# Looker

[Looker](https://looker.com/) is a popular Business Intelligence and data analytics platform. It allows you to explore your data for actionable, business-oriented insights.

You can now use Looker as a data source to send enriched user activities and their associated properties over a period of time to RudderStack. RudderStack then forwards this data to your specified destinations for real-time syncing of the newly created properties and actions.

## Set up Looker actions

After creating your views in Looker, you need to set-up the necessary [Looker actions](https://docs.looker.com/admin-options/platform/actions). To do so, go to your Looker actions dashboard.

Note that:
- While RudderStack supports teams and individual workspaces in its [Enterprise edition](https://rudderstack.com/pricing/), Looker does not allow individual Action Hub configurations for different members of the same organization.
- To send the output of different looks to various RudderStack sources, you will need to host custom instances of Looker Action Hub. See the [Looker documentation](https://docs.looker.com/sharing-and-publishing/action-hub#setting_up_a_local_action_hub_server) for more information.

## Configure Looker source in RudderStack

1. Go to your [RudderStack dashboard](https://app.rudderstack.com/) and click **Add Source**. From the list of **Event Streams** sources, select **Looker**.
2. Assign a name to your source and click **Continue**.
3. Your Looker source is now configured. Note the source **Write key**:

{{< image src="images/event-stream-sources/looker-write-key.webp" alt="Looker source write key" >}}

## Add RudderStack Action Hub Server

This section describes the steps required to enable [RudderStack Actions](https://github.com/rudderlabs/actions) in Looker.

RudderStack hosts a Looker [Action Hub Server](https://docs.looker.com/sharing-and-publishing/action-hub#writing_an_action) that communicates with your Looker instance.

To connect the Action Hub Server to your Looker instance, click the **Add Action Hub** button present at the bottom of Looker Actions dashboard:

{{< image src="images/event-stream-sources/add-action-hub.webp" alt="Add Action Hub" >}}

Depending on your region, enter the RudderStack Action Hub Server URL and related authorization token:

{{< tabs tabTotal="2" >}}
{{% tab tabName="US" %}}
- **RudderStack Action Hub Server URL**:  [https://looker-action-hub.rudderstack.com](https://looker-action-hub.rudderstack.com)

- **Authorization Token**:

```text
75805209b45a55494d0c27d4eb91fbf6bc7fb1a63dfcd9260fe65daee584737b/ea4e074e71c1af9c07bf71f69c1addf7b9a30d458bd7aea4b4e60d6a6a122277b59210186edb7cf21a5ff53a29c68fb89ff5aaf5019570c8a5131484a11e2e3e
```
{{% /tab %}}
{{% tab tabName="EU" %}}
- **RudderStack Action Hub Server URL**:  [https://looker-action-hub.eu.rudderstack.com](https://looker-action-hub.eu.rudderstack.com)
- **Authorization Token**:

```text
93ceacd6ae64593995163d692888bec22f2b8032eee994cc4d071f0b2392719f/09723f97fb676bd1eeb1efdc3812761d7bdb332af5ad01f4323d30d7e90d9954ecfcb63df2f45094ff9bd1b5dce00111e91c70b8dfdecd731a266468ed0fcadc
```
{{% /tab %}}
{{< /tabs >}}

{{< warning >}}
If you encounter an error while connecting to the Action Hub after entering the server URL, click **Configure Authorization** and enter the **Authorization Token**. See [FAQ](#faq) for more information.
{{< /warning >}}

You can then start viewing the following three RudderStack actions:

| Actions | Description |
| :---- | :------| 
| Identify | Adds the traits to your RudderStack users via the `identify` event. |
| Group | Adds the traits or users to your RudderStack groups via the `group` event. |
| Track | Adds the user properties for your users via the `track` event. |

{{< image src="images/event-stream-sources/looker-3.webp" alt="RudderStack-hosted Action Hub" >}}

### Configure actions

1. To enable any of the above actions, click the **Settings** button. 
2. Enter the **Write key** obtained after [setting up the Looker source]({{< ref "#configure-looker-source-in-rudderstack" >}}) in RudderStack.
3. Specify the **Rudder Server URL** to which Looker forwards the user looks data. The URL is `https://<data_plane_url>/v1/batch`,  where `<data_plane_url>` is your {{< glossary_tooltip "data-plane-url" >}}.

{{< image src="images/event-stream-sources/looker-4.webp" alt="Configuring the Rudder Write Key and Rudder Server URL" >}}

Once the connection is successful, you should start seeing the RudderStack Actions.

## RudderStack Actions overview

Once configured, RudderStack Actions will start sending the query results to RudderStack.

When defining the columns for the Looker models attached to the user looks that you want to send to RudderStack, it's important to tag the user identifier column as `email` or `user_id` or `rudder_anonymous_id`. Additionally, to use the **RudderStack Group** action, you need to tag your group identifier column as `rudder_group_id`.

{{< info >}}
In some specific cases, for example, Redis - the `user_id` must be present even if `email` is already present.
{{< /info >}}

Looker sends the other columns related to the user and their activities as traits or properties along with the event payload.

A sample `track` payload sent by the **RudderStack Track** action:

```javascript
{
  "userId": "test@rcomp.es",
  "anonymousId": null,
  "properties": {
    "tracks_flow.event_2": "Destination_Clicked",
    "tracks_flow.event_3": [

    ],
    "tracks_flow.event_4": [

    ],
    "tracks_flow.event_5": [

    ],
    "tracks_flow.event": "User_Logged_In"
  },
  "event": "single",
  "context": {
    "library": {
      "name": "analytics-node",
      "version": "0.0.3"
    },
    "app": {
      "name": "looker/actions",
      "version": "dev"
    }
  },
  "timestamp": "2020-06-18T08:21:01.644Z",
  "type": "track",
  "_metadata": {
    "nodeVersion": "12.13.0"
  },
  "originalTimestamp": "2020-06-18T08:21:03.049Z",
  "messageId": "node-c33eb51666f6470bf4aa415c7431aba4-ffd5e198-05a1-477a-9c2c-85be30749b8b",
  "sentAt": "2020-06-18T08:21:03.050Z"
}
```

Note that the column names in your looks are transformed as `view name.column name` in the payload sent to RudderStack. If you want to change the names as per your destination, you can do so using the [Transformations]({{< ref "transformations/overview.md" >}}) feature.

## FAQ

#### I get an error while connecting to the RudderStack Action Hub. What should I do?

While connecting to the RudderStack Action Hub, you may sometimes get the following error:

{{< image src="images/event-stream-sources/looker-source-error-1.webp" alt="RudderStack Action Hub error" >}}

To resolve this issue:

1. Click **Configure Authorization**. 

{{< image src="images/event-stream-sources/looker-source-error-2.webp" alt="RudderStack Action Hub error" >}}

2. Enter the [region-specific authorization token](#add-rudderstack-action-hub-server) and click **Update Token**.

{{< image src="images/event-stream-sources/looker-source-error-3.webp" alt="RudderStack Action Hub error" >}}