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The Kitchen Table

Explore the product knowledge we've built up together

2113 Topics

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.                 

970
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

5980
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

If a user schedules Looks and then is disabled will the scheduled Looks still go out?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Dec 2020 If the schedule was created by a user that is now disabled, the schedule will fail.The error in the schedule history will tell you that the User is not enabled. Contact your Looker administrator to reassign this scheduled report to an enabled user.This content is subject to limited support.                

2090
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.                

3430
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.                  

720
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.                  

450
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.                   

470
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

2241
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

20635
rmehta
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

If the cache is full, then what gets dropped first?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 2021 Looker's default max cache size is 2GB. This can be changed with the --on-disk-cache-size=<i> startup option, where <i> is a number of megabytes (so, default 2000).If your Looker instance detects that the on-disk cache exceeds the max, then it starts purging old cache entries until the limit is no longer exceeded. The algorithm to determine which entries to purge considers the age of a cache entry as well as the last time that cache entry was accessed.  This content is subject to limited support.                 

1880
sam
Looker Staff
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.

640
karisa.eberly
Moderator
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Selected articles about Looker API & SDK use cases

We have gathered a list of community and help center articles covering some major API & SDK use cases. We hope this makes it easier for you to browse and navigate. The code examples are for demo purposes only. For any further questions on those use cases please post a comment under those articles directly. GeneralI Mastered Looker’s Interactive API Docs. What Now?Introducing the API Explorer: Interactive documentation for the Looker API & SDKsDefault API port on GCP and Azure (why can’t I connect to the API for instances hosted on Kubernetes)Quickstart: Looker API Ruby SDKWhy is my API call returning a 403 Forbidden error?Easily loading JSON to a dataframePostman & Looker (1)Postman & Looker (2)Is there a limit to the number of API requests you can send at one time?Migration from API 3.0 to 3.1: Change Log & Notes Data export and DeliveryRun Looks from Google Spreadsheetes Using Looker APICreating a Data Dictionary Using Looker’s APIGenerating a Data Dictionary in G

9140
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
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

210
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
1 year ago
brecht
Looker Staff
brechtLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can Looker use Stored Procedures?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 21, 2019 NoThere is a semi-workaround for this with the `create_process` parameter with sql_step subparameters. If your database dialect uses custom Data Definition Language (DDL) commands, you can use create_process to create PDTs, by defining a list of SQL statements that will be executed in the order listed. This content is subject to limited support.                   

4831
S
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Selected articles about LookML

Selected articles about LookML We have gathered some selected community and help center articles and organised them in different topics. Hope this makes it easier for you to search and navigate. General Why do we recommend many_to_one joins over one_to_many joins?How to add a new row of data with LookMLAdvanced LookML - Hub and Spoke modelingNested Data in BigQuery (Repeated Records) Cohort Analysis and Retention AnalysisAdvanced LookML - Cohort and Retention AnalysisCreating Dynamic TiersCalculating Cohort Size for Cohorting[Analytic Block] - Cohorts as Filters using Templated Filters[Analytic Block] Daily, Weekly, Monthly Active UsersCombining multiple transactions into a single event table[Analytic Block] - Customer Lifetime Value - Simple ApproachSet up Flexible Retention Analysis without Derived Tables[Analytics Block] Customer Retention and Lifetime Value - Survival Style[Analytic Block] Retention Analysis Period Over Period Analysis Methods for Period Over Period (PoP) Analysis

11020
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
Department of Customer LoveModerator
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Selected articles about SQL use cases in Looker

Selected articles about SQL use cases in Looker We have gathered a list of community and help center articles organised in different topics. Hope this makes it easier for you to search and navigate. TroubleshootingCommon SQL error troubleshooting tips in Looker Calendar tableHow to combine a retail calendar with retail sales dataGenerate Date Series/ Create a calendar view of future datesGenerating a sequence of numbers or datesHow to Set Multiple Week Definitions in Looker Conditional joinCASE in sql_on: Conditional Joins when field = value DatagroupPDT trigger value at a specific time and day of week, once a weekHow to trigger datagroup/PDT rebuilds X minutes past each hour between certain hours of the day Parsing dataParsing JSON data in LookerUsing Postgres and JSON Functions and Operators to Parse JSON FieldsDefining JSON Objects as LookML Dimensions Query performanceEXPLAIN functionA (Hitchhiker’s) Guide to Query Performance in Looker SQL in LookML fieldsCase when lookml vs. sqlc

4540
Department of Customer Love
Moderator
1 year ago
karisa.eberly
Moderator
karisa.eberlyModerator
published in Common Account Questions

How Do I Get a Custom URL / Domain?Knowledge Drop

Some customers choose to add a custom/vanity URL (also known as adding a custom domain) to their Looker instance. This is typically done to avoid third party cookie issues. If you are interested in this, please reach out to your Account Manager as it may incur additional charges. In addition, please review the breaking changes that can occur when adding a custom URL here. Questions on this process? Comment below!

10300
karisa.eberly
Moderator
1 year ago
karisa.eberly
Moderator
karisa.eberlyModerator
published in Common Account Questions

Where can I get a copy of the SOC 2 Compliance Report?Knowledge Drop

For a copy of the SOC 2 compliance report, please reach out to your Account Manager. Once that is received, a request to share the report with you will be submitted. You will then receive an email from Google's Engineering Compliance Team with the appropriate report. Questions on this process? Comment below!

5920
karisa.eberly
Moderator
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I create a blank label in the explore?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 6, 2020 If you want to have a label appear as completely blank, we've found success in using the whitespace character from here in the label: https://beautifuldingbats.com/whitespace/ This content is subject to limited support.                   

1380
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why is there a dimension I didn't select in the GROUP BY of my explore?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 17, 2020One way this can happen is if you include the dimension in the liquid/filter of another selected field - for example, if you reference a dimension in the link parameter of another measure. This content is subject to limited support.                  

210
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What’s the largest number you can set max_cache_age to?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jul 24, 2020 A hard limit is yet to be confirmed, but we've tested as much as 365 days:datagroup: year_datagroup {max_cache_age: "6360 hours"} Typically this should not be necessary, as you want to set the interval to how frequently you expect the sql_trigger to change. This content is subject to limited support.                  

710
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How can I tell which dashboards are auto-refreshing?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 21, 2020 There is a "Refresh Interval" field in the Dashboard explore in System Activity that gives this information This content is subject to limited support.                  

1630
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can you enable required pull requests for just some users?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 25, 2020Sort of - pull requests are enabled per project, but for all developers on that project. This content is subject to limited support.                  

170
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.                   

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

What is the `POST webhooks/projects/[project]/deploy` call I see in logs?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 29, 2020This is the call Looker makes when creating and pushing a new branch This content is subject to limited support.                  

120
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago

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