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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

Does Looker use tokens for SAML?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 18, 2019 Looker doesn't use tokens at all when authenticating with SAML.In fact, we are 100% decoupled from Okta’s notion of sessions and how they keep users logged in or not.When a user hits the ‘Authenticate’ button, we redirect the user’s browser to the SAML IdP and (implicitly) say “the user using this browser wants to log in, let me know if this is someone you trust and please give me info about them”. The IdP eventually redirects the user’s browser back to us with a signed SAML doc (or not if the IdP doesn’t trust this user). We verify the doc and then extract the info about the user that we care about (email, name, groups, etc).We then forget about that SAML doc. There is no token-like thing we retain from that doc (other than the stable user id). We then maintain our own sessions and cookies to authenticate each request from a logged-in user as they use looker. But, that is all completely decoupled from any tokens or the like from the SAML IdP. This content is

470
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Blog Archives

How to build a customer content database for your company

This content, written by Larry Tran, was initially posted in Looker Blog on Dec 20, 2018. The content is subject to limited support.Working as an intern at Looker taught me many things, from basic dashboard usage to complex analytic terminology. While most of what I picked up was from hands-on daily tasks, I was struck by what I learned about data by simply listening to the people all around me. I came to realize that there was a pattern to the questions repeated by fellow-Lookers on the marketing, sales, and sales development representative (SDR) teams. “Where can I find content about customers using Looker for marketing analytics?” and “Do we have any shareable content for healthcare analytics?” were among the most common queries. It quickly became clear to me that this type of information is very important in the daily roles of many people, across departments. It occurred to me that the core of all of these questions was one base question: “Where can I find the content I need?” My m

470
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Blog Archives

Fantasy Football: player and position analysis

This content, written by Colin Zima, was initially posted in Looker Blog on Aug 30, 2017. The content is subject to limited support. pegged the fantasy football market at over $70 billion dollars, with nearly building teams. Because the game becomes more popular every year, and there are lots of Looker fans and leagues, we decided to analyze the data (because that’s what we do here). We have a quarterly “Use the Product” day at Looker, where anyone can use the day to do some hacking on a dataset of their choice. For this quarter’s event, I decided to get my hands on some Fantasy Data in anticipation of this year’s draft. Looking at the data, we learned a lot more than just drafting strategy. This is the first post of a series, where we will dive into a dataset from FantasyData.com, and see what we can – and can’t – learn from the past to use in the new season. Let’s start by getting our bearings and taking a look at our data set. We’ve got some stats from 2008 through 2016 to look at

470
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Blog Archives

Campaign to cash Looker Block - monitor and measure your marketing investments

This content, written by Vikas Agrawal, was initially posted in Looker Blog on Sep 13, 2016. The content is subject to limited support.From Google Analytics to Marketo to Salesforce, modern marketing organizations utilize multiple tools to execute and track campaigns. With so many different data sources, it can be difficult to get a holistic view of marketing’s influence on opportunity conversion and revenue generation. To solve for this, analysts often manually blend data from all these systems to understand how to optimize their marketing mix and improve their return of investment. This manual reconciliation takes a significant amount of time, is prone to errors, and inherently prohibits real-time analysis. Built by industry experts on a solid foundation of years of experience in Marketing and Sales analytics across many industries, Datasticians’ Campaign to Cash Looker Block is built to address common problems in Marketing Analytics, such as contribution to revenue, leads to pipelin

470
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

Migrating from LDAP to SAML when users have different emailsKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Dec 3, 2017 Fortunately, when migrating to SAML there is an option to merge from LDAP. So this should be quite simple.There was once an unfortunate case where some users had different emails in the LDAP system and the SAML system. The best way to fix this kind of thing is to create a new credentials_email for the user via the api and set that to have the email address that you want for that user in SAML. Then, in the SAML setup, add ‘email’ to the ‘merge by’ list. (If you already had that user try to log in with SAML and it created a new user object that you didn’t want, then you have to delete that new un-needed user object.) Then, when the person logs in Looker should find that credentials_email with the matching email address for the user and merge the new SAML login info to that existing user account. This content is subject to limited support.                  

460
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 getting a warning for the explore or field parameter in my LookML dashboard filter?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: Jan 21, 2019 The explore parameter is a valid parameter only for type: field_filter LookML dashboard filters. Like a UDD field type filter, this is the only filter type that queries a field in an explore to pull suggestions from—all other filter types do not need to query a field.This throws a warning:filters:- name: order_datetype: date_filterexplore: ordersfield: orders.order_date This does not throw a warning:filters:- name: order_datetype: field_filterexplore: ordersfield: orders.order_dateYou can reference these docs for more information. This content is subject to limited support.                 

460
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 doesn't my user COUNT() in History explore match total existing users? (System Activity)Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 7, 2020 The History explore in System Activity is NOT the best place to see ALL users, looks, dashboards on the instance. The reason for this, is because History only tracks query events, so if a user has not done anything in 90 days, or a look or dashboard has not been queried in 90 days, it will not show up in History.For all of your content exploration needs, use the following explores:/explore/system__activity/look/explore/system__activity/dashboard/explore/system__activity/userFor more details on the History explore, see our documentation on the History Explore in System Activity. This content is subject to limited support.                 

460
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 use/reference a `filter:` of type: number in a liquid statement?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 21, 2019 Yes, you can do this using the assign Liquid syntax. For example:filter: filter_value_to_pass {type: number} measure: my_measure {type: sumsql: ${TABLE}.field;;html: {% assign var=_filters['filter_value_to_pass'] | plus: 0 %}{% if value < var %}<div style="color: blue">{{ value }}</div>{% else %}<div style="color: orange">{{ value }}</div>{% endif %} ;;}Where | plus: 0 casts the var value from String to Integer. You could could also use | times: 1.…html: {% assign var=_filters['filter_value_to_pass'] | times: 1 %}...  This content is subject to limited support.                 

460
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How do I escape commas when using liquid {{value}}?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 2020You can use {{ filterable_value }} as shown in the liquid docs. This content is subject to limited support.                

460
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
noah.kawasaki
Looker Staff
noah.kawasakiLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Google Sheets showing #ERROR! exporting data with lookerFetchDataKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 17, 2018 If you can successfully load their data into Sheets with lookerFetchData on the same look, it may be due to them breaching limitations on Google's side.This goes over their quota restrictions. Notably the "Custom function runtime" being 30 seconds at the time of this card being created. This content is subject to limited support.                  

460
noah.kawasaki
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Lan
Looker Staff
LanLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why can't self-hosted instances install the listing viz from the marketplace?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 29, 2020 Self-hosted instances would see this error Could not install listing. Contact support for more information.These are looker network Requirements for self-hosted instances connecting to the Marketplace backend:HTTPS port 443 should be open or able to access SSH port 22 should be open or able to access GIT port 9418 should be open or able to accessYou should be able to access the viz you are interested in after adjusting these rules. This content is subject to limited support.                  

460
Lan
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
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.                   

450
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 could cause the purple loading bar to get stuck?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 24, 2020 This is probably either due to an intermittent outage on the load balancer, or because an incomplete Javascript chunk has been cached on the browser.The only network requests that are sent while that loading bar is animating are for fetching the JS code that's responsible for things like rendering UI elements and visualizations (these are the "chunks" that you see in the network tab as a page loads). Therefore if fetching the chunks goes wrong somehow, you could get stuck on that page with the loading bar partially filled.Possible solutions to this are basically to bust the browser cache: hard refresh of the browser (cmd+shift+r) or enable the CDN, which will pull new resources since they'll be coming from a new URL. This content is subject to limited support.                  

450
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Morgan
Looker Staff
MorganLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What does "Cache Reset At" mean in the Datagroups tab?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jul 4, 2018 "Cache Reset At" refers to the last time the datagroup was "triggered" and cleared all of the cache for the explore/model/pdt. This corresponds to the sql_trigger parameter used in the datagroup definition."Cache Reset At" does not account for max_cache_age parameters. It only refers to triggered cache clears. The reason is that max_cache_age does not specify a universal cache expiration across the entire datagroup; it only specifies cache expiration for individual queries.  For example, if you have max_cache_age: "1 hour" , and you run queries at 9:00 and 9:05, those cached queries will expire at 10:00 and 10:05 respectively (assuming they have not been busted by a sql_trigger change first).  So there is no single time that would make sense to display for when the max_cache_age resets. This content is subject to limited support.                  

450
Morgan
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why aren't my SSO embed URLs creating a new embed user when I access them?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 24, 2020 If you are getting a "You are not authenticated to view this page" 401 error, then the login has failed and the user will not be created. Try the URL in the Embed URI Validator. Fabio's troubleshooting guide can also be helpful.If the login is successful, this most likely means that existing credentials are being used instead of new credentials. Check to see whether the external_user_id in the embed URL matches the embed credentials of an existing user under Admin - Users.If the external_user_id does not match an existing user, check to see if force_logout_login is set to false in the embed URL. If so, when a user has an existing UI Looker session and accesses a new URL, their existing credentials are used instead of the embed credentials defined in the new URL, so no new user will be created.It is generally recommended to set force_logout_login to true to avoid these issues. Virtually all use cases for setting force_logout_login to false can be made cleaner b

450
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

Schedule to 2 SFTP Servers Via the APIKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 20, 2020 You can send a single schedule to 2 SFTP servers using the API! In order to get this working, you must add an additional JSON dictionary object to the "scheduled_plan_destination" section of the JSON body like so: "scheduled_plan_destination": [{"id": 12804,"scheduled_plan_id": 5175,"format": "wysiwyg_pdf","apply_formatting": true,"apply_vis": true,"address": "sftp://myserver.com/files/","type": "sftp","parameters": "{\"username\":\"sftpuser\"}","secret_parameters": "{\"password\":\"mypassword/\"}","message": null,"looker_recipient": false},{"id": 12804,"scheduled_plan_id": 5175,"format": "wysiwyg_pdf","apply_formatting": true,"apply_vis": true,"address": "sftp://otherserver.com/file_path_sftp/","type": "sftp","parameters": "{\"username\":\"otheruser\"}","secret_parameters": "{\"password\":\"otherpassword/\"}","message": null,"looker_recipient": false}],In Looker SFTP we only allow username/password auth, and here in the JSON body the 'username' is included wi

450
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Blog Archives

Salesforce analytics that sales operations love

This content, written by Kim Stites, was initially posted in Looker Blog on Feb 3, 2016. The content is subject to limited support.When it comes to tools for anyone in a Sales Operations role, Salesforce becomes a way of life and THE place to capture many of the most important data points within a company. Salesforce is a great way for managers and individuals to track different metrics and understand how this quarter's pipeline is lining up. It is the de-facto location for compiling and grooming lead and contact data. However when it comes to reporting, some noticeable limitations become apparent. The data isn’t always easy to join together inside of Salesforce, so you have to resort to Excel or create multiple reports. As more information becomes available, more questions need answering and the requests for reports grow. Manual one-off reports can become very cumbersome, as they may answer the question at hand but require more iteration and time building new reports, to answer futur

450
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Blog Archives

3 API tools to delight your embed customers

This content, written by Jill Hardy, was initially posted in Looker Blog on Aug 15, 2019. The content is subject to limited support.In this post, I’m going to show you three API tools to make an interface that will wow your customers—while also being fun to use. I probably don’t need to tell you that great user experience can dramatically grow your business and solidify your position as a trustworthy brand. In fact, according to this 1, implementing a better user experience has the potential to raise conversion rates by 400%. That’s an inspirational metric. And since inspiration is what this post is all about, I gathered some truly awesome examples of what you can do with the Looker API. Whether they shine a light on the exact “oomph” you want to add to your Looker experience or simply illuminate possibilities, I hope you enjoy them. Custom filter bar The dashboard below uses icons to put a picturesque spin on filtering. How’d we do it? The filter icons aren’t a part of the dashboard;

450
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Vincent
Looker Staff
VincentLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why wouldn’t a value_format_name or value_format apply to my field?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: Dec 5, 2019 Without a type parameter, a field type defaults to string. You need to add type: number in most cases where this happens.You should change this:measure: ratio_of_cases_to_accounts {value_format_name: decimal_1sql: 1.0 * ${count} / ${accounts.count} ;;} to this:measure: ratio_of_cases_to_accounts {value_format_name: decimal_1type: numbersql: 1.0 * ${count} / ${accounts.count} ;;} This content is subject to limited support.                  

450
Vincent
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Will selecting "Update" on my License Key affect active LookML code changes or kick off PDTs?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 23, 2017 No. Selecting "Update" on the License Key admin setting will only ping the license server. It should not impact any ongoing code changes and it should not kick off any PDTs.The "Update" setting is used in the event that a user's license feature is already enabled but the end user cannot see that license feature on their instance. After clicking "Update" you will see the following message: "License verified and updated successfully." This content is subject to limited support.                  

450
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

When would I use the | symbol after the sql parameter in old LookML?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 20, 2018 The pipe | symbol is only used in old LookML. It tells the validator that multiple lines of code are coming. This has been replaced in New LookML with the ability to use double semicolons to end code blocks like html or SQL. # Example of | used correctly. Without the |, this would error.sql: | CASE WHEN 1=1 THEN 'grand'ELSE 'not as grand'END More examples: https://oldlookmldocs.looker.com/reference/view-params/sql-for-derived_table This content is subject to limited support.                  

450
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Blog Archives

Why we built a data culture at Fivetran

This content, written by Garegin Ordyan, was initially posted in Looker Blog on Aug 9, 2019. The content is subject to limited support. At , we build technology that centralizes data from different applications into data warehouses, so enabling organizations to be data-driven is an essential part of our mission. But what does it mean to have a data-driven culture? My teammates think of this in a few ways: "A data-driven culture means that individuals are tuned in to start thinking about problems and their solutions with a data-focused mindset. Enabled by a data-driven culture, users across the organization can ask questions like: What can the data tell me about this problem?, What hypotheses can I test with the data we have available? and How will the changes I’m going to implement affect the data we’re collecting and other people who are leveraging this data?" — Christine Ndege, Solutions Engineer/Data Analyst at Fivetran "Creating a data-driven culture is something that requires bu

450
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
ryan.dunlavy
Looker Staff
ryan.dunlavyLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can Looker track how many scheduled emails were opened for a customer? (Read receipts)Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 14, 2019There isn't any way to see who read emails that have been sent from Looker - feature request for comment is here This content is subject to limited support.                    

440
ryan.dunlavy
Looker Staff
1 year ago
evelyn.shen
Looker Staff
evelyn.shenLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Is it possible to auto rotate API auth keys?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 15, 2020It's not possible to auto-rotate API auth keys. They must be rotated manually. This content is subject to limited support.                  

440
evelyn.shen
Looker Staff
1 year ago

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