Looker 7 release highlights

Looker 7.20

Expected rollout start: Wednesday, November 18th, 2020
Expected final deployment and download available: Thursday, December 3rd, 2020

Potentially breaking changes

Check out these potentially breaking changes introduced in Looker 7.20. Depending on which features or configurations you have implemented, all, some, or none of these changes may apply to your instance.

  • Fonts and colors have been updated across the entire Looker application to align with Google branding. This can be enabled or disabled with the Legacy Branding toggle under Legacy Features. The toggle is disabled by default in Looker 7.20.
  • For BigQuery Standard SQL connections, the Treat the Datatype Datetime as a Timestamp legacy feature is disabled by default.
  • The Upgraded Explore Field Picker beta Labs feature is now enabled by default for all instances.
  • When Looker initiates a Snowflake database connection, the AUTOCOMMIT parameter is now set to TRUE by default.
  • Filter expressions can no longer be added to measures of type: number.
  • Looker no longer double-encodes links that contain special characters.
  • The Sandboxed Custom Visualizations Labs feature is now out of Labs and generally available.
  • During startup, Looker now validates the dialect and version of the internal database. If something other than the default in-memory HyperSQL or a MySQLv5.7.x database is used as the internal database, Looker logs an error message before performing any startup migrations.

Looker Marketplace Updates

Introducing new Looker Blocks and updates to features in Looker's Marketplace.

  • Introducing the BigQuery Information Schema Performance Monitoring Block that provides holistic analytics to understand BigQuery resource consumption among projects, organizations, or individual users. This block includes the following dashboards: Performance Summary, Job Lookup, and Issue Investigation.
  • Introducing the Dialogflow Parser Block that provides visibility and exploration of data that is generated during a user's interactions with a chatbot.
  • Introducing the Google Cloud's Retail Block gives users the ability to understand the overall performance, top and bottom stores, and product categories driving each trend.
  • The Data Dictionary now offers the ability to add comments to individual fields. Comments exist in the UI, in addition to the LookML.
  • Aggregate awareness has been implemented across the GA360 block.

IDE Deployment Manager

The new IDE deployment manager adds a UI for advanced deploy mode.

  • The deployment manager allows developers to deploy any commit to production from any branch.
  • The deployment manager separates deploying from merging: developers who don't have the ability to deploy are now able to merge changes with this feature.
  • This feature also adds Git tags from the UI to mark version numbers or other metadata and allows rolling back to prior versions.

IDE Metadata Sidebar Beta Labs Feature

Introducing a new beta Labs feature, IDE Metadata Sidebar.

  • The IDE Metadata Sidebar Labs feature allows users to see helpful metadata about the object their cursor is on.
  • This feature will help users answer the question Where else is this object being used?
  • Examples include which Explores a view is joined into or which objects extend or refine the explore.

Looker 7.18

Expected rollout start: Sunday, October 18th, 2020
Expected final deployment and download available: Thursday, October 29th, 2020

Potentially breaking changes

Check out these potentially breaking changes introduced in Looker 7.18. Depending on which features or configurations you have implemented, all, some, or none of these changes may apply to your instance configuration.

  • Looker's new dashboard experience is out of Labs and generally available.
  • The Cross-filtering Labs feature is enabled by default on dashboards. Note: This Labs feature is not available on legacy dashboards.
  • Fonts and colors have been updated across the entire Looker application to align with Google branding. This can be enabled or disabled with the Legacy Branding toggle under Legacy Features. The toggle is enabled by default in Looker 7.18 and will be disabled by default in Looker 7.20.
  • The Aster JDBC driver has been removed from Looker. All Aster connections will require a custom JDBC driver install.
  • The SAP HANA JDBC driver has been upgraded to v2.5.46 to give users the ability to set the default schema, configure SSL, verify SSL connection options, and get additional support for the SAP HANA JDBC parameters.
  • The Postgres Pre-9.1 SQL dialect is being downgraded to a support level of Integration. Postgres 9.5+ remains a supported dialect option.
  • Using the Liquid variable _filters[] in a derived table's SQL without the sql_quote parameter is now discouraged and will return a deprecation warning when the filter value is rendered in SQL. This warning is expected to be upgraded to an error by 2020.
  • The LookML IDE will now render a warning if two joins without view_labels join the same labeled view, which would result in duplicated LookML fields.
  • If the suggest_dimension parameter references an invalid or excluded field, the LookML IDE will render a new warning.
  • If localization is used on a project and a dimension group with type: time is defined in the LookML, a LookML warning will be rendered. The warning will suggest splitting the dimension group into individual dimensions.

New Dashboard Experience

Looker's new dashboards feature — formerly known as dashboards (beta) — is now the default dashboard experience in Looker.

Looker's Google Cloud Rebranding

The Looker platform is in transition to align with Google Cloud branding guidelines.

  • Fonts and colors in the Looker platform have been updated to reflect Google Cloud branding.
  • Users can revert to the Looker branding with the Legacy Branding toggle, which is enabled by default in Looker 7.18 and will be disabled by default for all instances in Looker 7.20.

Quick Start in Explores

Quick Start allows users to load prebuilt queries in their Explores.

  • The Upgraded Explore Field Picker beta Labs feature includes a Quick Start option that lets users load a modeled query with a single click.
  • The Quick Start option shows up by default on a blank Explore that contains modeled queries and can be accessed once again through the lightning icon next to the Explore title.

Looker Mobile App Integration

Introducing the Looker platform in a mobile application as a beta Labs feature.

  • Users will now be able to see data anytime and anywhere through the Looker mobile app.
  • The mobile app is available to customers using Looker 7.16+.
  • The app is available through the Google Play Store for Android 8+ devices and through the Apple App Store for iOS 13+ devices.

Looker 7.16

Expected rollout start: Sunday, September 20th, 2020
Expected final deployment and download available: Thursday, October 1st, 2020

Potentially breaking changes

Check out these potentially breaking changes introduced in Looker 7.16. Depending on which features or configurations you have implemented, all, some, or none of these changes may apply to your instance.

  • Users will no longer have the ability to cross-filter on custom dimensions.
  • Filtering by a field that is not a part of an Explore used on dashboards (beta) will display a banner with the message This filter was created using a filter by field outside of the Explores on this dashboard. You can modify the settings and tiles to update, but will need to create a new filter to change the field.
  • Referencing a field with the syntax ${field_name} in a Custom Filter will cause the Liquid parameters {{ field_name._is_filtered }} and {{ field_name._in_query }} to evaluate as true.
  • Values for hidden user attributes do not have to be re-entered when you update a Marketplace extension configuration or Marketplace extension version.
  • User attributes referenced by access filters that have the values %, NULL (for String Filter [advanced]) and <0, >=0, NULL (for Number Filter [advanced]) will no longer automatically generate a WHERE clause.
  • Users without the schedule_external_look_emails permission will no longer be able to save an alert if they add an email address that is not on the domain allow list.
  • The Load Assets from CDN setting has been removed from the Settings page in the General section of the Admin panel for Looker-hosted instances. This setting has not been removed from customer-hosted instances, unless the --force-cdn startup flag has been enabled on the instance.
  • Save and Schedule menu items will no longer appear on embedded Explores when Remove Look Navigation is enabled.
  • The create_sso_embed_url API endpoint is no longer metered as an admin call and will be excluded from the admin activity quota.
  • The connections drop-down list on the Persistent Derived Tables page in the Admin panel will only list connections that have PDTs enabled.
  • Adding the LookML parameter publish_as_db_view: yes to a PDT definition in production will now create a view without needing to trigger the table to rebuild or without having to modify the SQL or the LookML of the derived table.

Alerts to Action Hub

Users can now send scheduled alerts to Slack.

  • Slack has been added as a new destination for scheduled alerts.
  • This paves the way for support of more alerts to actions in the future.

Aggregate Awareness Enhancements

  • Developers now have the ability to use the following persist parameters inside the materialization block of an aggregate table: indexes, cluster_keys, partition_keys, distribution, distribution_style.
  • Aggregate tables no longer need to be an exact timeframe match of the filters in an Explore query. For example, an aggregate table that has a daily timeframe dimension can be used for an Explore query that filters on week or month. As long as the dimension in the aggregate table has a timeframe with a finer (or equal) granularity as the timeframes of the dimensions and filters in the Explore query, the aggregate table can be used for the Explore query.

JDK 11 Support for Customer-Hosted Instances

  • JDK 11 is now supported for customer-hosted instances.
  • Developers now have the opportunity to make performance improvements on front-end rendering and background processes on Looker applications.
  • JDK 11 support has been temporarily suspended.

Looker 7.14

Expected rollout start: Sunday, August 16th, 2020
Expected final deployment and download available: Thursday, August 27th, 2020

Potentially breaking changes

Check out these breaking changes introduced in Looker 7.14. Depending on which features or configurations you have implemented, all, some, or none of these changes may apply to your instance.

  • An update to our Markdown rendering library has been made to address security vulnerabilities. This change may render trailing HTML tags if the tags are invalid or unbalanced.
  • Looker now accepts the pkce code challenge parameter encoded as either Hex or Base64, per OAuth2 specifications.
  • In an Explore with the Upgraded Explore Field Picker Labs feature enabled, the view headers will now be sorted by locale rules (spaces, symbols, letters). Capitalization is not taken into account.
  • The API endpoint /presentation/query has been modified to accept either a path or a query parameter to prevent query timeouts.
  • The Snowflake JDBC driver has been upgraded to v3.12.8 to ensure that credentials are not logged in plaintext even when higher tracing levels are enabled.
  • If non-alphanumeric characters are used in LookML dashboard names, the LookML Validator will now render the following warning: LookML Dashboard name should contain only letters, numbers, dashes, and underscores.
  • The LookML Validator will now render an error when the join_fields parameter has invalid syntax within a merge query tile in a LookML dashboard.
  • Imported projects are now always marked as read-only and do not show syntax errors.
  • The Looker API CORS feature is now out of Labs and generally available. A web application is enabled for OAuth when the application has been registered with the Looker instance. If the application's registration info is deleted from the Looker instance, Looker will no longer accept API OAuth requests from that application.

Dashboards (Beta): Cross-Filtering

Cross-filtering allows users to cross-filter any size dataset between dashboards.

Dashboards (Beta): Drag and Drop Filters

Introducing visual editing of filters with the ability to drag and drop filters in dashboards (beta).

Users now have the ability to use handlebars to grab, move, and reorder filters — and drag them into and out of the filter overflow menu.

New Blocks and Visualizations in the Looker Marketplace

Check out Search Ads 360, Google Analytics 360, Google Demand Live Events, Report Visualization.

  • Google Search Ads 360 provides analytics around impressions, clicks, conversions, and revenue for search ads.
  • DV 360 is another new block that is used for comprehensive analytics for display and video advertising on the Google Marketing Platform. It provides analytics around AD and campaign performance, cost, and reach.
  • The Area 120 Demand Event Block combines live event, COVID, and weather data to predict future live event attendance during the coronavirus pandemic.
  • Report Visualization, available in the Marketplace, can be used for purpose-built visualizations to create traditional report layouts. This is a great block for financial reporting and other line-item-based statements.

Looker 7.12

Expected rollout start: Sunday, July 19th, 2020
Expected final deployment and download available: Thursday, July 30th, 2020

Potentially breaking changes

Check out these breaking changes introduced in Looker 7.12. Depending on which features or configurations you have implemented, all, some, or none of these changes may apply to your instance.

  • A new design for the LookML IDE is available to all users with access to LookML projects. The object browser is no longer a Labs feature; it is now out of beta and generally available. The IDE Folders Toggle legacy feature is now fully removed, and the legacy IDE can no longer be enabled.
  • The .strings files for localization legacy feature is now fully removed and unavailable to re-enable.
  • The SnowFlake Unquoted Database legacy feature is disabled by default. Snowflake connections that have incorrect capitalization in the database name will break.
  • The LookML Validator will now render a warning if there are multiple entries of the following: derived_table parameters within a view file, query parameters inside an aggregate table within a defined explore parameter, or materialization parameters within an aggregate_table within a defined explore parameter.
  • The LookML Validator will now issue a warning for aggregate table names greater than 255 characters. In addition, the aggregate table LookML generator will no longer generate names longer than the maximum allowed characters.
  • The table visualization setting Bars is now called Cell Visualization.
  • CSV downloads now allow non-romanized characters in the filename. This may impact automation that relies on the filename being empty for files named with non-romanized characters.
  • The password reset function will lock after too many failed login attempts. The lockout duration is 5 minutes for most customers after 4 failures and 30 minutes for PCI instances after 6 failures.

Redesigned IDE

Check out the new IDE in your LookML projects.

  • The new UI design of the LookML IDE is available to all users with access to LookML projects.
  • You can now navigate projects with the object browser without having to enable a Labs feature.

Upgraded Explore Field Picker

Introducing a redesigned Explore UI through the Upgraded Explore Field Picker Labs feature.

The Looker Extension Framework (Beta)

Introducing the Looker extension framework, available with the Extension Framework Labs feature, which is enabled by default.

  • This feature allows developers to build custom JavaScript applications and tools on top of Looker without requiring them to set up their own stacks for building.
  • Applications can be used in Looker or embedded in other applications.

Looker 7.10

Expected rollout start: Sunday, June 14th, 2020
Expected final deployment and download available: Monday, June 29th, 2020

Looker API CORS

A new experimental Labs feature that permits browser-based applications to directly call the Looker API without needing a proxy server for the API calls.

Dashboards (Beta): Filter Themes

Introducing the ability to customize embed filter colors.

The Themes page in the Admin panel now offers the option to customize primary buttons and filter controls in dashboards (beta) using the Primary Button Color setting.

Dashboards (Beta): Enhancements

Introducing new menu options on dashboard (beta) tiles and the ability to retrieve dashboard LookML from dashboards (beta).

  • Tile menus on dashboards (beta) now present the options to Clear Cache & Refresh and View Look. Note: The View Look option is only presented on tiles that are derived from existing Looks.
  • You can now copy the LookML from a dashboard (beta) by clicking Get LookML from the dashboard menu.
  • LookML dashboards can now be configured to use filter controls available in dashboards (beta). The LookML for user-defined dashboards with filters configured using dashboards (beta) contain a ui_config parameter for each filter.

Database Connection Pooling

A new beta Labs feature that can improve query performance and support more concurrent users for supported database dialects.

  • A new beta Database Connection Pooling Labs feature is now available for Redshift, Postgres, and Snowflake SQL dialects.
  • Enabling this Labs feature optimizes database connection reuse via the JDBC driver.

Looker 7.8

Expected rollout start: Sunday, May 17th, 2020
Expected final deployment and download available: Thursday, May 28th, 2020

Aggregate Awareness

Looker will detect and run a query against the most efficient aggregate table in your database.

  • Aggregate awareness increases database query performance and decreases costs by allowing you to define aggregate tables in LookML.
  • Aggregate tables are roll-ups of more granular data tables.
  • Looker automatically queries the aggregate tables instead of the larger, more granular tables whenever possible.

Parallel Persistent Derived Table Builds

Multiple PDTs can now be built at once.

  • Increases the number of PDTs that can be built at one time per connection.
  • The default concurrency is set to 1. The concurrency can be increased in the Max PDT Builder Connections field for a connection's settings.

Data Dictionary

The Data Dictionary extension is now available in the Looker Marketplace and can be enabled by switching on the Extension Framework and Marketplace Labs features.

  • The Data Dictionary is a centralized source for the field definitions of a selected model and Explore.
  • A field profiler displays information about a specific field and previews its top values.
  • Quick filters help users find the descriptions and field types they need.
  • The Data Dictionary retains Looker's permissions structure — users can see only the models they have access to.

New Marketplace Content

New and modified content is now available in the Looker Marketplace.

  • A new data block launched in the Marketplace called Covid-19. It has a pre-built data model and dashboards built around public COVID-19 data from the New York Times and Johns Hopkins.
  • A new Radial Gauge visualization offers customizable ranges, target values, and formatting.
  • A new Braintree block by Looker helps you better understand your business' transaction data.

Looker 7.6

Expected rollout start: Sunday, April 19th, 2020
Expected final deployment and download available: Thursday, April 29th, 2020

Persistent Derived Table Admin Page Improvements

Improved searchability, page performance, and monitoring on the persistent derived tables page in the Admin panel.

LookML Refinements

Introducing LookML refinements that allow users to build on the LookML of views and Explores in projects.

  • LookML refinements provide users a way to build on the LookML of views and Explores in your projects.
  • LookML refinements are ideal for projects with Looker Blocks, which use pre-built pieces of LookML; projects that import files from other projects; projects where you often need to generate your files from tables in your database; and situations where you want to share LookML between models or projects while making customizations in each place (that is, hub-and-spoke configurations).

Removing the Automatic S3 Backup (Customer-Hosted Instances Only)

Automatic S3 backup will no longer be available for customer-hosted instances.

  • Looker highly recommends hosting your own backup.
  • This is recommended as a daily practice to ensure that your Looker content and configurations are continuously saved.

Alerts User Management Page

Introduced a new page for users to manage their alerts.

Users can view and manage their alerts through an alerts user management page available from their user profile.

Looker 7.4

Expected rollout start: Sunday, March 15th, 2020
Expected final deployment and download available: Thursday, March 26th, 2020

Dashboards (Beta) Updates

Introducing new functionalities on dashboards (beta).

  • Dashboards can now be downloaded in PDF and CSV formats. Note: PDF will still render the old dashboard design.
  • A tile's content can be downloaded in these formats: TXT, Excel, CSV, JSON, HTML, Markdown, and PNG.
  • A grid layout option is now supported.
  • Merged results are now filterable and fully supported.

New LookML Syntax

Introducing new filters and order_by_field syntax.

  • New filters syntax is more concise and simpler to write. The square brackets denote an array with key-value pairs.
  • Measures can now be sorted by other measures in the order_by_field parameter.

Slack Integration Updates

Introducing the ability to add multiple Slack workspaces and Looker homepage in Slack.

Marketplace Content

More blocks and visualizations are now available in the Looker Marketplace.

Added the following blocks:

  • Salesforce
  • Hubspot
  • Square
  • Time Tracking Essentials
  • Zendesk Analysis

Added the following Visualizations:

  • Aster
  • Spider

Action Hub Updates

Introducing two new Google actions - Google Drive & Google Sheets.

  • Users now have the ability to use an Oauth-based Google Drive action to send PDFs, Images, and more straight to Google Drive from Looker.
  • Users now have the ability to use an Oauth-based Google Sheets action to send CSVs from Looker straight to Google Sheets, as well as the ability to maintain live linkages or send static snapshots.

Looker 7.2

Expected rollout start: Sunday, February 9th, 2020
Expected final deployment and download available: Thursday, February 20th, 2020

Dashboards (Beta) Updates

Introducing new functionalities on dashboards (beta).

  • Introducing the ability to create and manage alerts with a new simplified UI.
  • Introducing support for static maps (regions and point).
  • The LookML parameter parameter is now supported in dashboard (beta) filters, specifically for the following filter types:
    • Radio buttons
    • Button group
    • Drop-down menu
    • Advanced (is)

Team Homepage Settings

Homepage settings are out of Labs (beta) and in the Admin section under General Settings.

API 4.0 (Experimental)

Introducing a new experimental version of the Looker API, version 4.0.

Looker 7.0

Expected rollout start: Sunday, January 10th, 2020
Expected final deployment and download available: Monday, February 3rd, 2020

Marketplace

Marketplace (beta) Labs feature is enabled by default.

  • Ensures that users can easily discover relevant and helpful marketplace choices.
  • Enables Looker users to discover, install, and uninstall content like blocks, applications, and custom visualizations. This initial release of the marketplace is publishing the following:
    • Sales Application
    • 23 Looker Blocks
    • 12 custom visualizations

IDE Improvements

Introducing bulk edits for files and folders in the IDE as well as improvements to the IDE UI.

Enhanced PDT Rebuilds

Use the power of the LookML model outside of Looker.

  • For every rebuild of a PDT, the given table name will now be unique. This will yield increased stability and faster rebuilds for certain dialects.
  • Stable, statically named view tables can now be generated on top of PDTs. A stable database view will only be published for its underlying PDT when that PDT gets rebuilt. By having a static, friendly name, the view table allows you to consistently access a PDT via SQL on the source database. This feature provides users with the ability to hook up other analytics or data science tools to Looker-governed data. Learn more about stable view tables.

System Activity Dashboard Enhancements

System Activity dashboards can be enabled through a beta Looker Labs feature: System Activity Model.

  • Improved and reorganized dashboards in a logical and actionable way to provide users with more efficient monitoring of the Looker instance. Learn more about System Activity dashboards.
  • Use the Errors and Broken Content dashboard to stay on top of all the things that need your attention for quick remediation.
  • Visualize potential performance issues via the new scheduler heatmap and avoid bottlenecks.
  • These are the titles of the available dashboards:
    • User Activity
    • Content Activity
    • Performance Audit 1
    • Performance Audit 2
    • Errors and Broken Content

Boards Section Descriptions

To provide more context to users viewing boards, the feature now includes descriptions for each section.

Learn more about how boards can help your organization.