Error: Column <name> must appear in the GROUP BY clause or be used in an aggregate function

This article can help you troubleshoot the "column must appear in the GROUP BY clause or be used in an aggregate function" error in Looker.

This error commonly occurs when a dimension is used in a measure that does not have an aggregate type. Our measure type documentation contains a list of measure types and whether each is an aggregate type.

For example, a type: number measure is not an aggregate measure, so this LookML would produce an error:

measure: bad_measure {
 type: number
 sql: ${measure} + ${dimension} ;;
}

Typically you fix this problem by first turning the dimension into a measure, and then using that new measure in your calculations. For example:

measure: dimension_total {
 type: sum
 sql: ${dimension} ;;
}

measure: good_measure {
 type: number
 sql: ${measure} + ${dimension_total} ;;
}