reference/standard-sql/arrays This content is subject to limited support

230
scott.siegel
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sarah.tayeri
Looker Staff
sarah.tayeriLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why does regen cycle keep canceling and restarting?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 21, 2020 To look closely at the regen cycle, you can use an explore like :https://instance.looker.com/explore/system__activity/pdt_event_log?fields=pdt_event_log.id,pdt_event_log.created_time,pdt_event_log.action,pdt_event_log.action_data&f[pdt_event_log.connection]=&f[pdt_event_log.action]=&sorts=pdt_event_log.id+desc&limit=500&query_timezone=America%2FLos_Angeles&vis=%7B%7D&filter_config=%7B%22pdt_event_log.connection%22%3A%5B%7B%22type%22%3A%22%3D%22%2C%22values%22%3A%5B%7B%22constant%22%3A%22%22%7D%2C%7B%7D%5D%2C%22id%22%3A0%2C%22error%22%3Afalse%7D%5D%2C%22pdt_event_log.action%22%3A%5B%7B%22type%22%3A%22contains%22%2C%22values%22%3A%5B%7B%22constant%22%3A%22%22%7D%2C%7B%7D%5D%2C%22id%22%3A1%2C%22error%22%3Afalse%7D%5D%7D&dynamic_fields=%5B%5D&origin=share-expanded, filtering on the connection where we're seeing issues.If it seems like PDTs keep getting rebuilt at an interval that does not follow the cron specified for the connec

320
sarah.tayeri
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sarah.tayeri
Looker Staff
sarah.tayeriLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How does Looker use the internal database?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 22, 2021 When we do pretty much anything with Looker - whether that be via the UI or via the API - Looker is reading from and/or writing to the internal database.For example, say we navigate to the Admin>Users page in the UI. Looker queries the “users” table in the internal db to pull up the list of users on the instance.Say we create a schedule in the UI. Looker writes to the “scheduled_plan” table in the internal db to record the new schedule. Then the next time we open the Admin>Scheduled Plans page, and the table is queried, the new schedule is there.Based on these examples, we can see that Looker is constantly reading from and writing to the internal db. One exception is changes to the LookML. Changes to the LookML won’t update the internal db; LookML is stored in directories on the Looker server. This content is subject to limited support.                  

2190
sarah.tayeri
Looker Staff
1 year ago

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