Labs overview
Looker Labs features are new, in-progress features whose details may change over time. Labs features are split into two categories:
- Beta: These features are expected to remain in the product, and errors are expected to be resolved at some point. However, these features may change in detail, and errors may not be fixed with the same speed as with normal features. You can see the list of current beta Labs features in the Beta features section on this page.
- Experimental: These features may or may not remain in the product, and errors may or may not be corrected. These experimental features are intended to show you functionality that could be incorporated into Looker in the future and to get your feedback. You can see the list of current experimental Labs features in the Experimental features section on this page.
You can choose to use these features or leave them disabled. You'll see a list of these features on the Labs page in the General section of the Admin panel. Each feature has a short description underneath it explaining the functionality that it adds to or changes in Looker.
Enabling and disabling Labs features
To enable or disable a feature, click the switch next to the feature name.
Use caution when disabling a Labs feature. If users or developers have relied on the feature to create a certain behavior, disabling the feature will break that functionality.
Current Labs features
Looker supports the following beta and experimental Labs features.
Beta features
Beta Labs features are expected to remain in the product, and errors are expected to be resolved at some point. However, their details may change, and errors may not be fixed with the same speed as they would be for normal features.
Accessible Data Table Visualizations
This Labs feature is disabled by default.
When this feature is enabled, the data table visualization will behave slightly differently in order to be fully accessible for all viewers. Specifically, this feature disallows double-clicking on table cells and unpins the row number column from the left side of the table.
Advanced Features for New Schedules Page
This Labs feature is disabled by default.
When this feature is enabled, the Schedules page includes the following features:
- The list of scheduled plans is paginated, with a default page limit of 100 schedules.
- You can filter the list of scheduled plans by the following criteria:
- Schedule Name
- Recipient
- First Name (of the schedule owner)
- Last Name (of the schedule owner)
- Destination Type
- Delivery Format
- You can sort the list of scheduled plans by the Schedule Name.
Data history playback (data change over time animation) for visualization
This Labs feature is disabled by default.
If enabled, this Labs feature allows users to explore data changes over time for visualizations within dashboards. See the Viewing dashboards documentation page for more information.
Full Screen Visualizations
This Labs feature is enabled by default.
When enabled, this feature enables full-screen and expanded views for visualizations within dashboard tiles. See the Viewing dashboards documentation page for more information on view options.
Full-screen and expanded functionality can be turned off on a dashboard in the dashboard's Settings menu.
Improved LookML Generation
This Labs feature is disabled by default.
This feature improves the LookML generation experience and adds new features like auto-generated measures, inline comment explanations, and a README doc to new LookML projects that are generated from your database.
This feature also adds a Generate LookML from Database option to the + menu in the Looker IDE file browser toolbar.
In-page Table Calculations
This Labs feature is disabled by default.
The In-page Table Calculations Labs feature lets users create and edit table calculations directly in an Explore's Data section instead of using either the Create table calculation or the Edit table calculation dialog. Creating and editing table calculations in the Data section lets users reference fields and values in an Explore query as they create and edit table calculation expressions.
New Explore & Look Saving
This Labs feature is disabled by default.
This feature improves the visibility and navigation of Save dialogs on the Explore and Look pages. The new experience allows quick navigation of folders, and users can choose to sort existing content by Name, Created Date, or Last Update. It does not change any functionality of these pages.
Prerender Iframes (before data loads) for custom visualizations
This Labs feature is disabled by default.
This feature reduces the custom visualization loading time by starting to render the iframe even before query data has been loaded.
SQL Runner Vis
This Labs feature is disabled by default.
This feature adds the ability to visualize ad hoc queries from SQL Runner.
Smart Single Value Text Size
This Labs feature is disabled by default.
Enabling the Smart Single Value Text Size Labs feature automatically resizes the fonts on single value visualizations displayed within dashboard tiles. Fonts are resized to display at least 8-10 value characters within a tile; if the characters in the visualization overflow horizontally or vertically at a given size, the font size will step down. The minimum font size allowed is 14 pixels. Once the minimum font size is reached, any overflowing characters will be truncated with an ellipsis (...). The maximum font size allowed is 104 pixels.
When you're using this Labs features, single value tiles on dashboards may look less consistent, but more characters will fit on smaller tiles.
Visual Drilling
This Labs feature is enabled by default.
The Visual Drilling Labs feature is not supported by dashboards. For dashboards, visual drilling is possible through the use of the link parameter without needing to enable the Labs feature.
When Visual Drilling is turned off, the drill overlay always displays the data table.
When Visual Drilling is enabled, the drill overlays for Looks and Explores consider the underlying data to select the best visualization type, which can be a table visualization or some other visualization type. Or, with Visual Drilling enabled, you can use the link parameter to customize a drill visualization, as shown on the link parameter documentation page and on the More powerful data drilling Best Practices page. When the visualization from a drill is not a table, buttons let the user switch between the default visualization type and a data table.
For more information about visualization types, see the Visualization types documentation page.
Experimental features
Experimental Labs features may or may not remain in the product, and errors may or may not be corrected. These experimental features are intended to show you functionality that could be incorporated into Looker in the future. We always welcome your feedback.
BI Engine Symmetric Aggregates
This Labs feature is disabled by default.
When the BI Engine Symmetric Aggregates Labs feature is enabled, for queries that use symmetric aggregates, Looker will generate experimental SQL patterns that are designed to execute faster on the Google BigQuery BI Engine. This feature should have no effect on query results, only on execution performance.
Custom Vis Reliable Render
This Labs feature is disabled by default.
When this Labs feature is enabled, Looker suppresses refresh behavior in custom visualizations to fix partial PNG and PDF renders.
Dashboards in Drill Menus
This Labs feature is disabled by default.
When this Labs feature is enabled, Looker automatically suggests dashboards that have a filter based on the field you are drilling into. Suggested dashboards appear in the drill menu.
In systems with many dashboards, this feature decreases dashboard performance.
Enhanced Query Admin
This Labs feature is disabled by default.
When enabled, this feature enhances the Queries page in the Database section of the Admin menu. The enhanced page features tabs for Recent and Complete queries. These tabs are paginated for improved performance, and display 50 queries per page.
The Recent tab displays queries run in the last hour. From this tab, Looker admins can cancel running queries.
The Complete tab displays the most recent 500 queries.
Guided analyses in System Activity
This Labs feature is disabled by default.
When enabled, the History System Activity Explore displays guided analysis options to provide a question-and-answer format for performing analyses.
Lightweight Drill Links
This Labs feature is disabled by default.
Enable this Labs feature for potential improvements in browser and query performance times for queries that contain drill fields.
Local Project Import
This Labs feature is disabled by default.
With local project import, a LookML project can reference files in other locally maintained projects through the use of the local_dependency keyword in a manifest file. Enabling this Labs feature is not required to use the remote_dependency keyword.
Propose to switch to google map if mapbox fails within the dashboard
This Labs feature is enabled by default.
If this feature is enabled, Looker will propose switching map charts to Google Maps charts if map charts are broken in a dashboard's tiles.
If all map charts on a user-defined dashboard are broken, and a dashboard viewer has edit access for the dashboard, a window appears on the dashboard asking if the viewer would like to switch to Google Maps charts. If the viewer chooses to switch by clicking the Convert all Maps button, the dashboard enters edit mode and the charts are automatically updated to Google Maps charts. The viewer can then save the changes to the dashboard to exit edit mode. If the dashboard viewer does not have edit access, the window does not appear and the charts remain broken.
If all map charts on a LookML dashboard break, a window appears on the dashboard providing instructions for updating the dashboard LookML to convert all charts to Google Maps charts.
Reduce Filter Queries
This Labs feature is disabled by default.
This feature reduces the number of queries that are sent by filters. When Reduce Filter Queries is enabled, Looker moves any filter that requests suggestions into a dialog where the filter won't fetch suggestions until a user clicks on it in the dialog.
Redux DevTools
This Labs feature is disabled by default.
This feature enables Redux DevTools for debugging application state.
SQL Interface
This Labs feature is disabled by default.
The SQL Interface Lab is available only for Looker-hosted instances. It enables the Open SQL Interface. The Open SQL Interface uses JDBC to access LookML models in third-party applications, such as Tableau. For Looker (original) instances, you must enable the SQL Interface Experimental Labs feature on the Looker instance. (Only Looker-hosted instances support this Labs feature.) For Looker (Google Cloud core) instances, you must fill out the Looker SQL Interface Pre-GA Agreement interest form. The Looker team will enable your instance for the Open SQL Interface feature.