4.x Release Notes

Preparing for Looker Releases

  • In the Looker release notes, items marked with a indicate changes to existing functionality that may require your attention as you update.

  • Items marked with a indicate a Looker Labs feature that must be enabled by an admin on the Labs page.

  • We occasionally retire features. You can plan for this with the Legacy Features End-of-life Schedule.

Looker 4.22 2017-09-10

Dashboards and Visualizations

  • Required Filters for Dashboards. Dashboard filters can now require a filter value input before the dashboard is run. Learn more.
  • Timeline Visualization improvements. Added the ability to plot multiple events on a single line and introduced a legend option. Learn more.

Platform and Administration

SQL Runner

  • Added the ability to sort SQL Runner results.
  • You can now execute DDL statements via the SQL Runner. Learn more.

Instance Administration

  • Authentication. Added support for OpenID Connect, including group-to-role and User Attribute mapping. Learn more.
  • Access. Added a Help menu option to manage Looker Support access to your instance. By default, access will remain the same. With the support_access_toggle permission, developers can also manage access. If support does not currently have access to your instance, this will not change that. Learn more.
  • Usage. Added edit links from certain i__looker fields to edit pages in the Administration Panel. Learn more.

Legacy Features

  • Removed the Legacy Drill Behavior feature.

API

  • Added a content_metadata_id for Look and dashboard lookups.

Powered by Looker

  • Added parent-to-iframe JavaScript events for updating Look and dashboard filters.

LookML and Development

  • Dynamic grouping, aggregation, and user-inputted variables. Introducing the parameter liquid variable, which allows users to insert a string or number into LookML, providing for more flexible Looks and dashboards. Learn more.
  • Improved the LookML Validator to better identify when fields have duplicate declarations of the same parameter. This may surface previously ignored errors.
  • Statistics in Table Calculations. [BETA] Added 55 new Calculations to allow for statistical analysis. Learn more.

Content Management and Discoverability

  • Browse menu navigation. The Browse menu now has links to Spaces and the Popular, Favorites, Recently Viewed pages for quicker navigation. Learn more.
  • Lookless Dashboards. [BETA] Dashboards can now be composed of Tiles, which are not backed by Looks, can be created directly from an exploration without the need to save a Look, and live exclusively on the dashboard. Simplify dashboard creation and content management! Learn more.

Scheduling and Downloading

  • Just send it. Added an Explore option to send data or visualizations without having to create a schedule. Learn more.
  • Updated the Scheduler History page to include information about Datagroup triggers.

Dialects

  • Exasol. Added support for medians and percentiles. Learn more.

General Tweaks and Bug Fixes

Dashboards, Visualizations, and Explore

  • Fixed an issue where scrolling caused map legends to flip when reverse color scale was enabled.
  • Fixed an issue where the Save button could be obscured when editing the styling of an embedded Dashboard.
  • Fixed an issue where y-axis names didn't appear with pivoted data.
  • Fixed an issue where public Looks containing Conditional Formatting did not load.
  • Fixed an issue editing a Look could result in an error.
  • Fixed an issue where searching for collapsed dimension groups did not properly expand them in the field picker.

LookML

  • Fixed an issue where not all timeframes were included by default for dimension groups.
  • Fixed a couple of issues related to LookML generation and database columns that start with _.
  • Fixed an issue where an empty action declaration caused a 500 error.
  • Fixed an issue where value_formats could display minus signs when they shouldn't have.

Scheduling and Downloading

  • Fixed an issue where filtered scheduled emails did not properly link back to a filtered version of the original Look.
  • Fixed an issue where new Google Spreadsheets public URLs led to a 404.
  • Fixed an issue where downloading a PDF could generate an Unexpected Document Error.

Administration

  • Fixed issues related to timezone conversions and Oracle SQL.
  • Fixed an issue where users could not connect to a User Attribute-determined host.

Looker 4.20 2017-08-13

Scheduling and Downloading

  • Introduced the ability to schedule Looks and dashboards when an ETL completes. Scheduled content can now be sent based on a datagroup trigger in addition to the existing time-based options. Learn more.
  • Remove links to Looker. Added a scheduling configuration option to include or exclude links back to Looker from emailed content. Learn more for Looks. Learn more for dashboards
  • Downloads will now default to having formatted values.

Platform and Administration

  • Powered by Looker
    • Added the ability to broadcast iframe height to the parent page.
  • SQL Runner
    • Added a Connection panel option to disable schema pre-caching. Learn more.
  • Legacy Features
    • Disabled the following Legacy Features:
      • Non-Symmetric Aggregates
      • Row Limit Only
      • Unsafe Liquid Functions
      • Allow creating legacy API-only users

LookML and Development Environment

  • New minuteX timeframes. Added new 4, 20, 6, and 12 minute timeframes. Learn more.
  • [ Experimental Labs] Added an experimental Labs feature that will speed up LookML validation by not revalidating explores that haven't changed. Learn more.

Dialects

  • Amazon Athena. Introduced support for Symmetric Aggregates. Learn more.
  • DataVirtuality. Added case_sensitive support where possible. Learn more.
  • Apache Spark 1.5+, Apache Spark 2.0, Apache Hive2, and Cloudera Impala. Derived tables now use columnar formats and compression.
  • Aster Data, Exasol, PostgreSQL, Amazon Redshift, Snowflake, Vertica, and Greenplum. Sped up queries by no longer using to_char in group by statements for date timeframes.

General Tweaks and Bug Fixes

Filters

  • The Filters section in explores is now scrollable.
  • Restored the ability to copy filter values.

Content Management and Discoverability

  • Added the ability to bulk add LookML Dashboards to Spaces as user-defined dashboards. Learn more.
  • Fixed an issue where the Spaces page would not load if a user did not have access to a Space.
  • Fixed an issue where individual bulk Space actions were not available to users who could not perform copy, move, and delete actions.
  • Fixed an issue where the Save & Add to Dashboard button missed the Add to Dashboard step.
  • Fixed an issue where users could not parameterize Project names using User Attributes.
  • Fixed an issue where Funnel visualizations could fail to render on User Defined Dashboards.
  • Fixed an issue where the LookML Validator incorrectly produced a Redefinition of field error when a dimension group did not have a raw timeframe and another field had the same name.

Looker 4.18 2017-07-16

LookML

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