Using the Looker Marketplace

The Looker Marketplace is a central location for finding, deploying, and managing many types of Looker content, such as Looker Blocks, applications, visualizations, and plug-ins.

The Looker Marketplace feature is enabled by default. Before you can deploy some blocks from the Looker Marketplace, a Looker admin must enable the Local Project Import Labs feature. Before you can install extensions from the Looker Marketplace, a Looker admin must enable the Extension Framework feature.

Discovering content in the Looker Marketplace

To enable users to access the Looker Marketplace, a Looker admin must first enable the Marketplace feature.

To browse content on the Looker Marketplace, select the Marketplace button on the Looker menu bar. (If you have the develop, manage_models, and deploy permissions, selecting the Marketplace button will open a menu of options; select Discover.)

The Marketplace homepage shows popular Looker applications and tools.

To find content, use the search bar. You can use the filters below the search bar to filter for different types of content:

  • Applications: Looker applications are comprehensive sets of models, dashboards, and Explores. Applications are designed to let you analyze your sales and marketing data without having to build your own LookML models. Using the Looker Marketplace, you can install an application and connect to your data source. The installation process then loads your data, letting you see results within 24 hours.
  • Models: Models are pre-built LookML models, including dashboards and Explores, for a variety of popular data sources.
  • Plug-ins: Plug-ins are visualization types that you can install and add to Looker's native visualization library.

Once you have selected a type, you can also filter by tag, category, industry, and author using the filter checkboxes on the left side.

Automatically installing Looker-built applications

If your Looker admin has enabled the Auto Install option in the Marketplace page in the Platform section of Looker's Admin menu, some Looker-built applications will automatically install and update on your Looker instance. Currently, the API Explorer is the only extension that will automatically install, but more Looker-built applications may be added in the future.

For more information, see the Admin settings - Marketplace documentation page.

Installing a tool from the Marketplace

The installation process varies depending on the tool you are installing. Applications and some models, for example, have the option to connect the tool to your source database. The following procedure shows all the possible installation options; however, depending on the tool you are installing, you may only see a subset of the following steps.

Before installing any tool from the Marketplace, a Looker admin should ensure that the appropriate features are enabled:

  • To install any piece of content from the Looker Marketplace, enable the Marketplace feature.
  • To use the Digital Marketing Analytics, Sales Analytics, and Web Analytics apps, enable the Local Project Import Labs feature.
  • To install extensions, enable the Extension Framework feature.

To install a tool from the Looker Marketplace:

  1. Make sure you have at least the develop, manage_models, and deploy permissions.

  2. From the Marketplace main menu, select the tool that you want to install, and then select its tile.

    Looker displays the tool's installation page, which shows a short description of the tool and any needed information about installing and using the tool.

  3. Select Install or Install Free Trial.

  4. Looker displays pages asking you to accept the tool's license agreements and the Looker permissions that are required by the tool. If you want to accept the license agreements and permission requests, select Accept on these pages.

  5. Each tool requires some configuration information that is specific for that tool, such as a connection name or visualization label. Select or enter the configuration information, and then select Install. (After the installation is complete, you can change this configuration information at any time by using the Manage page.)

  6. Looker will complete the installation. You can now use the installed content

See the Customizing Looker Marketplace Blocks documentation for information on customizing blocks you have installed from the Marketplace.

Installing a tool from a Git URL

You can also install models and plug-ins directly from their Git repository:

  1. Select the Marketplace button on the Looker menu bar.

  2. From the Marketplace menu, select the Manage option.

  3. On the Manage page, select the three-dot Options button.

  4. Select Install via Git URL:

  5. Looker shows the Install via Git page. Enter the URL and commit SHA of the repository and the version of the tool or visualization that you want to install.

  6. Select Install.

Using Looker Marketplace content

Once a tool is installed, you can open it through the Applications folder in the left navigation panel.

From there, you will see either the application's homepage or a list of pre-built dashboards and Explores that use the installed model and associated data. All users will be able to view the Applications option in the left navigation panel; however, users will be able to access only the installed packages that are based on the models to which they have been granted access permissions.

You will see any Explores built for the tool in Looker's Explore menu, and you can view the tool's LookML through the Develop menu. If you installed a plug-in, the new visualization will be available in the Visualization menu in an Explore.

See the Customizing Looker Marketplace Blocks documentation for information on customizing the blocks that you have installed from the Marketplace.

Managing installed tools

If you have at least the develop, manage_models, and deploy permissions, you can use the Manage page to manage the tools that are installed on your Looker instance.

To navigate to the Manage page:

  1. Select the Marketplace button on the Looker menu bar.

  2. From the Marketplace menu, select the Manage option.

The Manage page displays a list of all tools installed on your Looker instance. From the Manage page, you can also update tools, open tools, change a tool's configuration, or uninstall tools.