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May 10, 2023
Looker 23.8 includes the following changes, features, and fixes.
Expected Looker (original) rollout start: Monday, May 15, 2023
Expected Looker (original) final deployment and download available: Wednesday, May 24, 2023
Expected Looker (Google Cloud core) deployment start: Monday, May 29, 2023
Expected Looker (Google Cloud core) deployment end: Wednesday, June 7, 2023
Previously, a LookML validation error occurred when a project_name parameter was added to a project manifest file that also defined a Looker extension. This LookML error was triggered when the Local Project Import Labs feature was disabled for the Looker instance. Looker extensions do not require local project import, so with this bug fix this scenario will no longer trigger a LookML validation error.
The API3 keys setting on the Admin API page is now named API keys, in preparation for the deprecation of API3 in June 2023.
Users will now be warned when text on a dashboard tile is close to reaching the maximum length of 256 characters.
The Hide dashboard filters feature is now generally available.
The New Explore Visualizations Labs feature is now generally available. The Explore page, Looks, embedded Looks or Explores, and dashboard tile edit windows will display the same style of funnel chart, timeline, single value, and table visualizations as those that appear on dashboard tiles. Additionally, the drill overlay that appears when you drill into an Explore will match the style of the drill overlay that appears in dashboards, instead of the style that appears in Looks.
Starting in Looker 23.6, customer-hosted Looker instances require Git 2.39.1 or later on the host image. (See the Installing the Looker application documentation page for the full list of requirements for customer-hosted Looker instances.) Git 2.39.1 supports Git worktrees instead of complete Git history clones. Looker uses Git worktrees to provide faster entry into Developer Mode, among other benefits.
Customers who do not have the oem_jar license feature enabled can now access the set_smtp_settings API endpoint.
The Looker IDE will now display an error when incompatible types are being compared in Liquid statements.
The Source column in the Admin > Queries panel now correctly displays the API version for queries that are initiated from the Looker API.
Cookieless embed API endpoints are now marked as stable.
When the filter definition for matches_filter is empty, 1=1 will be added to the WHERE clause so that there are no SQL errors and the query can run. This functionality mirrors the is equal to [empty] standard filter option.
When the Advanced Vis Config Labs feature is enabled, any user who has either the Looker Admin role or the can_override_vis_config permission can access the Advanced Visualization editor. This editor lets users modify HighCharts visualizations by exposing certain JSON parameters of the visualization to enable deep customization. These customizations will not dynamically interact with data.
Conditional formatting logic that is applied in visualization settings now honors hidden No values when the Hide Nos from Visualization setting is applied.
Contents that are displayed in table visualization cells now shift to avoid being cut off when a column is too narrow to display the full range of values.
A new input for specifying a minimum column width override value enables PDFs with a large number of columns to render properly.
Previously, the Content Validator wasn't updating column_order references during rename/replace operations. This issue has been addressed, and the fix adds visualization configuration field references to the Content Validator that were previously missing.
Y-axis scales are no longer miscalculated in bar charts or column charts with trellised grid layouts.
Sorting for custom bin fields on New LookML Runtime now sorts by tier number as expected.
An issue was fixed where, previously, a row's value could be mapped to different tiers for a custom bin field and the internal sort field generated for it.
The Remove option is no longer available for removing table calculations from merged Explore queries. Use the Delete option instead.
An issue was fixed that caused users to be unable to select a domain from an allowlist with more than one item when including a custom link for scheduling.
An issue was fixed for the BigQuery Standard SQL dialect with the Optimistic Pivot feature where pivoted results weren't included for downloads.
May 08, 2023
Looker (Google Cloud core) is now generally available for the Looker 23.6 release.
For more information, see the Looker now available from Google Cloud console blog post.
April 14, 2023
The Looker 23.6 release includes the following changes, features, and fixes.
Expected rollout start: Monday, April 17th, 2023
Expected final deployment and download available: Thursday, April 27th, 2023
The SQL generator is now fixed and adds a ${TABLE} to a field's generated LookML only when there is no other LookML reference to that field.
References to legacy dashboards have been removed from the Admin > Themes page.
The Legacy Dashboards Button Colors section has been removed from the Admin > Themes page because legacy dashboards are removed in this release.
Code for legacy dashboards has been removed because legacy dashboards are fully deprecated and removed in this release. Now all legacy dashboards are shown in the new dashboard viewer.
The Can Access Legacy Dashboards legacy flag has been removed because legacy dashboards are fully deprecated and removed in this release. Now all legacy dashboards are shown in the new dashboard viewer.
You can no longer upgrade dashboards from the Folders page because legacy dashboards have been deprecated in this release.
The Liquid parameter tag and _parameter_value variables now return a date string rather than date SQL in non-SQL contexts (for example, the html and link LookML parameters) for date parameters.
The LookML string type is now referenced correctly and no number formatting will occur.
The New LookML Runtime will only return Liquid variable not found references on parameter tags if the field reference refers to a field that is in the scope of the current Explore being validated.
The Liquid date filter %Y will now return YYYY instead of YYYY-MM-DD with New LookML Runtime.
Looker now supports incremental PDTs for Databricks connections when Databricks version 12.1 or later is used.
Content thumbnails now support dark theme.
Customers can now set the position of pop-up dialogs in an embedded environment. Customers must make changes to their embedded applications to take advantage of this feature. Methods have been added to the Embed SDK, and an updated Embed SDK has been published. The Embed SDK repository has also been updated to provide examples of using this feature with the Embed Javascript (windows postMessage) API.
An issue has been fixed where having no results in a pivot led to an error when a PDF was downloaded.
The left sidebar content is no longer selectable when the sidebar is closed.
If a browser does not support full-screen displays, a full-screen menu item is not displayed. By default, iframes do not support full screen. This behavior can be overridden by adding allow=fullscreen to the iframe element. The Embed SDK has been updated to support this.
Previously, when all data was hidden with the "Hide No's from Vis" option, the PDF renderer failed and returned an error. This behavior has been fixed. A successful PDF is created with a "No Results" message.
When trend lines were used in a scatter plot visualization, PDF rendering was causing an error. This issue has been resolved.
An issue has been fixed that caused custom visualizations to become blank when they were moved during dashboard edits. Custom visualization tiles no longer lose content when you move a tile during a dashboard edit.
Donut multiples now render custom HTML labels in the legend and tooltip.
The custom fields in filter expressions are now referenced correctly instead of returning "inaccessible field name" errors.
The New LookML Runtime now shows the correct parameter localization translation.
The average_distinct measure computed through a number type measure in the Snowflake dialect has been fixed and no longer returns a SQL error.
Previously, having no results in a pivot led to an error when the Scheduler was used to send a PDF. This issue has been fixed.
The performance of the add filter to dashboard modal has been improved. A calculation that took ~4s in earlier Looker versions now takes ~4ms (1,000 times faster).
Dashboards with duplicate filters can now be restored from the trash.
March 14, 2023
Looker 23.4 release includes the following changes, features, and fixes.
Support for YAML LookML is scheduled to end in the latter part of June 2023. All YAML LookML projects will generate a warning to this effect upon project validation, and all instances of YAML LookML must be translated to New LookML by this date.
The unversioned Denodo dialect was deprecated in Looker as of January 31, 2023. Any queries run against it will return an error. The updated dialects (Denodo 7 or Denodo 8) continue to be supported. However, customers running Denodo 7 are encouraged to move to Denodo 8.
The New Users Page and New Groups Page Labs features are now generally available. These features add a host of performance improvements to the Users and Groups pages, including pagination options on the Groups page.
The download dashboard modal now allows CSV download without Chromium. If the user is an admin, a message about installing Chromium is displayed.
The Support Access page in the Admin panel now contains a link to an upgraded support access audit dashboard.
The Looker Studio Connector and Connected Sheets features are now available for all Looker-hosted instances, including those Looker-hosted on AWS and Azure. Previously, these features were available only for instances that were Looker-hosted on Google Cloud. A Looker admin must enable these features in the new BI Connectors Admin page.
The new logging feature allows Looker to collect metrics on the number of NFS read, write, open, and status operations.
The Performant Field Picker Labs feature offers more refined search options, which let users more quickly and efficiently search for fields in large Explore field pickers.
The Query Reload custom filter in the Automagic Heatmap now correctly maintains the rendered data after every refresh. Previously, Looker removed the custom filter when a user refreshed a query.
The grid visualization feature now correctly styles different column types using classic themes and contrasting colors.
The Create Connection and Edit Connection pages have received a design refresh for improved clarity and usability.
Distinct measure types such as count_distinct and sum_distinct now bring through their filter values when referenced in a number type measure.
When New LookML Runtime is enabled, fields of type: parameter are no longer automatically added to the SELECT statement of generated SQL queries. Any references to parameter type fields using Liquid will still apply to SQL queries.
February 10, 2023
Looker 23.2 is released. The Looker 23.2 release includes the following changes, features, and fixes.
The Use Legacy Internal Query API legacy feature is now disabled by default. When this feature is disabled, Explores, Looks, and SQL Runner use the upgraded internal API for running queries. Upgrading the internal query API does not affect applications that use the externally available Looker API.
Users will no longer be able to view legacy dashboards unless a Looker admin turns on the Can use Legacy Dashboards legacy flag on the instance. This is in preparation for the complete deprecation of legacy dashboards in Looker 23.6.
When users are running model-based SQL Runner queries, the New Query Admin page should not show Error fetching requested Queries.
The Admin > Usage page now uses the new dashboard experience.
Error logging for cookieless embed has been improved. Additional error details are logged if an issue is detected while Looker is processing a cookieless embed request.
The Presto and Trino dialects now support the approximate parameter.
A new Center Dashboard Title dashboard control on the Admin > Themes page lets you center dashboard titles on embedded dashboards.
A new parameter, Email Domain Allowlist, has been added to the external settings API. This parameter takes an array of email domains of type: string as input. Email Domain Allowlist validates these email domains and saves them to the email domain allowlist if the domains are valid.
Looker has added merged_queries and join_fields as legal types for extending dashboards.
Dashboard URLs in alerts are now rendered as expected.
An issue has been fixed where a persistent derived table (PDT) that was referenced in the SQL of the query and a dependency of another PDT that was both referenced in that same SQL query and required with a direct join would not build unless the parent PDT was also required to be rebuilt in that query. This occurred only when New LookML Runtime was enabled.
The gray theme in Grid visualizations now works as expected.
January 11, 2023
The Looker 23.0 release includes the following changes, features, and fixes.
The Legacy Render Card Height legacy feature is now removed.
The Use Legacy Internal Query API legacy feature, when enabled, configures Explores, Looks, and SQL Runner to use the legacy API for running queries. When this feature is disabled, Explores, Looks, and SQL Runner use the upgraded internal API for running queries. Upgrading the internal query API does not affect applications that use 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.
The BI Engine Optimizations feature is removed from Labs and is now generally available and enabled for all Looker instances. 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.
The Athena JDBC driver is now upgraded from 2.0.27 to 2.0.35.1000.
If an API request to create or edit database connections passes a value that is less than the 90-second minimum for the pool_timeout parameter, an error will be returned to enforce the minimum allowed pool_timeout value.
The settings API 4.0 endpoint now allows for setting the instance-wide host URL.
The Looker Studio connector is now generally available on the BI Connectors page in the Admin panel. When enabled, the Looker Studio connector lets you access data from Looker Explores within Looker Studio by adding an Explore as a data source in a Looker Studio report. See the Connect to Looker article in the Looker Studio help center for more information about how to use the Looker connector in Looker Studio.
The Expanded Dashboard Theming Labs feature, which lets admin users display and hide dashboard header elements on embedded dashboards, is now available.
Cookieless embed session status events are now published.
The Hide Dashboard Filters Labs feature lets users hide dashboard filters through the dashboard URL, using the new hide_filters URL parameter.
The Custom urls for alert and schedule emails Labs feature lets you customize the View full dashboard links in emailed alerts and scheduled email deliveries. Both link URL and link text can be customized.
Scatterplot charts now contain an option to customize the value label for data points to any of the dimensions that are present in the visualization.
Explores and Looks now use the correct fonts.
The external group folder in embedded content navigation will now appear as the Group folder name instead of in the external_group_id.
Drill fields are no longer added to links in New LookML Runtime when they are not accessible in the context of the given Explore.
The new_lookml_runtime parameter, when used in conjunction with the sql_always_where and always_filter parameters, now works as expected when there is an always_filter option on a parameter with no form value in the Explore.
Label parameters, Times, and DateTimes formatting for the New LookML Runtime feature now work as expected.
When the liquid_filters parameter is being used and no value is set in the new_lookml_runtime parameter, there is now parity between New LookML Runtime and legacy LookML