One of the features that we used a lot in looker is their find and replace as part of content validator:
I had thought holistics has similar functionality as part of the report validator but now I think I was misreading the documentation which says:
Find and replace names of fields, models, or datasets: If you want to change the naming convention of your fields, models, or datasets, Reporting Validation can help you locate all instances where they are referenced and replace them with the new names.
It seems like this just helps you locate the errors, but they still need to be manually changed. Is this accurate, or did I miss how to do this? Manually updating each spot is not feasible when we have hundreds of dashboards (which we soon will). It would be AMAZING if this could work on either a branch or on production.
We are using canvas dashboards (which makes find and replace a breeze) but all our non-technical users will be using the legacy dashboards since git has a steep learning curve.
Thanks so much in advance,
Anya
P.S. It looks like the “learn more” link is broken in the reporting validation popup that says “Reporting Validation detects and validates broken items in Reporting page caused by changes in Modeling page. Learn more”
Indeed that our Reporting Validation only helps locate the errors at the moment. That being said, this is an area that we want to improve in the upcoming time.
May I summarize your request, to make sure that I understand and address it completely:
1/ With canvas dashboards
Right now, the Reporting Validation feature has helped locate the errors, so you can resolve them one by one
However, it would be more ideal to have (a) a list of errors by groups for overview, and (b) the capability to resolve errors in bulks (similar to the Looker reference above)?
2/ With legacy dashboards
You’d like to know how your non-technical users can resolve these errors (i.e. remap their legacy dashboards to other datasets), yes?
Please let me know if I missed anything.
Also, I really appreciate you identifying the wrong link to our document, Anya! Our team will fix it right away
Thanks for the response! Here’s a modified version of what you sent, with a few things clarified:
With Canvas Dashboards
Does reporting validation work on canvas dashboards? I thought reporting validation only worked for legacy dashboards, and canvas dashboard validation would fall under AML validation based on this other thread I was having with holistics? This specific request for find and replace was entirely for legacy dashboards, apologies if the mention of canvas dashboard made that unclear! I was just trying to explain why we can’t fully switch over to canvas dashboards. We can already do find and replaces in code for canvas dashboards fairly easily so I’m not concerned about that.
With Legacy Dashboards
Non-technical users will continue to use legacy dashboards, though they won’t need to do the find and replace. Doing find and replace will be done by technical users who are making the code changes that would otherwise break the dashboards
Right now, the Reporting Validation feature has helped locate the errors, so you can resolve them one by one, but this is unrealistic if we have hundreds of dashboards (which we currently do in looker and are in the process of migrating over)
Even with reporting validation, once something is broken, it’s sometimes hard to tell exactly how it was set up before (ex. broken filters won’t let you see the values they were filtering on, I’m not sure how easily I could check formatting of a broken field, etc) which a find and replace should help with
To help with both of the above bullets, it would be more ideal to have (a) a list of errors by groups for overview, and (b) the capability to resolve errors in bulks (similar to the Looker reference above)
Forgive me for the late response, @anya.conti.
Also, thank you for the detailed follow-up!
Does reporting validation work on canvas dashboards? I thought reporting validation only worked for legacy dashboards, and canvas dashboard validation would fall under AML validation based on this other thread I was having with holistics?
Yes, you are absolutely right. The Reporting Validation feature helps check if any non-code dependencies (such as legacy reports) are affected by the changes in the as-code objects.
I apologize if my previous follow-up question was misleading in this regard.
Right now, the Reporting Validation feature has helped locate the errors, so you can resolve them one by one, but this is unrealistic if we have hundreds of dashboards (which we currently do in looker and are in the process of migrating over)
Even with reporting validation, once something is broken, it’s sometimes hard to tell exactly how it was set up before (ex. broken filters won’t let you see the values they were filtering on, I’m not sure how easily I could check formatting of a broken field, etc) which a find and replace should help with
Well understood! I can see how being able to find and replace in bulk would come in handy here.
I’ve already added it to our backlog, and are forwarding to my team for further discussion.
