Looker Studio (Now Data Studio) Tutorial: Free Dashboards for Beginners

Looker Studio, Google's free dashboard tool, has been renamed Data Studio; Google's documentation now describes Data Studio as a no-cost tool for turning data into dashboards and reports (Google Cloud: Data Studio documentation). Whatever the name on the screen, the tool works the same way, and it is one of the quickest routes to a shareable, interactive dashboard, particularly when your data already lives in Google Sheets. This tutorial builds a simple sales dashboard from start to finish. It uses the new name, Data Studio, from here on.

What you need

A Google account and a sheet with tidy data: one header row, one row per record, and consistent columns, for example order date, region, product, order ID and revenue. Tidy source data prevents most dashboard problems before they start; Excel Power Query and data cleaning, step by step cover preparing it.

Step 1: Create a report and connect your data

Create a blank report and add data. Data sources are the connection between your report and a spreadsheet or database, and they define the fields your charts can use (Data Studio: about data sources). Choose the Google Sheets connector, pick the spreadsheet and tab, and confirm that the first row contains headers.

Step 2: Check dimensions and metrics

In the data source, each field is either a dimension, something you group by such as region or product, or a metric, something you add up or average such as revenue. Check each field's type and default aggregation: dates must be recognised as dates, revenue should be a number summed by default, and order IDs should be text, not numbers that get summed. Fixing types here, once, prevents errors in every chart.

Step 3: Add scorecards, a trend and a breakdown

A first dashboard needs only a few elements:

• Scorecards for revenue and the number of orders.
• A time series chart of revenue by month.
• A bar chart of revenue by region, sorted from largest to smallest.
• A table of top products with revenue and orders.

Put the scorecards at the top, the trend in the middle and the breakdowns below, so the page reads from summary to detail. Dashboard design principles explains why that order works and how to choose colours and charts.

Step 4: Add filter controls

Controls make the report interactive. They let viewers filter by dimension values, set the report's date range, or enter values for parameters, using drop-down lists, input boxes and advanced filters (Data Studio: about controls). Add a date range control and a drop-down for region at the top of the page. When the report uses a single data source, controls filter every chart on the page without further configuration; with several data sources, the filtered fields need to match across them.

One distinction matters: a control lets viewers change what they see, whereas a filter property on a chart or page restricts the data before viewers see it. Use filter properties, not controls, for rules everyone must follow, such as excluding cancelled orders.

Step 5: Create a calculated field

Calculated fields are formulas that create new metrics or dimensions from existing fields, using arithmetic, text, date and branching functions (Data Studio: about calculated fields). Average order value, for example:

SUM(Revenue) / COUNT_DISTINCT(Order ID)

Calculating the ratio from totals, rather than averaging a per-row value, keeps it correct when viewers filter the report. A branching example that groups orders by size:

CASE
  WHEN Revenue >= 1000 THEN "Large"
  WHEN Revenue >= 200 THEN "Medium"
  ELSE "Small"
END

Create shared calculations in the data source, so every report using it gets the same definition.

Step 6: Blend in a second source

To compare revenue with targets kept in another sheet, blend the two sources. Blending lets charts and controls use up to five data sources, joined on shared fields such as month and region (Data Studio: how blends work). Make sure the join fields match exactly, in both format and spelling, or rows will not join. For anything more complex than a simple lookup, it is usually cleaner to combine the data before it reaches the dashboard.

Step 7: Share it safely

You can invite specific people or groups to view or edit, or let anyone with the link view the report; organisations can restrict these options (Data Studio: invite others). Give most people view access only, keep edit access for maintainers, and think carefully before sharing by link: anyone who receives the link can see the data, including anything the charts reveal about individual customers. Never connect personal or confidential data to a report shared that way.

Troubleshooting common problems

• Totals look too high or too low: check each metric's default aggregation, such as a sum where a count of distinct orders was needed.
• Dates do not group by month: the date field is probably stored as text; fix its type in the data source.
• A blend returns empty rows: the join fields differ in format or spelling between the two sources.
• A control does nothing to some charts: those charts use a different data source whose fields do not match.

Habits that keep a free dashboard useful

• Keep definitions in the data source, not repeated in each chart.
• Label the data's date range and source on the page.
• Check totals against the source sheet after every change.
• Limit the number of controls to what viewers actually need.
• Name data sources clearly, so others know which sheet a report depends on.

Data visualisation, interactive dashboards and report sharing are part of the Data Analytics course.

Sources

• Data Studio documentation (Google Cloud) — Google Cloud
• About data sources (Data Studio) — Google Cloud
• About controls (Data Studio) — Google Cloud
• About calculated fields (Data Studio) — Google Cloud
• How blends work in Data Studio (Google Cloud) — Google Cloud
• Invite others to your reports (Data Studio) — Google Cloud