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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 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.                   

520
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Lesley_Rahbany
Community Admin
Lesley_RahbanyCommunity Admin
published in Common Account Questions

How do I get on an open Looker Beta?Knowledge Drop

In order to get on an open beta, go to go to the General Section on your Looker admin panel, and then to the Labs Page. There you can choose to enable the features that you desire. Not all users have the permissions to accomplish this, soyou may need your Looker admin or technical contact to turn this on for you. If you want to read more about it, check out our documentation on Betas!Questions on this process? Comment Below!

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Lesley_Rahbany
Community Admin
1 year ago
medha.achar
medha.acharNew Member
published in Common Account Questions

How many active Looker users are on my instance?Knowledge Drop

System Activity is a great way to monitor your looker usage to ensure that you are remaining in compliance with your contract. System Activity is an internal LookML model that connects to Looker’s underlying application database- your admin has access to this by default. The explores and dashboards built upon this model show information about all looks and dashboards saved on your instance, user information, historical query information, and instance performance statistics. Here, you will be able to explore your current active Looker users.  If you’d like to get a better understanding of how many users you are contracted for and whether or not your usage is in compliance with your license agreement, please reach out to your dedicated Renewals Manager or your FSR. 

6780
medha.achar
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How to create a TopoJSON file for use in a Custom Map LayerKnowledge Drop

Last tested: June 2021This Help Center article explains how to make a topojson file to use in a map layer in Looker.Remember: The property_key field is CASE SENSITIVE! A custom map layer may be set up and referenced correctly, but the map may display blank if property_key is case mismatched.map_layer: my_neighborhood_layer { file: "neighborhoods.topojson" property_key: "neighborhood"} This content is subject to limited support.                

25875
Dawid
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How do I filter "on or before" a date?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: June 2021  Right now, filter syntax only allows for "before" a date. This means that in the example before 6/26/2017, the date 6/26/2017 will not be included.There is a feature request for this inclusive functionality. Right now, you either need to remember to add one day to the date you enter, or use two filters, before 6/26/2017 and on 6/26/2017. This content is subject to limited support.                

2140
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why is there no Password Reset/Edit button for a user?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: April 2021No Password ResetMost likely, this user doesn't have a Looker email credential. Without an email credential, they can't have a password.This happens if the user was set up via Google Auth, SAML, LDAP, etc. This means that any management of passwords will have to be done in those external providers, not in Looker.If you need to add email credentials to users who have only external authentication credentials, you could follow the steps in Enabling the Alternate Login OptionNo Edit ButtonThe Edit button will be missing for users who have had their credentials deleted (happens with rogue API use, for example)In order to get that button to reappear, you will need to reassign credentials. This content is subject to limited support.                

2500
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why can't I see my Slack channel in the Looker sending modal?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: April 2021  When you don't see the desired channel in the Looker sending modal:a) If you're using the Lookerbot, you have to invite it to your channel first (On your channel, "Add people to #channel_name", find the Lookerbot the same way you find individual users, and select), orb) if you're using a legacy token, you should see the Looker app under "Apps" on Slack and will have to invite the app to your channel ("Add Apps" on your channel and find the Looker app),then you should see that channel in the modal upon refresh.When Lookerbot isn't showing up in your Slack channel:Step a) from above.Further reading: Using Lookerbot for Slack This content is subject to limited support.                

520
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Does revoking a user on the idP side affect the user in Looker?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: June 2021No. Looker doesn't automatically keep track of whether the user has been revoked on the SAML/LDAP/OIDC/Google side. There is a request to Force all users to log out or Automatically recognize new SAML groups if mapping gets updated that you can add your vote through our feedback system.So the user will just stay logged in??Yes. Any users logged in will stay logged in for the remainder of their session (up to 30 days). Of course, once they log out of Looker or otherwise end their Looker session they won't be able to log back in. They will not be deleted or disabled by the Looker system.Can I force the user to log out?You can disable the user via the UI, which logs them out.A robust workaround would be an API script that: Watches the IdP for when a user is revoked. Finds the Looker user corresponding to the IdP user, and their current session ID(s). Kill sessions for that user. Disables that user. This content is subject to limited support.                

2380
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can LookML dashboards be used in SSO embed?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: June 2021Yes!Nothing really changes except that the dashboard ID is model_name::dashboard_name, and the embed parameters have to be defined via LookML. This doc explains the embedded parameters that you would usually define in "Embed settings" of a UDD.As always, make sure that the user has the see_lookml_dashboards permission.However, SSO embed users are not able to access the LookML dashboards "folder", even with the embed_browse_spaces permissions. This permission only grants access to the Shared and Personal folders, as well as an external group folder (if using external_group_id). Here's a visualization:If we want LookML dashboards to be accessed this way, we'll have to convert these to UDD, so they can be accessed from the personal or Shared folder. This content is subject to limited support.                

1750
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How long does a deleted PDT live on the scratch schema for?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: June 2021The PDT reaper process runs at most every hour (while respecting the PDT maintenance cron string).It will reap all persist_for PDTs whose time has expired, and any sql_trigger_value PDTs for which a new table has already been built.The persist_for clock begins when the PDT is first used in a query. This content is subject to limited support.                

680
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What is the difference between the query id and history id in system activity?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: June 2021The query ID is tied to a particular query. It's uniquely identified by a combination of SQL text, connection, and possibly other fields. It is created the first time a SQL query is run on a connection. Query IDs are not changeable or destructible.The history ID is tied to a running of a query. So, every time a query is run, a history ID is created. A given query ID could be associated with several history IDs: one for each time it's run. History IDs are also not changeable or destructible.This content is subject to limited support.                

8240
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I extend Looker's default proxy timeout of 60 mins?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: June 2021No. Any query run in the UI (or API) will be subject to the proxy timeout rules, and it is not possible to increase that timeout past 60 minutes.If you're trying to build PDTs that take longer than an hour then you have a few workaround options.Workaround 1Use the --if dev-- parameter or some other where clause to make the PDT take less than an hour.Workaround 2Push the code to production and let the regenerator handle the build. (Make sure it has a sql_trigger_value so that the regenerator does attempt to build it.) That will circumvent the proxy. That way, you can have the PDT take as long as you need.Workaround 3If using the API, you can leverage async query tasks to get around this! You can run create_query() to make a query, pass that returned query id into create_query_task(query_id), then check on the query using query_task(task_id) to see when it is finished, then finally use query_task_results(task_id) to get the results of the query!⚠️ Only scheduled/tri

1820
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How is the "Estimated Time" for a query calculated?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 2020  Looker uses the time it took to run that query last time to predict estimated time. However, it uses the query parameters to determine this, not the SQL, so if you drastically change a LookML definition the estimate may be wrong.If the query hasn't been run before, Looker does not show an estimate. This content is subject to limited support.                

150
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why doesn't my dashboard have a "Run" button?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 2020If Run on Load is “On” for a dashboard, and there are no filters on the dashboard, we do not show the “Run” button or the "Stop" button. This content is subject to limited support.                 

860
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I use a VPN to connect a Looker-hosted instance to a my database?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: June 2021No, but depending on your needs, you may be able to setup a host (tunnel server) that has VPN access to the desired database, and Looker can then set up an SSH tunnel from your instance to this tunnel server .If you host your own instance: You can use a VPN, if both the instance and the database are under the same VPN, then it would be fine. Otherwise, you would need to use an SSH tunnel. "under the same VPN" just means that they (instance and database) are both accessible in that private network. If the db and the instance are in the same network (via VPN), you should be able to talk to the db directly from the Looker instance. This content is subject to limited support.                

4870
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Is prefetching allowed in Looker?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: June 2021Prefetching is strongly discouraged. Use scheduling and datagroups instead. To pre-load dashboards when an ETL job finishes:Create a datagroup that triggers when the ETL job finishes. (Perhaps using a trigger that checks for new rows such as  “SELECT MAX(id) FROM table”) Schedule the dashboard to yourself or a placeholder email, based on the datagroup trigger.This content is subject to limited support.                 

1220
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

CORS support for LookerKnowledge Drop

Last tested:  June 2020What is it?The Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) is a mechanism that allows browser-based applications to directly call the Looker API without having to use an intermediary proxy server for the API calls! This will make it so you can more easily use the Looker API in you apps without implementing additional infrastructure. CORS greatly simplifies PBL application setup. It saves developer time, infrastructure costs, and operational overhead.How to install it? Go to {{ host_url }}/admin/labs page Enable the Experimental feature “Looker API CORS” Open the Web API Explorer (most often {{ host_url }}:19999/api-docs/index.html) Select the version API 4.0 from the dropdown (3.0 and 3.1 do not have this call) Login with your API client_id & client_secret (or go create them if you haven’t) Use register_oauth_client_app() to define your web app for Looker In your web app, when you want to engage the Oauth login with the interactive user, you send a web r

6740
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Error: Your account has been temporarily locked due to too many bad login attemptsKnowledge Drop

Last tested: April 2021 This error comes up if you try and log in with a bad password too many times.You only have to wait 5 minutes for it to unlock. This is non-negotiable, however you can instead use SAML/LDAP which may have providers that allow you to change these settings.Docs: https://docs.looker.com/admin-options/settings/login-lockouts This content is subject to limited support.                

3470
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What does history count by source in System Activity mean?If you are looking at an explore like this that count represents the number of queries run from each source - the count matches the query run count measure in this situationKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jul 1, 2020 If you are looking at an explore like thisthat count represents the number of queries run from each source - the count matches the query run count measure in this situation  This content is subject to limited support.                  

1020
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Best practice for handling group ids over multiple instancesKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 13, 2020 Say you have staging/dev/production instances and your group ids are different per instance.The recommendation is to keep the names the same, then1. run api call on group name to get group id, save as variable2. add the group id variable to the sso embed urlNo magic there. best you can do is query for all_groups then pick them out by name. or the app code could keep a mapping somewhere of all the names => id for every environment, so you don't have to keep looking it up This content is subject to limited support.                  

460
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Bigquery Error while reading table: Found corrupted data while opening fileKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 30, 2020 This error indicates that one of the tables being queried has 'corrupted data' - more info hereRunning the query directly on the database will yield the same results in this case. A possible next step from that point to consider might be reverting the corrupted table to a previous state - some instructions on that here This content is subject to limited support.                   

550
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Michael
MichaelMember
published in DCL Mic Drops

DCL Mic Drop: James NestlerMic Drop

DCL Mic Drop #3The Department of Customer Love (DCL) is Looker’s all-knowing support team. Yes, they're actually called that. They’re kind of the brains behind this whole operation! You may have talked to them via support chat or on a ticket, or maybe even in the Looker Community. Besides being true Looker savants and genuinely interesting characters, DCLers deeply understand our users’ experiences and challenges because they’re in the code with users like you every day, helping them work through it.  Each month we publish a new Mic Drop to give you a glimpse behind the curtain to meet one of these fabled DCLers in a fun, interview-style format. We will learn a bit about the individual powering the chat magic, as well as leveraging their expertise as they select 3-5 Knowledge Drops that all users should definitely check out! Last time, we had @wonkyoung.park This month, we have the pleasure of learning from @jamesnestler!  Michael:  ‘James Nestler the Data Wrestler’. . . can I call you

2331
adamrees
Looker Staff
1 year ago
A
Looker Staff
adina.katzLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How to cache a dashboardKnowledge Drop

Last Tested: Apr 1, 2019 You have two options here.Instant DashboardsThe first option is to use instant dashboards. With instant dashboards, dashboards display the previous run’s data while new queries are run in the background, letting information appear quickly. This is a labs feature. More information here. LookML-level cachingThe second option is to persist the explores that the dashboard's tiles are built on. This can be done in the LookML using datagroups with the 'persist_with' parameter or using the 'persist_for' LookML parameter. 'persist_with/for' can be defined for the entire model, or for individual explores.Note: Instant dashboards need to be turned off for this method to work. Which to choose?The benefit to instant dashboards is that we can see old information while new information loads. Instant dashboards will always hit the database, so you can be sure you're looking at fresh data.The benefit to datagroups is tighter control over your caching given that you know your E

25355
rmehta
1 year ago
karisa.eberly
Moderator
karisa.eberlyModerator
published in Common Account Questions

How are bugs prioritized within the Looker Engineering Team?Knowledge Drop

Our Looker Engineering Team uses a carefully designed prioritization system to assess issues as they arise. This system is based on several factors such as the impact of the issue and how widespread it is. When you report a bug, you can ask for follow up about its priority to better understand its timeline towards resolution. If you have a question about a bug’s status, please reach out to your Account Manager.

670
karisa.eberly
Moderator
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can we assign groups to the Users space?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 6, 2019 Short answer would be no, there is a request for this functionality here: Make user folders private by defaultA colleague have suggested a workaround in the link above for the following use case:You want your users to explicitly share content with any other user (not a closed system), but not have users be able to search / see Content in User spaces, without explicit permission to see it. Essentially you need an all users group, but that all user's group never to be added to User Spaces.Automatically add every user to a manual All Users Group (e.g., E Users), however you are using Google Authentication and cannot automatically add a group. (API or manually instead) Have your other defined groups (Marketing, CS, Finance) all added to another group E Users. This gives everyone the ability to see the other users, but not their spaces unless explicitly added. This is what you will be using because you already have these user groups. This content is subject to limit

220
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago

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