Looker Collected Data
This page lists what Sifflet imports from Looker once you connect it.
Imported Assets
Sifflet imports the following assets:
| Asset | Source | Condition |
|---|---|---|
| Dashboards (user-defined) | Looker API | Dashboards in folders the Sifflet user can view |
| LookML dashboards | LookML repository | Only with the LookML repository connected |
| Charts (dashboard tiles with a visualization), with their queries | Looker API | |
| Explores | Looker API and LookML repository | Through the API, only the explores used by dashboards |
| Views | Looker API and LookML repository | Through the API, only the base view of each explore and the joined views that are also explores |
| Warehouse tables referenced by views, shown with the Table type | Looker API and LookML repository |
Looks (saved reports outside dashboards) aren't imported.
The Sifflet Insights browser extension supports the following Looker asset types:
- Dashboards
Collected Metadata
| Asset type | Metadata |
|---|---|
| Dashboard | Title, description, view count, favorite count, creator and last updater (names, and emails with the optional see_users permission) |
| Chart | Title, query (model and explore) |
| Explore | Name, description, LookML project, views and joins |
| View | Name, LookML model and project, Looker connection, sql_table_name or derived table SQL (LookML repository only) |
Sifflet also reads the database connections of your Looker instance (name, dialect, host, port, database, schema) from the System Activity db_connection view, to resolve the warehouse tables referenced by views.
Lineage
Sifflet builds Looker lineage as follows:
- Within Looker: views → explores → charts → dashboards.
- To your data warehouse: Sifflet reads the table referenced by each view (
sql_table_name) and the Looker connection it uses, and links it to the matching table in your Sifflet sources. With the LookML repository, Sifflet also parses the SQL of SQL derived tables, and covers all the views of your explores, not only their base view.
Add the warehouse tables to Sifflet through their own source to see this lineage.
Data Freshness
Sifflet refreshes Looker metadata, including the LookML repositories, on the source's schedule (weekly by default for BI tools). See Integrations Management for scheduling and manual refreshes. Sifflet reads the branch configured in the Git configuration: changes that aren't merged into this branch aren't visible in Sifflet.
Limitations
- Without the LookML repository, LookML dashboards aren't imported, and lineage only covers the base view of each explore.
- Dashboards in folders that the Sifflet user can't view aren't imported.
Data Exposure
Sifflet only reads Looker metadata and LookML files. It doesn't run your dashboards' queries or read the data they return; the only query Sifflet runs reads the list of database connections from System Activity. See Security for how Sifflet stores and protects metadata.
Updated about 2 hours ago