Looker Connect Training

Help Center

Documentation

Community

Cloud Certifications

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

Git Error: Pull Production Failed Fetching from origin: Merge of revisions `commit hash1`, `commit hash2` with base `commit hash3` using strategy recursive resulted in: Failed. Pull incompleteKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 19, 2020 If a user is running into this error message, have them:commit any change (can be a comment or a new line) then pull from productionFull error message is usually:Pull Production FailedFetching from origin:Merge of revisions ddbacf28c84dcb493d0c4dc7ccb901cc60c00e34, 0a32809129aa7bae0de5430026a23a824b3c88fd with base d0de05f89c9b7e122dcdb121d0f6e4ec21b9d42a using strategy recursive resulted in: Failed.Pull incompleteThis content is subject to limited support.                   

200
V
Looker Staff
1 year ago
xin
Looker Staff
xinLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Action hub admin panel is empty or missing optionsKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 25, 2018If you see there's an empty list, or if an option doesn't appear that you expect to see, click refresh button on the page and see if all the items show up. This content is subject to limited support.                   

180
xin
Looker Staff
1 year ago
xin
Looker Staff
xinLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How to limit the date query range within 100 daysKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 8, 2019 Sometimes admins might want to limit the number of days their users can query to save the datawarehouse cost, for example, they want their users can only query no more than 100 days of range. The solution is using sql_always_where with date_start and date_end liquid parameters:sql_always_where:(orders_1.created_at<=COALESCE({% date_start orders_1.created_date %}, {% date_end orders_1.created_date %}) AND orders_1.created_at > date_add(COALESCE({% date_start orders_1.created_date %}, {% date_end orders_1.created_date %}), interval -100 day)OR orders_1.created_at>=COALESCE({% date_start orders_1.created_date %}, {% date_end orders_1.created_date %}) AND orders_1.created_at < date_add(COALESCE({% date_start orders_1.created_date %}, {% date_end orders_1.created_date %}), interval 100 day));; For example, when we query "is before 2019-08-01", this is the generated sql:WHERE ((orders_1.created_at < (TIMESTAMP('2019-08-01')))) AND ((orders_1.created_at

1130
xin
Looker Staff
1 year ago
xin
Looker Staff
xinLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why does my embed dashboard load data only in incognito mode but not the normal mode?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 31, 2019 The SituationEmbedded dashboard loads the tiles correctly in incognito mode, but when you open it in a regular window, then the tiles shows only a dash "-". It looks like the dashboard didn't run at all.The SolutionAs you can open it in incognito mode, it's likely your url is generated correctly. Therefore, the issue might lie in the browser cookies persisting a previous session rather than letting the embed URL create a new session. Let's double check their embed url and see if force_logout_login is set to false - if so, set it to true and try again.We usually suggest force_logout_login to true . When it's false, it might create some unexpected results, and we haven't seen a good use case for setting it to false. This content is subject to limited support.                  

1740
xin
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Zam
ZamMember
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Creating a download URL from an explore URLKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 12, 2019 There is a feature that allows us to format the explore results in different data formats. The way to do so is by placing the format with a period directly before the ? in the url. An example of this is as follows:https://instance.looker.com/explore/ecommerce/orders.json?qid=6RtsysyjzbLagLEUC0V2fM Notice the .json right after orders, which is the explore name. The formats that you may use are anything you can use in downloads.csv json html txt mdImportant note: This is only for /explore/ endpoints. The /looks endpoint has a different backend and does not support this functionality. This content is subject to limited support.                  

1000
Zam
1 year ago
xin
Looker Staff
xinLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How can I convert "m/d/y hh:mm:ss" to timestamp?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 12, 2018 You may encounter this problem if you have a datetime field string that cannot be used directly into a time dimension_group.For example, the original data is `7/31/2018 2:20:59`, and you want to convert it into a timestamp `2018-07-31T02:20:59`.Here's an example how we do it on Bigquery:SELECT PARSE_DATETIME('%m/%e/%Y %k:%M:%S',table1.datetime) AS table1_datetimeFROM `bigquery.schema.table1`AS table1GROUP BY 1ORDER BY 1 DESCLIMIT 5 We used a PARSE_DATETIME() function, and reference each Format Elements individually. The returned value is DATETIME.In the LookML: we'll make sure we cast the above parse value from datetime to timestampdimension_group: datetime {type: timetimeframes: [second, minute, hour, date, month, raw]sql: cast(PARSE_DATETIME('%m/%e/%Y %k:%M:%S',table1.datetime) as timestamp);;} A list of Format Elements in Bigquery: https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/docs/reference/standard-sql/functions-and-operators#supported-format-elements-for-datetimePAR

10080
xin
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Schedule Failed to Send (data action) {"webhook_id":null,"success":false,"refresh_query":false,"message":null,"validation_errors":null}Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 17, 2019 With storage Action Hub integrations, you may run into schedules failing with the {"webhook_id":null,"success":false,"refresh_query":false,"message":null,"validation_errors":null} message in the Admin > Scheduler > History panel.Check to see if you have a file named specified in the schedule, as this can cause this error. Also test if the set-up of the Action integration is valid (Admin > Action > Settings and test). This was seen in Google Cloud Storage and Azure Storage. This content is subject to limited support.                   

430
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

Does a manual rebuild show up in the Admin > PDT panel?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 16, 2017Yep - we report it with the build reason "User Requested Rebuild". This content is subject to limited support.                   

90
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

Why am I seeing "Error: comparison of String with 0 failed" when downloading an XLSX file?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 20, 2018 This was an error that was appearing on release 5.10, that should be fixed in later versions.As a workaround, you can try downloading unformatted results. This content is subject to limited support.                   

320
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

How are 2FA enabled/disable events tracked?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jul 13, 2019You can look forupdate_totp_config in the logs and in the System Activity events explore This content is subject to limited support.                   

70
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

Why do I see & #x27; in my vis legend? or, ' in the explore?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Dec 18, 2018 Bad news, TL;DR - If you use the character entity reference in LookML for any non alpha numeric character, (an apostrophe, for example) it renders correctly in the vis, but busts the explore by displaying the hex character entity reference.When using special characters within a string definition in HTML (any label param in Looker invokes a change to end rendering), the render engine on the browser has to interpret the character. What is happening here, is that `'` is the hexadecimal character entity reference for an apostrophe, confirmed here & here​As per the second link above, if we insert the HTML character entity `'` before _Word of Mouth_ in the measure label, as shown here: measure: response_share_word_of_mouth {label: "Response share for 'Word of Mouth'" type: numbersql: ${total_responses_word_of_mouth}/NULLIF(${total_responses},0) ;;value_format: "0.0%"}​ This results in the front end rendering producing the desired

1440
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

Can I custom sort the explores in the Explore drop-down menu? It defaults to alphabetical.Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 21, 2020 No, you may not custom sort the explores. They will be sorted alphabetically.The workaround is to use spaces or underscores to change the alphabetic ordering since those characters aren't rendered in the explore menu. It also sorts uppercase and then lowercase, so you can use label in the explore’s LookML to give it the same name with a lower case to bring it to the end This content is subject to limited support.                  

2840
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

Does Looker account for daylight savings?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Dec 18, 2018 Yes.The timezone rules for the specified timezone will be followed. This can sometimes introduce subtle logic bugs. For example, the timezone code `ESTEDT` follows the rules of daylight savings for the Eastern Time Zone of the United States.The timezone code `America/New_York` is identical to `ESTEDT` for all dates after the Uniform Time Act of 1966. But prior to 1966 `ESTEDT` is EST only while `America/New_York` follows the daylight savings time rules as observed in NYC. This content is subject to limited support.                  

1530
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

How can I put line breaks between concatenated values in a single value visualization?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 15, 2018 It is possible to add a line break to a visualization using the html parameter. The whitespace characters \r and \n are usually rendered as line breaks.For example:dimension: break { type: string html: <div style="white-space:pre">{{ value }}</div> ;; sql: concat(${field1}, "\r\n" , ${field2}) ;; }  This content is subject to limited support.                   

8830
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

Set Looker Roles from IdP GroupsKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jul 24, 2020 You can set Looker roles based on the groups in your IdP. If you already have users split up into working groups in the IdP, this is a great option as it means you don't have to set new users up in Looker directly. It can also be helpful for ensuring all users in the same team in your organization has the same abilities in Looker without having to use the Looker UI. If the IdP is already used for such things with other applications, it saves a lot of admin oversight.The specifics of how Looker does this can be a bit confusing, though. First off, if you have group to role pairings turned on, then you won't be able to make lasting changes to a user's role from inside of Looker when using the default advanced settings options - each time they re-authenticate, their role will be re-mapped based on what is found in the IdP. Second, this process uses shadow groups in order to map groups to roles.When this option is enabled, the admin can specify each external group

820
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

Why is my table calc not calculating properly in merged results?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 18, 2018 This may be due to ambiguous column names. IF several columns having the same name in merged results, the table calc does not know how to pick which one, and chooses the first one by default.NOTE: The ambiguity problem persists if there is a table calc used in either of the source queries. This content is subject to limited support.                   

710
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

What are some benefits to using OIDC?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 14, 2019 It's Secure:It's more secure than OAuth alone, since it has more robust authentication methods built on top of OAuth 2.0 authorization methods. It's OAuth + the stuff you'd need to make OAuth a good authentication client, all in one! Out of the box!It's Flexible:There are some nifty tricks in ODIC. One example of this is that in the API call, one of the values returned for each key is a key id (kid) which can be used to quickly determine if the crypto key has changed - basically, this gives us automatic key rotation.There are also different ways to pass information (front end vs back end), and you can choose which you want to use based on how your application is set up! More on that here: https://www.onelogin.com/blog/openid-connect-explained-in-plain-english   This content is subject to limited support.                  

850
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

Download Without Limit via the APIKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 11, 2019As indicated in What are all the Row Limits in Looker?, we can download without limit via the API. We can accomplish this by using the appropriate Run call (Run Inline Query or Run Look) with its limit parameter set to negative one, where negative one is the number that Looker uses to represent unlimited results. This content is subject to limited support.                 

2320
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

Why do I see `DOCTYPE html` from the startup script when trying to start Looker?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jul 3, 2018 Most likely it means that you downloaded the html version of the startup script, as opposed to the actual startup script. Instead download the actual startup script.Another startup error on a windows machine is if you download it on a windows host and then copy it to your looker linux host. In that case you'll see-bash: ./looker: /bin/sh^M: bad interpreter: No such file or directory In that case, you'll want to make sure you downloaded it directly on your linux host. This content is subject to limited support.                   

90
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

Can I write an SSO Embed script in AngularJS or any other language?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 22, 2018 Yes, you can, as long as the language has a library capable of doing the signing part.Please note that putting those secrets to into any code that will run in other peoples' browsers is a very very bad idea for security reasons. This content is subject to limited support.                  

210
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

Scheduler Error: Job is no longer processing @ executeKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jul 27, 2020 If you run into this error, first check this Help Center article: https://help.looker.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043197413-Scheduler-Errors-Job-is-no-longer-processing-Job-was-expected-to-dequeueIf the scheduled job fails with this error immediately or fairly quickly and hasn't been enqueued for a long time, then you can follow the steps below if your Looker instance is self-hosted and you have access to the logs.In the logs you should see something like this:2020-07-27 06:27:56.178 +0000 [WARN|a5236|scheduler] :: Custodian: ScheduledJobStage [354428|123853] was not processing - finalizing this job with an error Try grepping for those two id's, do you see the typical render job error message (`Error occurred while generating this dashboard - contact administrator (error: Render job XXX failed [query failed: Invalid filter: X]) in a thread pointing to one of those id's ?It is likely that the initial error message is a cover up for what is actually the issue. If y

4280
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 a way to set the default page for embed users?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 20, 2018 Not natively in the product, but it's definitely very feasible from the parent app. There is a feature request here for an embed URL for the homepage, please add your use case and +1! This content is subject to limited support.                   

100
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

DATABASE (Concept): Data Normalization: 1st, 3rd Normal FormKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 31, 2018 Data normalization is the process of improving the logical design of your database so that it satisfies certain constraints that avoid unnecessary duplication of data.  Purpose: The goal of data normalization is to avoid anomalies:Insertion Anomaly Adding new row forces user to create duplicate data Deletion Anomaly Deleting one row may cause loss of data that may be needed for other future rows Modification Anomaly Changing data in one row forces changes in other rows because of duplication Data RedundancyData Redundancy: When the same piece of data is held in 2 separate places. A positive type of data redundancy works to safeguard data and promote consistency. It is common practice to have a piece of data stored in multiple places, however, the key is to have a centralized field or space for that data, so that there is one place to update all the redundant data. Data IntegrityReferential Integrity: Foreign Key of one table must match the Primary Key of an

1210
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

Hidden Parameter and Custom Fields for End-UsersKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 6, 2019 Hidden parameter is used to hide fields from explore field picker, doesn't hide hidden field in Custom FiltersThe purpose of a hidden parameter is to make a field available for modeling but not available to end users. However, if end-users are using custom filters in the UI, they will have access to hidden dimensions.Docs go into the hidden parameter in more detail This content is subject to limited support.                  

1660
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

"Create API Keys for a user." Can we expect the user to have the same permissions in the UI as in the API?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 8, 2017 Yes. API sessions authenticated with API3 keys of a given user will always have exactly the same permissions as the user account the keys belong to. If the user can do it in the UI, then a script authenticating with API3 keys of that same user can do it via the API.Note that changes made to user permissions will immediately affect API sessions using that user's API3 keys. Permissions are rechecked with every API call.In case we only want to give the user API credentials being a non-Looker user, we could also set a "blank" user and generate the keys there and share these credentials with the person to authenticate. This content is subject to limited support.                  

910
Department of Customer Love
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