Looker Connect Training

Help Center

Documentation

Community

Cloud Certifications

The Kitchen Table

Explore the product knowledge we've built up together

2115 Topics

Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Blog Archives

Looker 5: finally, a data platform for everyone

This content, written by Lloyd Tabb & Daniel Mintz, was initially posted in Looker Blog on Sep 14, 2017. The content is subject to limited support.When we last year, we were making a big bet on the data platform. That meant dramatically improving our developer experience, unveiling a new way to find content, and introducing the ability to send Looker data just about anywhere. Back then, Looker 4 was all about possibility. Looker 5 is about accessibility. Looker 5 takes the power of our data platform–custom visuals, custom applications, custom workflows–and makes them so easy to build and deploy that just about anyone can do it. That means it’s simple for everyone to integrate Looker into their workflow, whether it’s asking Looker questions through Slack or changing the priority of a ticket in Github through Looker. There’s something for everyone to get excited about in this release. Looker 5, the Data Platform Looker 5 makes building on the Looker data platform easier than ever b

580
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
10 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

Unable to access SSH key storage, system configuration errorKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 8, 2020 This error can appear when trying to work with git branches in Looker with an SSH-connected repo if the looker user does not have proper permissions over the deploy key directory  This content is subject to limited support.                  

570
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Blog Archives

GDPR - one year on

This content, written by John O’Keeffe, was initially posted in Looker Blog on May 23, 2019. The content is subject to limited support.GDPR was the four-letter acronym you couldn’t get away from last year. And while the regulatory deadline of 25 May 2018 has been and passed, the impact of GDPR continues to be a key topic of conversation of many CIOs; drives for compliance and the fear of fines and reputational damage remain front of mind. Despite the GDPR now being in full force, many are still on the journey to compliance. Getting to a place where you’re confident there’s no data sprawl, everyone’s singing from the same data ‘hymn sheet’ and there’s one single source of truth has been — and still is — a significant challenge for many enterprises. While still a business challenge, GDPR should be viewed as just another market condition, and shouldn’t be seen as a barrier to creating a data-driven culture across an organisation. Rather, it should be positioned as a regulation driving dat

570
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
10 months ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How can I create a new project via the API?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 8, 2018 Use the create_project call on the projects endpoint. https://docs.looker.com/reference/api-and-integration/api-reference/v3.0/project#create_project This content is subject to limited support.                    

571
srikar_24
14 days ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Where is my merged query id?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: Sep 6, 2019 You can find the merged query id after the mid= in the url!For example, in this URL, https://master.dev.looker.com/merge?mid=5Pu6Q0FUz4ESXM23DwUQOi&toggle=vis, the merged query id is 5Pu6Q0FUz4ESXM23DwUQOi.Note: it's not currently possible to run merged queries via the API. This content is subject to limited support.                  

570
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
A
Looker Staff
adina.katzLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I use a Look or Dashboard as my homepage?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 11, 2019 You can use any Looker URL as a homepage. Check it out in docs: https://docs.looker.com/admin-options/settings/homepage This content is subject to limited support.                  

570
A
Looker Staff
1 year ago
A
Looker Staff
adina.katzLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

persist_for PDTs and dev mode PDTsKnowledge Drop

Last tested: May 11, 2020 The creation of PDTs that are persisted using the persist_for parameter is only triggered manually from an explore query. When a user first queries the PDT via an explore/look/dashboard, a table is created on the scratch schema. When a persist_for PDT is created, it is assigned an expiration time that is equal to the create time + amount of time specified in the persist_for parameter. For example, if I have a PDT with persist_for: "5 hours" and I query this PDT for the first time at 12:04 UTC, this PDT will have an expiration time of 17:04 UTC.When a persist_for PDT reaches its expiration time, the PDT is dropped from the scratch schema by the "PDT reaper."PDTs that are defined in LookML that have not been pushed to production (dev mode PDTs) are treated as PDTs that have been persisted for 24 hours, even if they are persisted with the datagroup_trigger or sql_trigger_value parameter. Once the PDT LookML has been pushed to production, PDTs persisted with the d

570
A
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
jamesnestler
Looker Staff
jamesnestlerLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Python-SDK: Why isn't the returned object in JSON?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 24, 2020 Use file.attribute to access attributes of the object (eg, file.url or file.id).Alternately, use the hidden attribute __dict__ to return the object in json format (eg, file.__dict__ ) This content is subject to limited support.                  

570
jamesnestler
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
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can the PDT scratch schema exist in a different db host than the original tables used to create it?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: April 2021 No. Even PDT Override doesn't allow for this.The challenge here is that Looker would have to issue a multi part query: first to the database with the PDTs, and then to the database with the actual tables. Writing a coherent query with joins and such that involves two different databases is outside the scope of our product at this time. The closest we can get is to "join" two different queries on the frontend using Merged Results.  This content is subject to limited support.                

560
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
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.                  

560
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Peggy_Beard
Peggy_BeardMember
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Is data downloaded from a dashboard in the same timezone as the dashboard setting?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 16, 2019 If you download from the dashboard menu, the data will be in the same timezone as the dashboard setting.If you download from an individual tile of the dashboard, the data will be in the timezone of the saved query tile. This content is subject to limited support.                  

560
Peggy_Beard
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Rack app error: #ArgumentError: invalid byte sequence in UTF-8Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 16, 2020A user saw this error in the logs after trying to connect a project to an existing git repo.This is due to a file in the repo having non utf8 encoding - this can sometimes be caused by either a corrupt file, or just Windows line endings. Try changing the encoding on the files to utf8 and pulling again! This content is subject to limited support.                  

560
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Error creating new branch: cannot specify base branch other than current when there are uncommitted changesKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 9, 2020 If you see this error when trying to create a new branch, check that you have no uncommitted changes on the branch you're on - you can't switch with uncommitted code, so there are changes, either commit or revert them to switch. This content is subject to limited support.                   

560
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
paola
Looker Staff
paolaLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why does System Activity give the error data exception: invalid character value for cast`?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 16, 2017 The history explore in System Activity includes both User-Defined and LookML dashboards. Because of this, when filtering on a dashboard id, the generated SQL will convert the ID to a VARCHAR.If you try to filter on a dashboard id within a custom filter, you might get the error message data exception: invalid character value for cast (if they are on a HyperSQL back-end). To get around this, change your custom filter to be:concat(${history.dashboard_id},"") = "58"This will cast the dashboard ID to a VARCHAR in the generated SQL and filter correctly.  This content is subject to limited support.                  

560
paola
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I put a SAML XML file into Looker?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 2019 Yes, that is an optional step in setting up SAML with Looker. The option is called "IdP Metadata (Optional)". Paste in your raw XML, or a publicly accessible link to your XML, and hit "Load".cite SAML setup. This content is subject to limited support.                

560
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Blog Archives

Agile and bulletproof: an approach to mature embedded analytics

This content, written by Jesse St. Charles, was initially posted in Looker Blog on Nov 28, 2017. The content is subject to limited support.Our mission at frame.ai is to make it easy to build better relationships with your customers (internal and external) using Slack. As a small team of startup vets, we often need to work quickly and independently, so as Head of Data, I’ve typically built and configured the services I need myself. Our ability to make quick changes was recently put to the test. Responding to an increasingly common customer need, I was able to design, prototype, and safely deploy a new analytics dashboard to a large subset of Frame’s customers in eight hours. This new dashboard wasn’t just a nice-to-have, either. As a result of it, one of our partners was able to make critical budget decisions that week based on the new visibility this dashboard provided. Our agility made the difference for them. Now, I’ll readily admit that although I have strong data science background

560
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
10 months ago
paola
Looker Staff
paolaLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why is my drill modal not applying my case when filters?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 21, 2019 If your measure has a case when statement defined in the sql parameter and your drill modal is not filtering out those values, you'll most likely need to change the measure to use filters instead. Take a look at this community article, Discrepancy when drilling into measures, for an example. This content is subject to limited support.                 

560
paola
Looker Staff
1 year ago
ian
Looker Staff
ianLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Looker can not start because: Incorrect number of bytes in Base64 decoded key. 32 bytes expected but 24 bytes provided.Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 5, 2018 This error means that you're running with the new encryption and is using a locally backed key. The provided key doesn't match the format that we expect, in this particular case we detected the key was base64 decoded it and the base64 decoded output wasn't the proper number of bytes, which should be 32.A recommended way to generate keys is with the following:>openssl rand 32 -base64 > key_file This content is subject to limited support.                  

560
ian
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I merge users into my new [SAML/LDAP/Gauth/OpenID] authentication?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: Sep 18, 2019 If you're migrating to Google Auth or LDAP, you can merge from Looker email/password credentials. You cannot merge from any other authentication source. The LDAP setup Docs and Gauth setup docs show the checkbox you need, "merge by email”.  If you're migrating to SAML or OpenID, then this is easier. There is an option to merge users from LDAP, Google Auth, or email. More info in the SAML setup doc and OpenID setup doc.  This content is subject to limited support.                

550
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
paola
Looker Staff
paolaLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What liquid variables can be used with reference line labels?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 1, 2018 You can combine words with the actual value of a reference line to create a label. For example:Average: {{mean}}will show something like Average: 123.0The following calculations can be put in the {{ }} syntax:median mean max min deviation (represents the std deviation) variance​ This content is subject to limited support.                   

550
paola
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why are my only filter options “is on the day/is equal to” and “matches user attribute”?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: March 2021 If you are using a parameter as your filter, you will only see these two options, since parameters are designed to insert a single value into your code.On a dashboard, this will occur if the "Allow Multiple Values" feature for dashboard filters is off. Try turning it on.  This content is subject to limited support.                

550
sam
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