6.x Release Notes

Preparing for Releases

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

In the release notes, you may see some special symbols:

• Items marked with a flash_on indicate changes to existing functionality that may require your attention as you update, such as features being retired.

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

• Items marked with a build indicate changes to system configurations that may impact your ability to run the new release.

Looker 6.24 2019-11-08

Platform and Administration

• science Introduced support for a new Slack integration for Looker-hosted instances. This new integration allows users to send content through DMs and to public and private channels via OAuth. Learn more.

  

• science flash_on Introduced a new beta Labs feature, Curated Search. This feature enhances the content search experience. This search will include content from a user's folder, from shared folders, or on boards. Learn more. Note: This Labs feature is enabled by default.

  

• science Introduced a new Labs feature, New Dashboard Experience. This feature gives dashboards a new look, customizable and user-friendly filters, a new creation experience and editing flow, and faster performance. Users can also seamlessly switch a dashboard between the beta and original layout. Learn more.

  

• science Table-next. Has transitioned out of Labs beta. This is now the default table visualization available in the visualization drop-down; Table (legacy) is still available. Learn more.

  

• Boards. Users who share a board will have the option to send an email notification to newly added users, encouraging them to add the board to their list. Learn more.

Embedded Analytics

• Embed Events Introduced support for developers to build on-the-fly UI controls for embed users to dynamically control dashboards:

  • Visualization configuration settings: chart type, axis labels, etc.
  • Dashboard layout: tile position and visibility
  • Tile settings: titles and visibility

• Introduced support for a new API endpoint: create_sso_embed_URL. Learn more.

Scheduling and Downloads

• Action Hub:

  • Braze: Added optional attributes. Learn more.
  • mParticle: New supported custom action. Learn more.
  • Auger.ai: New supported custom action — send data for machine learning evaluation. Learn more.

• Alerts. Out of Labs beta and available by default.

  • Filters are applied to the visualizations of alerts and to the links in an alert email. Learn more.

Marketplace Content

• Introduced a new block for Shopify. Learn more.

Dialects

• Clickhouse. Introducing support for this dialect. Learn more.
• MS SQL DW & Azure SQL. Introduced time zones support.
• Snowflake. Introduced OAuth support. Learn more.

LookML and Development

• Localization. Added support to localize comparison_label and single_value_title parameters.

General Tweaks and Bug Fixes

Embedded Analytics

• Fixed an issue where the embed theme overrode conditional formatting in a single value visualization.
• flash_on API 3.1. create_sql_query endpoint has been modified to ask for a connection name (string) parameter instead of connection id (integer).
• Queries with SQL errors no longer return a 500 error response on the /api/3.1/query_tasks/multi_results endpoint.
• Linked to detailed requirements in API docs for embed users to schedule to email.
• flash_on API 3.0 & 3.1. Many endpoints incorrectly responded with image/jpg format and now they respond with image/jpeg.
• Adjusted how the URI Validator evaluated whether the required parameters of a URI are set.
• Embed_domain URL parameter is now carried forward in the Explore URL.
• Updated the documentation for all_git_connection_tests endpoint to require the session to be in Development Mode.

Platform and Administration

• The model set list under Roles on the Admin page is now updated to show the correct models.
• Unicode encoding from IdP now correctly converts to expected single unicode character for SAML attribute pairing.
• Looks with multiple pivots using the Run Look endpoint and outputting JSON no longer replace pivot keys with "".
• Selecting Update for the Default Export Format from Admin settings no longer returns a 500 error message.
• Adjusted the schedule_look_email permission to be model specific.

Scheduling & Downloads

• Public look links no longer result in a 404 error message when selecting JSON format as the output.
• The option to download All Results on a tile menu is now grayed out to prevent non-streamable results from yielding a "Refuse to run query..." error.
• Downloading a LookML dashboard as a PDF no longer inserts page breaks over visualizations.
• LookML dashboards scheduled with the Fit Page to Dashboard option are no longer rendering a shrunken and cut-off PDF.

LookML and Development

• Creating a project with a BigQuery connection no longer generates the file in old LookML.
• Markdown files can now be searched successfully within folders in the IDE.
• Failed data tests now prohibit the ability to push changes to production, even with Pull Requests Required enabled.
• Renaming a folder in the IDE no longer returns a "The requested file failed to load" error.
• Removed the host, port, and database fields from populating when enabling "PDT override" on a database connection.
• Returned the option to Create View From Table in the IDE.
• The option to Explain in SQL Runner is now hidden if a SQL dialect does not support the EXPLAIN function.
• Fixed external configuration errors being cached in the LookML Validator.
• Removed the generated _FILE and _LINE_NUM parameters that displayed when copying a dashboard's LookML.
• An internally created field will not automatically be added to a drill path as a filter.
• Data tests no longer require a view file to have a unique name.
• America - Sao Paulo timezones are no longer off by one hour due to daylight saving time.

Dialects

• Amazon Athena. Improved the performance for returning the connection's schemas.

Looker 6.22 2019-10-29

Platform and Administration

• science SQL Runner Visualization. This Beta feature allows users to visualize data directly within SQL Runner and to share links for collaboration with other users. Learn more.

  

• IP whitelisting. This new feature provides a mechanism for Looker administrators to whitelist certain IP addresses or blocks of IP addresses that can reach their Looker instance. When IP whitelisting is activated, Looker will refuse connection attempts from all other IP addresses. Note: This feature is available only for instances hosted by Looker. Learn more.

  

• flash_on Scheduled plans without a destination will now fail to send. Schedules without destinations created prior to 6.22 will be deleted. Learn more.

• Localization updates. Language support added for the following languages: Chinese (Simplified & Traditional), Swedish, Turkish, and Polish. Learn more.

• science Table-Next (Beta) improvements.

  • If enabled, Table-Next will be the default table in the visualization list. The previous table will still show up in the visualization dropdown menu as Table (Legacy). Learn more.

• science Alerts (Beta) Improvements:

  • Dashboard filters now automatically apply to the alert query. Learn more.
  • The alert email will include the tile's visualization and the current value of the data. Learn more.
  • Embed users are now able to create alerts. Learn more.

  

• New send_to_integration permission allows users without scheduling permissions to send and schedule content to custom actions. Learn more.

• Introduced an additional --log-format argument with the two options, [text, json]. The default is text. json produces structured logs for improved/simpler processing. Learn more.

• API 3.1 Introduced a new JSON format type called json_label. Learn more.

Scheduling and Downloads

• flash_on Download, send, and schedule modals will now default to a new JSON format for field label. This only impacts the modal, not existing content. Learn more.
  • Note: The original option regarding the json_label format option with an admin legacy feature was removed mid-release. This was done in an effort to provide a more stable experience in regards to rendering field labels in a JSON format when downloading, scheduling, and sending content.

Dialects

• flash_on Snowflake. Upgraded JDBC driver to v3.9.1.
• flash_on Microsoft SQL Server 2016+. Added support of connection time zone settings.
• Apache Hive. Introduced support for v3.1.2 and later.
• DB2, Dremio, IBM DB2 Warehouse on Cloud. Enabled SSL string parameters.
• Amazon Aurora MySQL. Previously known as "Amazon Aurora" when selecting this dialect on a new connection.
• Presto, Athena, Qubole Presto, Qubole Quantum. Changed string comparisons to use LIKE instead of REGEXP_LIKE for more performant SQL filtering.

LookML and Development

• IDE folders improvements.

  • Collapse all folders button.
  • Jump-to-file/search button.
  • Display the file extension type within the modal when creating/renaming a file.
  • Rename modal populates the old name, highlighted.

  

Embedded Analytics

• New SDKs available. This will allow developers to work with Looker's APIs in the language they're more comfortable with. Learn more.
  • Python
  • Javascript/TypeScript

General Tweaks and Bug Fixes

Platform and Administration

• Fixed an issue that prevented sending All Results (streaming) in schedules when utilizing a database type of IBM DB2 for AS400 and System i.
• Fixed an issue that was displaying LookML dashboards to users without the see_lookml_dashboards permissions in search.

• Fixed an issue that prevented totals from being displayed in a generated PDF when utilizing the Table-Next beta Labs feature.

  LookML and Development

• Fixed an issue where uploading a .strings.json type file did not show up in the development IDE with folders disabled.

• Fixed an issue that resulted in a 500 error message: "There was a problem running the validator" when validating in the IDE if a merge query with an unknown field existed in a LookML dashboard file.

• flash_on Fixed an issue where snowflake queries would hang before connecting until Looker was restarted. Resolved by updating the snowflake JDBC driver to v3.9.1.

• Fixed an issue where the Git menu would disappear when switching to another user's branch.

• Fixed an issue where filter suggestions that never populated and a 404 error message appeared in the JS console when a dimension referenced itself in the suggest_dimension parameter.

  • flash_on The LookML Validator will now return an error in the presence of self-referential suggest_dimension parameters.

• Fixed an issue that would break the LookML Validator when joining on fields of type: location.

  • Fixed an issue that prevented users with the see_pdts permission from populating information in the Admin panel without develop permission.
  • Fixed an issue where setting the parameter bind_all_filters: yes in an NDT led to a circular reference error.
  • Fixed an issue where the quick help for sql_where indicated that this parameter was only available for BigQuery.

  Embedded Analytics

  • Fixed an issue that resulted in absolute links opening in the same tab instead of in a new tab.
  • Fixed an issue where conditional formatting would break the table visualization within an embedded LookML dashboard.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented embed users with the schedule_look_emails permission from being able to send or schedule a Look.
  • Fixed an issue that when utilizing the API scheduled_plan_run_once endpoint returned a 404 error message in cases where the id parameter matches an existing ID.
  • Fixed an issue where the alerts permissions create_alerts and follow_alerts were not available for embed users.

Looker 6.20 2019-09-08

Platform and Administration

• flash_on Renamed Spaces to folders.
• Improved the Browse drop-down menu.
  • Simplified the left sidebar found by selecting the Home option from this drop-down menu.

• flash_on Content curation (boards) is no longer in Labs.

  • Boards provide a way for people to curate and surface existing content for initiatives and teams. This feature works in tandem with folders. In addition, LookML dashboards can now be pinned to boards. Learn more.

  

Dashboards, Visualizations, and Explore

• science Table-Next improvements (Labs Beta).
  • Users can control per-column text formatting such as font color, background color, text styling, and text alignment.

LookML and Development

• IDE folders. Project generator creates folders for models with multiple schemas.
• New LookML parameter for native derived tables (NDTs), bind_all_filters, takes all filters from the user query and applies them in the NDT subquery. Learn more.
• Localization. The default_value parameter in LookML dashboards accepts the Liquid _localization. Learn more.
• flash_on View-level drill_fields parameter now applicable to all measures by default. drill_fields applied on a per-measure basis will override the view-level set. Learn more.

Dialects

• flash_on Apache Druid.
  • Druid is now Apache Druid.
  • Updated the JDBC driver to version 0.15.
  • Enabled setting additional JDBC parameters through the JDBC connection string. This enables a connection to use the properties mentioned here.

Embedded Analytics

• New Javascript click events. Now capturing embed iFrame clicks for drilling, Explore from Here, and Open original Look. Learn more.

General Tweaks and Bug Fixes

Platform and Administration

• Modified when SQL statements are displayed in the logs based on the chosen logging levels.

LookML and Development

• IDE folders. Fixed an issue where the menu option to Revert Changes on a single file was no longer available.

Dashboards, Visualizations, and Explore

• science Fixed several issues in the Table-Next (Beta) chart:
  • The visualization editor intermittently failed to display menu options.
  • The text in subtotals column failed to align.
  • The color picker not displaying a specific color collection when selected.

API

• Fixed an issue where the API endpoint all_user_attributes failed with a 500 error when given a sort parameter.
• Updated the response returned when an embed user did not have a user attribute value for a parameterized connection.
• Fixed an issue that returned a 404 error message when an admin updated a schedule that wasn't their own via the API.
• Updated the Looker API Docs to explicitly require the query_id parameter when utilizing the create_look endpoint.

Scheduling and Downloads

• Fixed an issue which cut off merged results tiles when rendering a PDF of a dashboard with the option Single column layout selected.
• Fixed an issue that cut off columns from tables when rendering a single-column PDF.

Looker 6.18 2019-08-11

Dashboards, Visualizations, and Explore

• science Table-Next Improvements (Labs Beta).
  • Ability to control global text formatting. For example, row font size, header font size, header text color, header background color, and header alignment.
  • Ability to display visualizations within the cells of a table.
• science Alerts Improvements (Labs Beta).
  • Ability to give an alert a custom title.
  • Ability to use table calculations when creating an alert.
  • Ability to subscribe to another user's alert. Note the alert must be Public and the user must have the follow_alerts permission.

Content Management and Discoverability

• science Content Curation Improvements (Labs beta).
  • Ability to view, scroll and sort all boards within a user's organization.
  • User personal folders now appear both in the Browse menu and on the left sidebar.
  • Folders previously set as a default folder will continue to appear in the left sidebar.
  • Developers can set LookML dashboards to appear in the Browse menu and left sidebar.

Platform and Administration

• build Dependencies JAR.
  • Certain Java class files are now distributed separately, resulting in two distinct JAR files that will need to be downloaded and installed to update your Looker instances. Learn more.
• flash_on Completely removed the "Legacy Rendering" Legacy Feature.
• Embed Events.
  • Added look:ready and explore:ready events to indicate when both the Explore and query have loaded. Learn more.
  • Added a status result to dashboard embed events to indicate whether a tile produces an error.
• science Content Curation Improvements (Labs beta).
  • Ability to view, scroll and sort all boards within a user's organization.
  • User personal folders now appear both in the Browse menu and on the left sidebar.
  • Folders previously set as a 'default folder' will continue to appear in the left sidebar.
  • Developers can set LookML dashboards to appear in the Browse menu and left sidebar.

LookML and Development

• flash_on Importing remote projects is no longer in Labs.
  • The generalized "Project Import" feature is no longer in Labs.
  • Importing locally maintained projects is still in Labs under "Local Project Import".

Dialects

• Snowflake: Added support for External Table database objects to be scanned for database metadata information. This will surface external tables in SQL Runner and in LookML View generation.
• flash_on Aster Data. Partially deprecated Aster Data. It will no longer be selectable as a dialect in the Dialect dropdown in the Connection panel. Existing Aster Data connections will continue to work.
• flash_on Microsoft SQL Server 2005. Removed support for MS SQL 2005.
• flash_on XtremeData. Removed support for XtremeData.
• flash_on Qubole Presto and Qubole Quantum. Updated the JDBC driver to version 2.0.2 to fix intermittent NullPointerException errors. Learn more.
• flash_on Only Oracle ADWC. Changed JDBC connection string format for Oracle ADWC connections to use the TNS alias as the hostname. In addition, the TNS_ADMIN JDBC parameter is used to connect with Oracle Wallets.
  • Example: jdbc:oracle:thin:@dbname_high?TNS_ADMIN=/path/to/wallet/directory
• Druid. Updated the JDBC driver to version 1.15.0.

General Tweaks and Bug Fixes

Security

• Fixed an issue where a Look or dashboard tile's default filter values could be applied instead of a send or schedule's filter values. This could only occur if the filter values came from a view that has v_ as the first two characters in its name.
• Fixed an issue that resulted in User Attribute values set to hidden were printed to server logs.

Scheduling and Downloads

• All formatting types in streamed results were being ignored. Formats will now be respected. Note: JSON detail format will continue to ignore formats as it is its expected behavior.
• Fixed a scheduler issue that prevented users from running a specific look both when in development mode and when that user did not have development permission to the model the content was based on.
• Fixed an issue where schedules failed when a user was in development mode and did not have developer access to the model, even if data should return outside of development mode.
• Fixed an issue where the schedule dispatcher would not run on the master node if it had scheduler threads set to zero, even if other nodes had scheduler threads.
• Fixed an issue where Looker was starting with a default of three unlimited execute scheduler threads even though this should be one.
• Looker now retries schedules and actions if one fails due to multiple events firing simultaneously.

Platform and Administration

• Added clarifying text to the Sessions admin panel. No behaviors changed.

Dialects

• Google Cloud Spanner. Fixed an issue where the JDBC driver hit a Java instantiation exception.
• Netezza. SQL Runner will now populate database objects from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.VIEWS in addition to INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES in the Schema and Tables sidebar.
• Snowflake. Fixed an issue where the SQL Runner Describe command did not scope Snowflake tables to the schema, causing describe to fail for tables outside of the default schema.

Embedded Analyitcs

• Fixed an issue where updating a Look filter via an iFrame message failed with an error response.
• Fixed an issue where failed schedules mentioned Looker despite settings being set to not reference Looker.
• Fixed an issue where the whitelabel favicon was displaying the Looker icon when downloading a PNG in the browser.
• Numeric filters can now be set on Looks via the embed messaging in an iframe.
• Fixed an issue where clicking "Explore from Here" when editing an embedded dashboard did not open in a new tab.

Looker 6.16 2019-07-07

Dashboards, Visualizations, and Explore

• science Table-Next Labs Beta Improvement.
  • Ability to wrap or truncate text. Learn more.
  • Conditional formatting. Learn more.

Platform and Administration

• flash_on Timeout session. The session timeout warning will now be displayed two minutes before timing out.
• Inactivity Logout Session Setting. Session settings can be modified to force users to be logged out of a session after 15 minutes of inactivity. Activity is defined as a user clicking anywhere in Looker or touching the screen in the case of touchscreens, or typing anything into Looker. Learn more.

LookML and Development

• Introduced a method to preserve number formatting, regardless of what locale-based settings a user may have. Learn more.

Dialects

• flash_on Updated Snowflake driver (v3.8.4). Addresses Snowflake issues caused by prior versions of the driver. Learn more.
• Qubole Dialect. Qubole Quantum. The Qubole Presto dialect Qubole Presto Service has been rebranded and is now available as a separate dialect in the drop-down menu as Qubole Quantum.

General Tweaks and Bug Fixes

LookML and Development

• Addressed an issue where value_format_name and value_format parameters were not being respected in the field being extended. It was taking the parameter definition of the view the field was extended from.
• Improved an issue where utilizing non-alphanumeric characters upon configuring a new model led to a 500 error.
• Modified how the datatype parameter of type: date interacted with a measure within the project IDE.
• Addressed the inconsistent alignment of Git metadata displayed in the project settings page.
• Addressed LookML validation error Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property '1' of null.
• Addressed an issue in which, when user attributes were used to define the sql_always_where parameter in a persisted Explore, incorrect data was being pulled from the cache.

Dashboards, Visualizations, and Explore

• Addressed the ability for the x-axis to respect number localization.
• Addressed number formats mismatching between different viz types.
• Addressed an issue that was resulting in drills displaying no results when null values were set to a type of string.

Scheduling and Downloads

• Addressed an issue that was causing Look and dashboard rendering to fail.

API

• Addressed an issue where the all_lookml_models() and lookml_model(lookml_model_name) API endpoints would return an empty array with Explores that required access grants.

Platform and Administration

• Addressed an issue where editing the user attribute for a group did not allow them to enter a string. Instead, it only displayed a drop-down of options.

Dialects

• Addressed a Snowflake JDBC driver version 3.8.3 issue that would return a NullPointerException message when a queried result set was larger than could be held in one result chunk. Queries returned a blank error message to Looker.

Looker 6.14 2019-06-09

Dashboards, Visualizations, and Explore

• science Table-Next chart options: Ability to transpose tables. Learn more.

  

  Ability to reorder columns in the table visualization into any order. Learn more.

  

Platform and Administration

• Localization of number formatting. Ability to implement number formatting by setting a user's number_format user attribute to one of the available number formats. The formatting is not respected on the x-axis of some visualizations. Learn more.