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The Kitchen Table

The Kitchen Table

Explore the product knowledge we've built up together

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srinija.godavarthiLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

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.

3530

1 year ago

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.

650

1 year ago

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.

470

1 year ago

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

870

1 year ago

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

1200

1 year ago

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

140

1 year ago

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

280

1 year ago

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.

1570

1 year ago

sarah.tayeriLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Internal DB PerformanceKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 24, 2021 When we use system activity in Looker, we’re directly querying the tables stored in the internal database. Because Looker is constantly reading from and writing to the internal database, if we allowed users to query the tables without restriction on top of this, performance issues would certainly ensue. That’s why we limit the number of concurrent queries to 1 for the internal db; that is, we only allow one System Activity query to run at a time. If you try to run concurrent queries, additional queries will be queued until the first completes.Another way we attempt to keep from overloading the internal db is by only updating and caching the data in System Activity dashboards every 12 hours.Instances that use Elite System Activity use more robust methods of improving internal DB performance, and because of this, the 1 query concurrency limit and 12 hour caching policy for SA dashboards aren’t imposed. This content is subject to limited support.

990

1 year ago

sarah.tayeriLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Liquid version of a "case when"Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 30, 2020 If you want to implement a liquid {% if %} version of a case when statement?You can do that in the html parameter like this - dimension: item_name {type: stringsql: ${TABLE}.item_name ;;html: {% if value == "Sarah" %}Sarah_2{% else %}{{ value }}{% endif %} ;;} This content is subject to limited support.

2360

1 year ago

sarah.tayeriLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Default value for dynamic filtered measureKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 11, 2021 If you're creating a dynamic filtered measure like in this article, "if a user does not select a value in the filter-only field, the SQL will default to 1=1 (having no filtering effect on the measures)."If you want to be able to have a default value for when a user doesn't select a value on the filter, we can use something like this:filter: status_filter {type: stringsuggest_dimension: status} dimension: status_satisfies_filter {type: yesnohidden: yessql: {% if status_filter._is_filtered %}{% condition status_filter %} ${status} {% endcondition %}{% else %}${status} = "cancelled"{% endif %};;} measure: count_dynamic_status {type: countfilters: [status_satisfies_filter: "yes"]} What you put after the {% else %} will be the default value applied to the filtered measure. This content is subject to limited support.

3790

1 year ago

sarah.tayeriLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Error: Every derived table must have its own aliasKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 17, 2020 This is a MySQL error that gets triggered if two PDTs are named the same.If you've checked no PDTs share a name, check the dt sql for missing parentheses/brackets - not closing the parentheses can also throw this error. This content is subject to limited support.

360

1 year ago

sarah.tayeriLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Min/max date using table calcsKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 29, 2021 How can I get min/max date of a date range using table calcs? If you include the date field in the results, and sort desc:Use this to get the max date: index(${date_field},1)Use this to get the min date: index(${date_field}, max(row())) This content is subject to limited support.

1320

1 year ago

sarah.tayeriLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Dashboard limits results on tile when row limit isn't setKnowledge Drop

Last Tested: Nov 12, 2019 If you leave the row limit blank in an explore/look, and add the query/look to a dashboard, the dashboards adds a row limit of 1000 rows. So if you have a table calc that depends on going through more than 1000 rows, you need to add in a row limit rather than leave it blank.The workaround is to use row limit 5000 instead of a blank row limit. This content is subject to limited support.

3660

1 year ago

sarah.tayeriLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

System Activity Cache fieldsKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 6, 2020 The System Activity history history table fields about cache require a bit of background to be understood and used effectively. The following will help clear up what the fields mean.Background:In general, when a query is run, Looker checks render cache first, then results cache (that's because render cache is quicker to check, because we don't need to generate the sql to create the render key - to create the results cache key, the sql needs to be generated). More details about render cache vs results cache here.About the Cache (Yes/No) field from the System Activity history explore: If the result is "Yes", that means that Looker *tried* to check cache - so even if we didn't pull the results from cache, the field can still be "Yes". If the result is "No", that means the query was requested to skip checking cache - for example, the result would be "No" if the query came from clear cache and refresh, an instant dashboard reload (after a stale result was shown), or

1820

1 year ago

sarah.tayeriLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Value format for billionsKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 30, 2021 To get a value as a number in billions with 3 decimals (1.234 B):value_format: "0.000,,,\"B\"" This content is subject to limited support.

3220

1 year ago

sarah.tayeriLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why do we truncate internal db tables?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 22, 2021 Since new rows are constantly being added to tables in the internal db, it’s no surprise that the tables can grow to be unmanageably large quite quickly. Since the the internal db tables are also constantly being queried, it benefits us to keep the tables at a manageable size in order to maintain optimal performance. That’s why we prune some tables accessible via system activity. Certain tables are pruned based on the number of rows in the table, while other tables are pruned based on the number of historical days that the data represents. This content is subject to limited support.

120

1 year ago

sarah.tayeriLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Startup failed. Unable to load java dependencies.Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 21, 2020 A self-hosted user may run into this error upon restarting/updating your instance.If the error is prepended by WARN: there must be at least 750MB of free space in the temp directory, then you probably don't have enough free space. Go and run df -h as the Looker user to see where you may need to free up space.If the error doesn't have that associated free space warning, here are some things to have checked:Do you have the appropriate java version (java -version) Do you have downloaded both jar files (core and dependencies) following the exact instructions (public-facing in docs) Both jars are in the same directory (they should be) The shell script is being run from that same directory (it should be) Check for any typos This content is subject to limited support.

710

1 year ago

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The Kitchen Table

How can a VPN kill a query?Knowledge Drop

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

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

Can you embed the data dictionary extension?Knowledge Drop

ERR_BLOCKED_BY_CLIENT in js consoleKnowledge Drop

Google sheets action spinning foreverKnowledge Drop

Conditionally formatting measures selected from parametersKnowledge Drop

Link to Image on Google DriveKnowledge Drop

Example: Changing embedded looks filters with Javascript EventsKnowledge Drop

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

Creating a diff_quarter function in the Looker UIKnowledge Drop

Looker Extension Framework Development - Edge Case QuirksKnowledge Drop

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

Why does regen cycle keep canceling and restarting?Knowledge Drop

How does Looker use the internal database?Knowledge Drop

Internal DB PerformanceKnowledge Drop

Liquid version of a "case when"Knowledge Drop

Default value for dynamic filtered measureKnowledge Drop

Error: Every derived table must have its own aliasKnowledge Drop

Min/max date using table calcsKnowledge Drop

Dashboard limits results on tile when row limit isn't setKnowledge Drop

System Activity Cache fieldsKnowledge Drop

Value format for billionsKnowledge Drop

Why do we truncate internal db tables?Knowledge Drop

Startup failed. Unable to load java dependencies.Knowledge Drop

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