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The Kitchen Table

Explore the product knowledge we've built up together

2115 Topics

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.                

570
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I remove LookML elements like `case` in an extending view?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 15, 2021 No. You can only add new LookML elements in an extending view but you cannot remove existing onesFor example, if we ave the following in our original/extended view:dimension: case_when_test {type: stringcase: {when: {sql: ${TABLE}.genre = "Drama" ;;label: "Case1"}when: {sql: ${TABLE}.genre = "Comedy" ;;label: "Case2"}when: {sql: ${TABLE}.genre = "Action" ;;label: "Case3"}else: "Other"}} And attempt the following in order to reduce the number of the LookML case whens in the extending view, this is not going to work - the dimension is still going to have all the case whens from the original view.dimension: case_when_test { type: string case: { when: { sql: ${TABLE}.genre = "Drama" ;; label: "Case1" } else: "Other" } } As a workaround, we would want to use SQL CASE WHEN in the sql parameter in both the original view and the extending view. This content is subject to limited support.                   

570
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

Content Validator for Merged ResultsKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 9, 2019 To follow along, think of a situation where you have a merged results tile which is named MR Dash. MR Dash merges the results of two explores(For example, Explore1 and Explore2) which currently belong to one model, named ModelA. Unfortunately, if you try to change the model name for Explore2 from the content validator, it ends up changing the model name for both in the case of merged results.Hence, a better way to approach this would be to convert the UDD(User defined dashboard) to a LookML dashboard, make the required changes, and then convert it back to a UDD.The steps we followed were as follows:From your dashboard tile MR Dash, retrieve the dashboard LookML. To do so, you can reference this link - https://docs.looker.com/dashboards/creating-lookml-dashboards#manually_building_or_modifying_a_lookml_dashboard Within this dashboard LookML snippet, for explore: explore2, change the model name to ModelB, and keep the model name for Explore1 as ModelA. Save this

570
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Peggy_Beard
Peggy_BeardMember
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

why would a custom SMTP test button work but schedules fail?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 19, 2019 1) The message failed to be delivered to the SMTP serverThere have been a couple incidents in the past where using the "pretty" email domain User Name <user@domain.com>  instead of simply  `user@domain.com` has caused the "Test" button to work in the SMTP test page, but caused various SMTP errors when actually sending contentThe admin should try using just user@domain.com instead.2) The relay server or receiver of the email is blocking the email from going throughThere are some situations where the SMTP server itself or spam filters will block certain emails differently, so even though the test email may have gone through, the scheduled email with attachments and a different email body could be causing issues.In this case, you would need to look at your SMTP server's logs to see if the email got to the SMTP server, and if so if it was blocked/bounced or sent on to the email to the recipient. This content is subject to limited support.                  

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

error "orphaned job finalized by Scheduler::Custodian"Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 25, 2019 The custodian was removed in Looker v6.6, so only older versions of Looker will show this message.The custodian ran during the Looker start up process and cleaned up any schedules that haven't completed and have no chance of completing. An example of this is a schedule that is in the "execute" state but there is no query running on the database for this schedule.So that error message indicated that the schedule was cleaned up by the custodian because there was no change of completion. This content is subject to limited support.                   

570
A
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Blog Archives

3 key considerations for embedded analytics

This content, written by Shohei Narron, was initially posted in Looker Blog on May 24, 2016. The content is subject to limited support.You’ve built a great product that resonates with the market. Your customers are enthusiastic, and word of mouth is overwhelmingly positive. The in-house picture is cloudier. Your end users can’t run their own queries, which means they have to wait for someone else to generate the information they need. Because your solution requires moving data out of your database, analysis is complicated and time-consuming, placing your data analysts in an uncomfortable position: just by doing their jobs, they’re creating a bottleneck. Your engineers would love to help, but wouldn’t focusing on your core offering be a better use of their time? You’re now considering adding value to your customers by giving back the data you’ve collected through a new analytics offering, and you wonder whether to build the tool yourselves or buy an existing tool. Enter Powered By Looke

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

6 ways to integrate a data strategy into your product workflow

This content, written by Erin Franz, was initially posted in Looker Blog on Mar 21, 2018. The content is subject to limited support.Even though most product and engineering organizations today are collecting tons of data, most only use a fraction of what is available. This is often due to competing priorities or lack of implementation experience in data strategy. Looker and are working together to make data-driven product development workflows a reality. There’s no silver bullet when it comes to making data-backed decisions the norm, but there are steps you can take to shift the culture of your team, or even your company. 1: Expand your definition of data Data from instrumented products is increasingly valuable to product teams because it shows how users interact with the product directly. But data from the product itself isn’t the only source of information you can use to improve your product and workstreams. Data from issue tracking tools can provide valuable insight into historical

570
Department of Customer Love
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
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Blog Archives

Big data - don't judge a book by its cover

This content, written by Frank Bien, was initially posted in Looker Blog on Oct 31, 2013. The content is subject to limited support.I can’t remember a term so over-hyped in my time in tech as “big data.” But the shift in technologies surrounding data and analytics is very real—and provides true value to organizations who can harness seas of bits to reveal important insights and new knowledge. Here’s the way I think about the evolution towards large data analysis. The BI card catalog. The analogy I like to use is a library—the kind where you check out books. Traditional was like the card catalog. As new books arrived, data about the books was summarized, aggregated, and put in a big BI-like filing system. Because databases were traditionally expensive and overtapped, it made tons of sense to pull summary data, put it in a BI “card catalog,” and operate on the data. How many books do we have? How many are mysteries? What is the average-page-count kind of stuff. We make dashboards and re

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

Looker and Vertica - geospatial analytics

This content, written by Erin Franz, was initially posted in Looker Blog on Dec 22, 2015. The content is subject to limited support.Vertica offers a suite of geospatial analytics functions with its HP Vertica Place package. This package enables storing and querying of geometric objects - translating locations into geometric points and regions into polygons. Common asks for measuring distance, length, area can be completed directly in Vertica and these requests are optimized at scale using spatial indexes and the underlying power of Vertica’s database. Because Looker performs all analytical workloads in HP Vertica, Looker can utilize these geospatial analytic functions to enable exploration and visualization of results dynamically. To demonstrate some of what’s possible, we’ll start with a table of bookings in Vertica that have associated latitude and longitude locations. When we query for a sample of the table, called locations, we see the following: select * from place.locations limi

570
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

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
ryan.dunlavy
Looker Staff
ryan.dunlavyLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What causes an "undefined method `getURLs' for #" error when starting LookerKnowledge Drop

Last tested:  This is caused by trying to run Looker version 7.14 or earlier with a newer Java version that isn't supported yet. Make sure the jar is Looker version 7.16+ you're using Java 9+, or downgrade Java to JDK 8https://docs.looker.com/setup-and-management/on-prem-install/installation?version=7.16Example full errorNoMethodError: undefined method `getURLs' for #<Java::JdkInternalLoader::ClassLoaders::AppClassLoader:0x58cda03f>Did you mean? getClass  This content is subject to limited support.                  

560
ryan.dunlavy
Looker Staff
1 year ago
kevin.dunn
Looker Staff
kevin.dunnLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Unavailable Ports on Looker Hosted InstancesKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 28, 2020 Here's a list of ports that Looker already listens on, and won't be available for other processes (e.g., SSH Tunnels)Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State PID/Program nametcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:19997 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN -tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:19998 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN -tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:32000 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN -tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:5000 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN -tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:5001 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN -tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:9997 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN -tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:6062 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN -tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:9998 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN -tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:111 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN -tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:80 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN -tcp 0 0 127.0.0.53:53 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN -tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:22 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN -tcp6 0 0 :::19999 :::* LISTEN 25756/javatcp6 0 0 :::1551 :::* LISTEN 25756/javatcp6 0 0 :::9999 :::* LISTEN 25756/javatcp6 0 0 :::111 :::* LISTEN -tcp6 0 0 :::46677 :::* LISTEN 25756/javatcp6 0 0 :::9910 :::* LISTEN 25756/javatcp6 0 0 :::22 :::* LISTEN -  This content is subject to limited support.           

560
kevin.dunn
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Blog Archives

It’s time to hire a Data Product Manager

This content, written by Daniel Mintz, was initially posted in Looker Blog on Jun 27, 2019. The content is subject to limited support.Every business has data. Most businesses use their data. But not enough use their data well. Why? In large part, it’s because as the supply of data has exploded and the demand for access has grown, the existing systems simply couldn’t keep up with the squeeze. Data analysts were trained to be a service department. Request comes in. Analyst prioritizes and responds. Requestor has a follow-up. Analyst helps. In a world of small data and limited data usage, it works great. But in today’s world, this unleveraged model doesn’t scale. There are too many requests for the analysts available, and there’s too much data for analysts to remain familiar with all of it. What’s needed instead are data products. And to build successful data products, you need new skills on your team. The situation isn’t that different from how software engineering evolved in the recent

560
Department of Customer Love
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.                

560
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
chris.seymour
Looker Staff
chris.seymourLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Scientific notation with n significant figures in table calcKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 25, 2018 You can replace n with the number of sig figs in this formula:concat(round(${view_name.field_name}/power(10, floor(log(${view_name.field_name}))), n-1), " x 10^", floor(log(${view_name.field_name}))) Example with n=2:concat(round(${orders.count}/power(10, floor(log(${orders.count}))), 1), " x 10^", floor(log(${orders.count})))  This content is subject to limited support.                   

560
chris.seymour
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Blog Archives

Unleashing data insights to your entire organisation: Q&A with Appsflyer

This content, written by Áine Dundas, was initially posted in Looker Blog on Feb 24, 2020. The content is subject to limited support.In this blog, we talk with Alexandra Sudilovski, Head of BI at Appsflyer. Appsflyer is a rapidly growing SaaS company, and we wanted to learn more about how access to data has helped to fuel that growth. Hi Alexandra! Could you share a little about your background in data and your current role in Appsflyer? I am a BI expert at — a mobile attribution and marketing analytics platform that helps application marketing teams around the world make better decisions. We enable marketers to measure everything from impressions and clicks, to installs, purchase activity, ad revenue, and so much more. One of our main responsibilities as a BI team is to provide data and make it relevant, available and accessible to all our internal departments. That’s no mean feat! I’ve been working with Looker for about two years already, and I’m focused on really integrating analyt

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

Why isn't there a git workflow button in my project?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 26, 2020 We saw an instance where a user was using HTTPS connection with user attributes, with separate credentials for Dev and Prod mode. The dev user attribute credentials worked, so the git connection test passed, but the credentials entered for Prod were not authorized. This caused the git workflow button to not appear, and the deploy webhook to fail.Fixed by resetting git connection and entering working credentials for both modes. This content is subject to limited support.                  

550
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Lookerbot Error: 401 "Unauthorized"Knowledge Drop

  Last tested: Sep 2019 This is a generic error message that can mean a lot of things.The first thing to check would be to go view the content as the Lookerbot user and make sure you have access in Looker.One user ran into this because they didn't set lookerbot environment variables, specifically the LOOKER_WEBHOOK_TOKEN. This content is subject to limited support.                

550
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
mandy.chan
Looker Staff
mandy.chanLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Cannot use stable views in schemaKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 14, 2020 This error shows up when we're using the publish_as_db_view parameter and the Looker database user doesn't have the permission to create views on the scratch schema.If the Looker database user doesn't have permission to create views, we will either need to grant them permission to create views or remove the publish_as_db_view (because when the new PDT is built, the old view is dropped and the new view with the stable name is placed onto the scratch schema).If this warning is seen when we're testing the connection in the Connections page, this warning can be ignored as long as long as we're not trying to use stable views. This content is subject to limited support.                   

550
mandy.chan
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What System Activity explore query will give me the same info as the Admin --> Queries panel?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 25, 2020 Yes! We can use the following System Activity query appended to our hostname to get (almost) all of the same information:/explore/system__activity/history?fields=history.created_time,history.status,history.connection_name,user.name,history.source,query.id,query.model,query.view,history.id,history.runtime,query.link,query.formatted_fields&f[query.created_time]=NOT+NULL&sorts=history.created_time+desc&limit=500&column_limit=50&vis=%7B%22x_axis_gridlines%22%3Afalse%2C%22y_axis_gridlines%22%3Atrue%2C%22show_view_names%22%3Afalse%2C%22show_y_axis_labels%22%3Atrue%2C%22show_y_axis_ticks%22%3Atrue%2C%22y_axis_tick_density%22%3A%22default%22%2C%22y_axis_tick_density_custom%22%3A5%2C%22show_x_axis_label%22%3Atrue%2C%22show_x_axis_ticks%22%3Atrue%2C%22y_axis_scale_mode%22%3A%22linear%22%2C%22x_axis_reversed%22%3Afalse%2C%22y_axis_reversed%22%3Afalse%2C%22plot_size_by_field%22%3Afalse%2C%22trellis%22%3A%22%22%2C%22stacking%22%3A%22%22%2C%22limit_displ

551
FabGuada
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why do I see "no results" when drilling from a measure?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 14, 2020 The ProblemWhen I drill into a measure, such as a count, I see what is filtered on, and then the query shows "no results"The SolutionThis can occur when there is an error in one of the fields being retrieved. Try "explore from here", or check the Admin -> Queries panel to see if there are any queries with errors. From there, the query can be opened in SQL runner to debug it.It could also be the case that there just aren't results. Check the drill_fields parameter for the measure and verify that the generated SQL should produce results in their data. (You can get the generated SQL for the drill in the Admin > Queries panel).Or if you enter a new row limit, hit run, then you can now see the results. This could be due to the drill querying having cached results. This content is subject to limited support.                 

550
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
mandy.chan
Looker Staff
mandy.chanLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I have a dimension in a Look but hide it from the Explore?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 21, 2020 Yes!What we can do is first save the Look with our desired dimension, and then once saved, go into the LookML and apply the hidden parameter to the dimension so that it no longer shows up in the Explore. This content is subject to limited support.                  

550
mandy.chan
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Performance Diagnosis: Network UnreliabilityKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 2, 2018 In order to use Looker, end users need to make requests from their client browser to the Looker server. The Looker server usually lives on another machine than the one end users are requesting from, so these requests need to traverse a network (or networks).A network is a collection of connected machines capable of transmitting data amongst themselves. If a network has a route to another network by means of a router and routing table, machines in one network can transmit data to and from machines in another network. The internet is just a massive conglomeration of networks.If I'm at work within my office's network and I'm requesting resources from a Looker server hosted in Looker's VPC, I'm traversing multiple networks. In other words, the packets transmitted to and from our respective machines need to jump through multiple networks on their journey. When troubleshooting network unreliability, it's usually helpful to determine:what network devices are between t

550
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago

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