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Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Is there a maximum value you can set user query limits to?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 21, 2019 No, there isn't a max per user query limit value.However, while there is no "max" value, as best practices we wouldn't suggest setting it higher than the connection pool size. Ideally, less than the connection pool size if you want to equally allow all users to run queries. This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why did my query fail and have status cancelled?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 27, 2019 There can be various reasons for this. At the most simple level:The user may have closed the browser page. The user may have put their computer to sleep or to away mode.If queries seem to be getting killed after a consistent amount of time (like every 60 seconds), there may be a timeout set somewhere. This Help Center article has more info for that case. This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I create view files from db views?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 24, 2020 Yes. However, you may have to do it SQL Runner because the generator won't find them in all cases. Specifically,In SQL Runner, run SELECT * FROM <table> Click the gear in the top right and choose "Add to Project".The generator looks at the database's information schema, which seldom contains view information. This is also why views many times don't show up on the left hand side of SQL Runner.Some dialects can find Views, however. Snowflake views, for example, do show up in SQL Runner and Create View from Table. If you aren’t able to create the view file or see the view files in SQL Runner but you are able to do so in Snowflake, check to see if their permissions in Looker are the same as those in Snowflake. In other words, try to view the view files as the Looker user in Snowflake. This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What gets stored in the internal Looker application database?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 5, 2020 Essentially, everything about the Looker application! With one big exception - LookML is stored in a file directory and remote git repo.Metadata about users, permission sets, folders, content, schedules, etc. are all stored in the internal application database. This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What timezone are the i__looker / System Activity timestamps in for the history explore?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: May 22, 2019 At a high level: i__looker/System Activity timestamps are in System Timezone - the timezone for the server that Looker is running on. This is not tied to any DB timezone setting or any timezone settings in the Looker platform.Looker-Hosted InstancesThe i__looker/System Activity timestamps are UTC on all hosted LookersIf you host your own instancesIt’s possible that if you host your own instance, you may be in another system timezone.Chat Tip: The i__looker/System Activity timestamps will not change and are not dependent on Application Timezone, Database Timezone, or any other Instance Timezone setting. Solely the System Timezone. Chat Tip #2: Changing the System Timezone is not a trivial change and is not recommended. If an end user needs to change/shift individual timestamps, then they are better off using table calcs to adjust the time. for example: add_hours(-5, ${time}) This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Default API port on GCP and Azure (why can't I connect to the API for instances hosted on Kubernetes)Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 18, 2021 Default API port on GCP/Azure hosted instances is 443 - it’s no longer accessed via hitting port 19999. A layer 7 load balancer will redirect it internally to that port. Note that AWS-hosted k8s (EKS) has port 19999 set up to forward to 443.K8s can only route requests by domain name and URL paths - NOT by port number.Make sure that when you are making API requests, that the url always begins with /api/3.1/*, especially for login. If you try to use /login for the API, you'll end up at the Looker UI login page, which won't work for API requests.This might come in handy when using tools that leveraging looker API's, such as gazer, henry, etc.You can double check by hitting the /alive endpoint on a given port to check:curl -i https://[instanceurl]:19999/alive curl -i https://[instanceurl]:443/alive This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can't see/access the company / markdown homepageKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jul 6, 2020 When adding a Looker URL as homepage, admins need to make sure all your users have access. One reason your colleagues may not be able to see the homepage, especially when seeing a 403 error, is because they don't have model permissions to view the page you have linked.WorkaroundOnly users with the see_lookml permission will be able to view a markdown document using the URL from the IDE. However, if you select View Document from the little arrow dropdown on the markdown file in the IDE, it allows you to view the document outside of the IDE. This URL requires only the access_data permission to view, but users will still need a role with the access_data permission on at least one model in the project where the Markdown file lives. If admins do not want to give access_data to all users for a model in an existing project, they can use the following workaround:Create a new dummy project. Put the custom homepage markdown inside the project. Create a new dummy model in

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can non-admins have certain admin privileges? System Activity, PDT panel, queries, logs, etc.Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 21, 2019 Currently, the only admin privileges you can give to non-admins are:see_queriessee_logssee_userssudosee_schedulessee_pdtssee_datagroupsupdate_datagroupssee_system_activity (new as of 5.20)(from permissions list)It's not currently possible for non-admins to:manage authentication systems manage actions in the Action Hub create or edit users edit/test connections from the Admin panel This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveModerator

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.

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How does "Clear Cache and Refresh" work, what if I close the browser?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 21, 2019 Looker only replaces the existing cache key when the query is complete; it does *not* begin processing a “Clear Cache and Refresh” request by actually clearing the cache, just passes a flag to not use what’s already in the cache. When the query completes, the result is placed in the cache, but if the query is killed or fails (like if you close the browser), the old cache entry remains in the cache. This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

When extending an explore, can I exclude an existing parameter like `always_filter` or `conditionally_filter` on the new extended explore?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 6, 2020 No, we currently cannot leave out a specific parameter on the extended explore. Check out LookML refinements. Extending a view or an Explore is ideal for scenarios where you want to have multiple versions of the view or Explore. But if your goal is simply to modify a view or an Explore without editing the LookML file that contains it, you may want to use a refinement instead.WorkaroundsOption 1: Use a wildcard value to override (filter parameters only)For some parameters (like always_filter), you can set its value:`input to anything, like a string wildcard "%". This would override the value in the base explore and only works with string type fieldexplore: extend_test {extends: [products_required]always_filter: {filters: [brand: "%"]}} explore: products_required {view_name: productsalways_filter: {filters: [brand: "Bag Girls"]}} Option 2: Create a new base explore1. Copy your current base explore (call this "A") into a new base explore (call this "B").2. Remove

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I use Table Calculations to show total number of days in a month?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 18, 2018 Yes, we can do that in Table Calculations. Given a date dimension ${date}, this calc returns the number of days in the month of ${date}.extract_days(add_days(-1, date(extract_years(add_months(1, ${date})), extract_months(add_months(1, ${date})), 1))) This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveModerator

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.

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

REPLACE Characters in string filtersKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jul 30, 2019 If you see odd results in a drill's filter string, it may be that the strings content has a character that Looker is trying to escape. Characters like - Looker is trying to escape, so we need to do something to avoid that.To avoid this, you'll want to replace the character(s) that Looker is trying to escape using something like the REPLACE function. This way both the field and the filter results will have the proper character string for filtering. dimension: namesql: REPLACE(${TABLE}.name_field, "-", " ") This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How to check the data type of a table's columns [Examples: MYSQL, POSTGRESQL, REDSHIFT, BIGQUERY]Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 21, 2019 In SQL Runner, you can use these queries:MySQL:SELECTCOLUMN_NAME, DATA_TYPEFROMINFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNSWHERETABLE_SCHEMA = 'db_name'ANDTABLE_NAME = 'table_name'ANDCOLUMN_NAME = 'column_name PostgreSQL:pg_typeof(col_name) Redshift:SELECT "column", typeFROM PG_TABLE_DEFWHERE tablename = 'table_name'AND "column" = 'column_name'BQ Legacy and Standard don't support these types of queries. But if we try and do an incorrect cast of a column in BQ, the error message will tell us the data type.

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I click or double-click on a visualization legend series to show one specific series?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 14, 2020 YES! Use "Alt + click" on WIndows or "Option + click" on MacOS on visualization legend series to show one specific series on the visual This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why do I only sometimes need substitution operators?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jul 4, 2018 The difference is that ${foo} refers to the value in the field, whereas foo refers to the field itself. So when performing math or string operations, we'd use ${} like so: dimension: do_math {type: numbersql: ${foo} - ${bar} ;;}because we want the values of foo and bar to be pulled in and operated on. We do not use ${} when we are referencing the field itself, for example in drill_fields or order_by_field where we are not describing the relationship between the values, but just a relationship between the fields. So we do:measure: sum_something {type: sumsql: ${something} ;;# use ${} since we want the values to be summeddrill_fields: [foo, bar, baz]# no ${} since we don't care about the# values, only that these are the fields to use} This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can you reference measures in custom filters?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 12, 2021 Nope. Our docs mention this here: https://docs.looker.com/exploring-data/filtering-and-limiting#custom-filters There is a feature request for this though, please comment! There is an easy workaround, using a LookML measure type: yesno like so:measure: testyn {type: yesnosql: ${count}<> value or ${users.count} <> 1;;}You can then filter on this yesno measure in the explore. This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Formatting large numbers as digit with magnitude (Mil, Bil, etc.)Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 21, 2019 In the visualization menu, open the X or Y axis menu and in the field labeled <X/Y> format options, use the commas to truncate the value and use literal strings to notate magnitude.Each comma denotes three zeroes that will be omitted from the number.Use: 0,, "Mil"to turn "2,000,000" into "2 Mil"and 0, "k"to turn "2,000,000" into "2,000 k"You can also use this in LookML using value_format. You'll need to escape the quotes, though, since you have to put the value format string in quotes.value_format: "0,, \"Mil\""You can take advantage of conditional value formats to show differing symbols based on magnitude:[>=1000000]0.00,,\"M\";[>=1000]0.00,\"K\";0 This is documented in Help Center This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Refused to display 'https://somedomain.com' in a frame because it set 'X-Frame-Options' to 'sameorigin'Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 7, 2018 Let's conquer this beast.First things first. What the heck is an origin?It's the combination of protocol, domain, and port:{protocol}://{domain}:{port} --> https://developer.mozilla.org:443 OK, Got it. What about sameorigin?It's a policy designed to prohibit the display of resources from a particular origin in the page of another, different origin. When Looker is embedded in an iframe, that iframe requests and displays data from Looker's origin, which is different than the parent page's origin. For example, if I embed a dashboard from a Looker instance in https://www.w3schools.com/tags/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_iframe, their origins are not the same.Where does X-Frame-Options fit in?The X-Frame-Options HTTP response header can be used to indicate whether or not a browser should be allowed to render a page in an iframe. Tying this back to sameorigin, when the X-Frame-Options header is set to sameorigin, that means the iframe won't allow its contents to be r

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Rendering Images and hosting custom visualizations from GCP StorageKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 16, 2019 When referencing files from Google Cloud Storage via html, always use storage.googleapis.com instead of storage.cloud.google.com, e.g. for html:dimension: image {type: stringsql: '1' ;;html: <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/xyz/Static%20Images/a1.png" style="width:415px;" "height:60px"/> ;;} And for a custom visualisation:https://storage.googleapis.com/folder_name/vis/your_vis_name.js storage.cloud.google.com will work in queries, but will fail in any PDF/PNG rendering. You may see the following error message if you use the expanded URL:{"error":{"errors":[{"domain":"global","reason":"lockedDomainExpired","message":"Locked Domain Expired"}],"code":401,"message":"Locked Domain Expired"}} Or for a hosted custom vis image rendering (it will hang for minutes/hours with the following loop):2019-08-16 11:55:33.602 +0000 [INFO|02271|http] :: Request from <ip address> GET /api/internal/render/job/state/cdf341a5c8c53c2b6fc49a234415863a, {}2019-08-16

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Is the JavaScript that runs Custom Visualizations able to make http requests?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 21, 2019 It is not.Sandboxed iframes have an origin of `null` so any http request at all would violate the browser’s cross-origin request rules. This content is subject to limited support.

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What's in a Marketplace Visualization?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 22, 2020 For instances >= 6.24, Viz will be served from the project. This project will contain:minified dist file (.js) source (.js, .jsx, .ts) configuration files (package.json, yarn.lock, .babelrc, webpack.config.js) LICENSE README manifest.lkml marketplace.jsonYou can find these repos by searching for the pattern viz-full_name-marketplace (ex: viz-multiple_value-marketplace or viz-spider-marketplace ) in the looker Github org.The manifest file contains the LookML visualization object which adds the viz to the instance:project_name: "viz-packed_bubble-marketplace" constant: VIS_LABEL {value: "Packed Bubble"export: override_optional} constant: VIS_ID {value: "packed_bubble-marketplace"export: override_optional} visualization: {id: "@{VIS_ID}"file: "packed_bubble.js"label: "@{VIS_LABEL}"} A project name is defined. Override-optional constants are defined. The user will have an opportunity to overwrite these in the installer prompt. The visualization object points to

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Custom Visualizations in LookMLKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 13, 2020 Great news! Visualizations can now be defined in LookML!Example:manifest.lkmlvisualization: {id: "unique_id"label: "MY LABEL"url: "https://www.url.js"sri_hash: "my_sri_hash"file: "bundle.js"dependencies: ["https://my_dep.js", "https://more_dep.js"]} Key notes:Regardless of which project defines the visualization, it will be available globally on the instance The project must be deployed to production for the visualization to be available the id must be unique across all visualizations on the instance (validation will show errors otherwise) We can download the files from the custom visualization repos if you are trying to add a viz made my Looker. We just need to download the .js file from the repo and drag and drop it into the LookML IDE and set this as the "file" parameter If dependencies are required ,the developer would make that very clear. In most cases, the visualization's source files and dependencies have been bundled into a single distribution file me

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Dev Mode PDTsKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 9, 2019 A PDT that has been created/modified in a user's dev mode has the following properties:It behaves as if it has persist_for: 24 hours regardless of what persistence is set. Each one will be its own table in the scratch schema (see "Why are there multiple copies of the same PDT in my database?"). Dev mode PDTs will NOT show in the Admin > PDT panel. (see below comment!) If you rebuild derived tables and run from your dev mode and the production SQL is exactly the same, then the prod version will be replaced. There is --if dev and --if prod syntax that allows you to modify the SQL in dev mode vs. production Dev mode PDTs with a sql_trigger_value will have an epoch timestamp on them in the hash (prod PDTs with a sql_trigger_value will not). Dev mode PDT builds will show up in the i__looker pdt_log explore with an Action Data of expires at: [timestamp] where [timestamp] is 24 hours after the build completes (as it would show for a PDT with persist_for: 24 hours).

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