About technical lineage for Looker

Looker is a business intelligence and data modeling platform that uses LookML to define how data is structured, joined, and accessed.

When you integrate Looker, Collibra Data Lineage retrieves metadata from the Looker API and, optionally, LookML content from a Git repository. The resulting technical lineage shows how data flows from the underlying databases through Looker data models to dashboards and Looks, including column-level lineage where available.

To get started, go to Steps overview: Integrate Looker via Edge.

Considerations and limitations

If you retrieves metadata from LookML content from a Git repository, review the following considerations and limitations before you integrate Looker.

  • LookML objects are available only in technical lineage

    When you use a Git connection to harvest LookML content, the resulting LookML objects are displayed only in the technical lineage graph. They are not currently created as Data Catalog assets.

  • Liquid templates are not supported

    LookML expressions that contain Liquid template tags, such as control flow tags ({% if %}, {% elsif %}, {% else %}, {% endif %}) or variable output tags ({{ value }}), are not supported. No lineage is created for dimensions, measures, derived table SQL, sql_on, or sql_where expressions that use Liquid templates.

  • Native Derived Tables are not supported

    Views that define their data using explore_source instead of a SQL query are not supported. No lineage is created between the source views and the Native Derived Table view.