Looker Connect Training

Help Center

Documentation

Community

Cloud Certifications

The Kitchen Table

Explore the product knowledge we've built up together

2115 Topics

ruth.mcelroy
Looker Staff
ruth.mcelroyLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

value_format not coming through in exploreKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Dec 9, 2020 The ProblemUser has added value_format to their field which is correct but no changes on the explore sideA SolutionThey most likely have not set the type of their dimension at all or have not set it to be numeric. Make sure they have defined type: number for that field as per our docs;To apply Excel-style formatting to measures via value_format, make sure the measure is numeric and not of type: string.https://docs.looker.com/reference/field-params/value_format This content is subject to limited support.                   

600
ruth.mcelroy
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Blog Archives

Driving player engagement and getting a leg up on the competition with data

This content, written by Rob Martin, was initially posted in Looker Blog on Sep 23, 2020. The content is subject to limited support.As the Chief Architect for Games at Google Cloud, I was honored to participate in Looker’s recent Data Solutions for Gaming Event. We featured a series of speakers from Google and Looker, as well as customers like FACEIT and King. I’m really excited to share some of the highlights from the event. In particular, I want to recap the trends we’re seeing in the gaming industry and how the data solutions we discussed can help you get ahead of those trends to understand your players better, unlock insights at scale, and use those insights to improve player experience. Trends in gaming are putting pressure on developers to unlock more insights One clear trend I see is developers moving toward digital distribution of their games. Working with AAA game developers — those who traditionally release their games on platforms or consoles — as well as mobile-first develo

600
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
9 months ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I force a user to use a filter but allow them to change which filter they use?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 21, 2018 Yes! You can use the conditionally_filter parameter on your explore, which allows you to specify a filter that can be overridden with other filters that you also specify.Doc This content is subject to limited support.                  

600
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
chris.seymour
Looker Staff
chris.seymourLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I host a custom visualization on a private github repo?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 28, 2020 Not if you want it to work consistently! Users who are signed into Github and have access to the private repo will be able to see the custom vis, but if they are not signed in to Github, the custom visualization will not work, and Looker will not tell them why. Furthermore, PDF and PNG downloads of the custom visualization will also fail, since Looker will not sign into your Github account to generate the file. More detail:At the time a browser is loading a Looker dashboard page, it will make network requests to fetch the custom visualization javascript source. You will need to host those files somewhere that can be reached by any browser that can load your dashboard, including the “Headless” browser that Looker uses internally to generate PDFs and PNGs. Since there’s no way to guarantee that everyone who visits your dashboard is already signed-in to github with access to the private repo, you will probably need to “publish” the custom visualization source cod

600
chris.seymour
Looker Staff
1 year ago
V
Looker Staff
vitor.leepkalnLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

My date filter is returning results from one day laterKnowledge Drop

Last tested: May 24, 2019 ProblemWhile filtering on a specific date, or by last x days, the query returns results from one day later.Potential SolutionsIf it's only a date (YYYY-MM-DD), with no time info, make sure your dimension_group contains a datatype: date parameter. Check to make sure that timezone conversion is happening or not happening as expecting.   This content is subject to limited support.                    

600
V
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Blog Archives

Recommendations are easier than you think

This content, written by Colin Zima, was initially posted in Looker Blog on Dec 22, 2014. The content is subject to limited support.Getting started When you get tempted into buying salsa in the chips aisle of the grocery store or adding one more book to your Amazon cart that “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought”, you have experienced how retailers use recommendations to drive more business. By understanding what customers are purchasing in the same basket or the different goods that specific customer groups purchase over their lifetime, retailers can customize promotions, increase average order sizes, and improve product usage. These models are not only for data scientists - using simple analytics we can get started on the path to a full blown recommendation model. Recommendations in an instant If your goal is to recommend you a website to someone at random, the top 10 websites on the internet aren’t a bad starting point. If you think about it, this is a very basic recommendati

600
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
9 months ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Blog Archives

Driving profitable growth and customer equity with SoundCommerce

This content, written by Tamara John, was initially posted in Looker Blog on Jul 1, 2020. The content is subject to limited support.Eric Best, CEO, recently spoke at Looker’s Retail Solutions Event to share how the SoundCommerce team built a custom data application for retail companies on top of Google Cloud Platform’s BigQuery and Looker. In addition to sharing the retail solution his team has built, Eric invited SoundCommerce customer Tim Morse, Cofounder/President to share how they’re using data to execute on their omnichannel consumer strategy. SoundCommerce: a platform built for retailers Founded in 2018, SoundCommerce provides an out-of-the-box data platform for retail brands. Built from years of retail, eCommerce, and data experience, the platform is designed to collect retail data from any source and build a model around the metrics and relationships that are most crucial to retail organizations. This includes everything from prospects and customers to orders, shipments, and

600
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
9 months ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Blog Archives

Buffer’s data architecture - we analyze 500 million records in seconds using Redshift, Hadoop & Looker

This content, written by Michael Erasmus, was initially posted in Looker Blog on Nov 11, 2014. The content is subject to limited support.This guest contribution was written by Michael Erasmus of Buffer, and appeared originally on . Up until recently at Buffer, we had a big problem: we were drowning in data. Buffer is a data-driven company. So many of the decisions we make hinge on data that we collect and analyze. We track and measure analytics data for all kinds of things – user behavior, how our A/B experiments are running, as well as system-generated data such as API logs. As outlined in this by , we have built a pretty robust platform for tracking and measuring data, all powered by Amazon’s SQS and MongoDB. There did seem to be a missing piece. We were still suffering from . Technical debt can inhibit developers from moving quickly and slow down the pace of innovation. It also causes organisations to lose faith and confidence in their software. In the same manner, metrics debt can

600
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
9 months ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Blog Archives

Building on the Platform: Custom Applications for Sales & Marketing

This content, written by Dillon Morrison, was initially posted in Looker Blog on Apr 9, 2019. The content is subject to limited support.Today’s successful organizations are moving beyond BI tools to create and deliver custom data experiences. They’re , , and to support rapid growth. As these experiences have become a crucial factor of success, so has the expectation that users can get the data they need to make critical business decisions, regardless of technical skill or specialty. Here at Looker, we're on a mission to empower people through the smarter use of data. To do this, we continue to build, test, and evolve to ensure we're supporting companies throughout their data journeys. Building on our platform, we’re breaking the mold of traditional BI tools to deliver operational insights and provide experiences that are unique to the needs of users. A relatively new way we’re doing this is through pre-built, use case specific applications. Why We Built Applications We love working wi

600
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
9 months ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Blog Archives

Empowering a data-driven culture with a modern data stack at OneFit

This content, written by Ben Kuzey, was initially posted in Looker Blog on Oct 12, 2020. The content is subject to limited support.As head of business intelligence and data analytics at , I'm committed to helping our parent and sister companies — Urban Sports Club and Fitogram — transform into data-driven, digital-first businesses. As we’ve modernized our data platform, I’ve concluded that a data culture is worth every minute you invest into building one. As you read our story, you’ll see why. The OneFit ‘sweat and joy’ lifestyle OneFit is a fitness platform that allows people to work out in many locations with a single membership. In Amsterdam for example, members can take classes or train at more than 500 gyms and studios. They can also use their membership to participate in a variety of group activities, including yoga, boot camps, dancing, and swimming. With the OneFit platform, members get a vast number of options to choose from when deciding where, how, and with whom to workout.

600
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
9 months ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can you manually assign a role to a user that is not determined by the [SAML/LDAP] Group to Role mapping?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 2019  No. Roles will be overwritten for a user any time that user logs in with [SAML/LDAP]. So while it's technically possible to manually assign some roles while the user is currently logged in, those changes will be wiped each time the user logs in. This content is subject to limited support.                

591
chris.seymour
Looker Staff
1 year ago
J
jamie.davidsonMember
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Is there any difference between the Action Hub Slack integration and the older Slackbot set up?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 12, 2020 ​Yes - a few differences. The following capabilities are available as part of the overall Slack integration.1) New in-Slack sharing capabilities and slash commands. This provides more link sharing capabilities in Slack and out-of-the-box slash commands such as /looker favorites and /looker folder . More information is available here: https://help.looker.com/hc/en-us/articles/360038292973-Delivering-and-Retrieving-Data-with-the-Slack-Beta-Action​2) Slack (Beta) - new action in Action Hub that support OAuth. The action sends data from Looker to Slack. For this action, an admin needs to link a workspace to Looker, then users can OAuth. When sending data to Slack, it sends as the user. Content can be sent to public channels, DMs, and private channels. More information is available here: https://help.looker.com/hc/en-us/articles/360038292973-Delivering-and-Retrieving-Data-with-the-Slack-Beta-Action​3) Slack Attachment (API Token) - existing action in Action Hub tha

590
J
1 year ago
brecht
Former Looker
brechtFormer Looker
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Using Looker on AWS CloudFormationKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 20, 2019 At the moment, we don't have any formal docs written up on using CloudFormation.The easiest would be to create a linux host, get it all setup by following our installation guide, then create an AMI from it, and create a CloudFormation template to launch a host using that template. However, there might be some difficulties with the data Looker stores on the local disk here when you're migrating an existing Looker implementation (see below). If you're starting with a blank implementation of Looker, the requirements are softer.For migrating Looker implementations, the looker.jar and the looker startup script are stored on the local drive, plus possibly lookerstart.cfg and a db credentials file if you're using MySQL as the internal database. If you're not using MySQL, you'll be on HyperSQL as internal database for which the file system is stored locally and contains the running state and config of looker. There are also ssh keys and models directories (the full di

590
brecht
Former Looker
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I automatically start Looker on system reboot?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 21, 2019 Yes!If you use a System5 style startup system the script is looker_init and it is here... https://github.com/looker/customer-scripts/tree/master/startup_scriptsIf you use systemd startups then here is the answer https://github.com/looker/customer-scripts/tree/master/startup_scripts/systemdAnd if cron is running on the system one could always use the crontab file to restart looker https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-execute-cron-job-after-system-reboot/This post applies if you host your own instance - Looker-hosted instances automatically start on reboot. This content is subject to limited support.                  

580
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

Is there any size or character limit on the JSON body for api calls?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 1, 2019 Not that we are aware of.The input boxes on the API Docs might have a limit, and run_url_encoded_query could be a problem because URL size is limited. This content is subject to limited support.                  

580
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

If using `from:` in an Explore or Join, what view name do I reference in my sql_on statement?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 21, 2019 If you are using the from: in an Explore or Join, you are essentially aliasing the from: view_name as the Explore name. So you should use the explore name, rather than the view name.For example,explore: my_explore_name {from: view_name_Ajoin: view_name_B {type: left_outerrelationship: many_to_onesql_on: ${my_explore_name.id} = ${view_name_B.id} ;;}} If you attempt to use sql_on: ${view_name_A.id} = ${view_name_B.id} ;;, you will see a "cannot find field" error message.Tip: If from is omitted, Looker will assume that the underlying name is the same as either the Explore or the Join view name. This content is subject to limited support.                 

580
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
maxcorbin
Looker Staff
maxcorbinLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What happens to SAML users if you disable SAML authentication?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 21, 2019 If you disable SAML authentication, then all users who rely on SAML authentication will be locked out of the application. They won't be kicked out until their session expires, though.This is based on SAML Docs:Don't disable SAML authentication while you are logged into Looker via SAML unless you have an alternate account login set up. You could lock yourself out of the app.However, any user with other login credentials (email/LDAP/Google) will still be able to log in using those authentication methods. This content is subject to limited support.                  

580
maxcorbin
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Update failed with `Timed out waiting for Looker to start`Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 17, 2020 When jumping versions, Looker needs to update the internal db. Generally this takes less than 5 minutes, but sometimes this can take longer than starting the Looker process. If you try to start Looker while the internal db update is happening, the daemonizing process will time out in 6 minutes with the message Timed out waiting for Looker to start.This can be a legitimate message, but if you’re skipping several releases, it’s likely that the migrations are actually still running and you just need to give it some more time. If you see this message, sit tight and see if the update finishes and Looker starts up in the next ~15-20 minutes. We can confirm if the process is still running, even after the Time out message, with ps -f $(pgrep -f -- '-jar looker.jar')If you saw the time out message and stopped the Looker process to restart, you may have issues with failed internal db updates (including but not limited to missing columns, duplicate columns, missing table

580
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How are NDTs built in relation to referenced derived tables?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 21, 2019 When you create an NDT (native derived table) that isbased on an explore which is filtered by a field in a joined table from that exploreAND/ORfiltered by a field in a different view than the NDTthe NDT will build as a nested with clause subquery, such as: WITH NDT as (WITH filtered_table AS (select statement))(SELECT from filtered_table)SELECT from NDT This is because the NDT relies on the explore (and all its joins and filters) from which it is sourced, and those tables must be built alongside the NDT for it to resolve. This content is subject to limited support.                  

580
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Blog Archives

Announcing the Looker Block for Audience Analytics by Permutive

This content, written by India Ferard, was initially posted in Looker Blog on Apr 4, 2017. The content is subject to limited support.Audience Analytics by Permutive Block - instantly compare your audiences and analyse behaviours Permutive is the world’s first realtime Data Management Platform, trusted by some of the world’s largest publishers to target their audiences on desktop, mobile and FIA. Permutive enables you to collect, enrich and segment audience data across devices for real-time analysis and targeting. The lets you instantly analyse and compare these audience segments, powered by up-to-date real-time data. We are excited to announce our new Audience Analytics Looker Block, which lets publishers instantly compare, see the overlap and total size of their audience segments. It’s an incredibly flexible Block which can be used for all your audiences to compare any data - how you use it is up to you! Instant, Ccustomisable, up-to-date audience development All publishers need to u

580
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
9 months ago
jamesnestler
Looker Staff
jamesnestlerLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Troubleshooting PDT Explore queries get sent straight to 'enqueued'Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 28, 2020 The Problem:Users may report difficulty getting a PDT to build, specifically that a PDT query will go straight to queue, even though few other queries are running and the PDT is not the child of another PDT that is still building.You'll want to verify that this is the scenario you are in by doing the following:Navigate to the Production SQL of the derived table, and see if there is any use of .SQL_TABLE_NAME . If so, this PDT is possibly a dependency of a PDT that is still building. Navigate to Admin/Queries and in another tab open that connection's settings; verify that running queries are fewer than the connection limit and PDT queries are fewer than the Max PDT Connections setting With the Admin/Queries page open, navigate to an explore that utilizes the PDT in question (ideally, only uses that PDT), hit the gear icon and select Rebuild Derived Tables and Re-Run . Tab back to Admin/Queries -- is the query from 2 marked as enqueued even though no or few oth

580
jamesnestler
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Where can I see a visualization's configuration?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: March 22, 2021  If you command+shift+click the gear icon for the visualization edit menu in an Explore, you can grab a JSON dump of the vis config: This can help for debugging issues with the visualization edit settings! This content is subject to limited support.                  

580
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Does a "pull" or "revert to production" close existing pull requests?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: March 2021 No. Each pull request is on its own branch, so reverting your dev branch to production does not affect your PRs in any way. This content is subject to limited support.                

570
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Does "clear cache and refresh" bust Datagroup cache?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: March 21, 2021 No. If we define a caching policy with a datagroup in our Explore or model file and we select "clear cache and refresh", it will only clear the cache for that query.  This content is subject to limited support.                  

570
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Vincent
Looker Staff
VincentLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

When a new version of a PDT is currently in the process of building, do we still use the old version?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Dec 27, 2018 QuestionSay the regenerator runs the trigger query, and the trigger value of a PDT changes. Does the old table get dropped immediately or after the rebuild? What about when we change the code of a PDT, for example the sql_trigger_value , and push it to prod?AnswerIf just the trigger value has changed, and no code changes have been pushed to production, we will use the old version of the PDT until the new version is built. This will show up as "Using Old Version" in the PDT panel.If any change in the SQL code of the PDT has been pushed to prod, including the sql_trigger_value or datagroup code, we do NOT use the old version of the PDT—it is dropped immediately. Because the sql changed, the old version is no longer considered valid. The new one still has to build - that could mean a while before there is a valid PDT build in production.Good practiceIf you make a change to a PDT, build it in dev first, then when you push, that PDT will get promoted to prod. (Of c

570
Vincent
Looker Staff
1 year ago

Badges

  • Friendly Face
    sbrylowskihas earned the badge Friendly Face
  • Helpful
    carriehas earned the badge Helpful
  • Community Star
    carriehas earned the badge Community Star
  • Friendly Face
    carriehas earned the badge Friendly Face
  • Community Star
    Dawidhas earned the badge Community Star
Show all badges
Terms of Service