Looker 23 release highlights

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Looker 23.0

Expected rollout start: Monday, January 16th, 2023
Expected final deployment and download available: Tuesday, January 31st, 2023

Potentially breaking changes

Check out these potentially breaking changes! Depending on which features or configurations you have implemented, all, some, or none of these changes may apply to your instance.

  • The Legacy Render Card Height legacy feature is now removed.
  • The Use Legacy Internal Query API legacy feature configures Explores, Looks, and SQL Runner to use the legacy API for running queries when enabled. When disabled, Explores, Looks, and SQL Runner use the upgraded internal API for running queries. Upgrading the internal query API does not affect applications using the externally available Looker API. This legacy feature is enabled by default for Looker 23.0 and will be disabled by default starting in Looker 23.2.
  • When the pool_timeout to edit a database connection in an api request is less than the minimum allowed, a pool_timeout error is now thrown.

Expanded Dashboard Theming

New Labs option for embedded dashboard theming

This feature is now enabled by default, and it lets admin users display and hide dashboard header elements on embedded dashboards.

BI Engine Optimizations

This feature is now out of Labs and is generally available

The BI Engine Optimizations feature is enabled for all BigQuery customers who use the BI Engine. With BI Engine optimizations, Looker will generate experimental SQL patterns for certain types of LookML queries that use a BigQuery database connection. These SQL changes are designed specifically to execute faster on Google BigQuery's BI Engine. This feature affects the query runtime and has no effect on query results.

Looker Studio Connector is GA

This feature is now out of Labs and is generally available

The Looker Studio connector lets you access data from a Looker Explore within Looker Studio by adding the Explore as a data source in a Looker Studio report. Enable the Looker Studio BI connector on the BI Connectors page in the Platform section of the Admin menu.

You can also monitor information about the queries that are run by your Looker Studio data sources in the System Activity History Explore.

See the Connect to Looker article in the Looker Studio help center for more information about how to enable the Looker connector in Looker Studio.