Column Order in Excel Export Not Matching Looker Interface

[zohar]

When a Look in Looker includes a mix of dimensions and measures, I’ve noticed that the exported column order in Excel doesn’t always align with the column order displayed in the Looker interface. Is there a way to ensure that the column order in the Excel export matches the order set in the Looker table visualization? If not, are there any workarounds or settings to address this issue?

[GavinW]

I think what you are describing is known behaviour, as seen in the docs. It states:

"Columns in table charts that have been manually rearranged will appear in their original order in the download if the query includes any of the following elements:

• One or more table calculations
• One or more fields that are hidden from the visualization
• One or more fields with dimension fill enabled
• Three or more pivoted fields
• Row totals enabled"

I would suggest using the 'Product Idea' option in Looker to give feedback that you would like to see different behaviour here, or even better would be to ask whoever owns Looker in your org to give that feedback to their Looker account team.

[zohar]

Thank you for your quick response and for sharing the links!

I don’t have any of the elements from the list in my query, but the documentation helped me find a solution. By organizing the columns in the Data section (and removing the only measure I had), I was able to get the export to match the order I wanted.

[GavinW]

Ah that's great, thanks for letting me know!