How to Share Looker Reports with Team Members
You’ve wrangled the data and built the perfect Looker report, but it’s not doing much good if you're the only one who can see it. Getting those crucial insights into the hands of your team is where the real value gets unlocked. This guide will walk you through the different ways you can share dashboards and Looks in Looker, from one-off sends for urgent questions to automated schedules that keep everyone on the same page.
First, a Quick Refresher: Looks vs. Dashboards
In Looker, you'll primarily be sharing two types of content: "Looks" and "Dashboards." Understanding the difference is important for picking the right sharing method.
Looks: A Look is a single, saved report. Think of it as one chart or data table that answers a specific question, like "Top 10 Performing Blog Posts This Month" or "Weekly New Signups."
Dashboards: A Dashboard is a collection of several Looks, visualizations, and text boxes arranged on one page. It provides a higher-level, multi-faceted view of performance, like a "Marketing Performance Dashboard" that includes charts for website traffic, ad spend, and conversion rates all in one place.
The sharing methods are nearly identical for both, but knowing which one you’re grabbing will help you give your team exactly what they need.
Method 1: Manually Sending Data with the "Send" Option
The "Send" feature is your go-to for one-time, ad-hoc report sharing. It’s perfect when a colleague asks a quick question, you need to provide a snapshot for a meeting, or you want to highlight a particular insight right now without setting up a recurring delivery.
When to Use a One-Time Send:
Replying to a specific data request: "Hey, can you pull the sales numbers from last week's East region campaign?"
Providing an immediate performance update: "Quick update for the team - here's how the Black Friday promotion is trending so far today."
Sharing a finding that needs quick attention: "Team, I noticed a huge spike in traffic from our latest email. See attached."
Step-by-Step Guide to Sending a Looker Report
Sending a report is straightforward. Here’s how you do it:
Navigate to the Dashboard or Look you want to share.
Click the gear icon (⚙️) in the top-right corner of the page.
Select "Send..." from the dropdown menu. This will open the Send modal.
Title: The title of your content will be pre-filled, but you can change it to something more descriptive for your recipient. For example, "Q3 Sales Performance" is clearer than "Dashboard v2 Final."
Where should this data go?: This defaults to Email. Type in the email addresses of your team members.
Format: Choose the format best suited for your audience. We'll cover options below.
Optional Message: Don’t skip this! Add a few sentences of context. Explain what the data shows and why you’re sending it. Something like, "Here’s the breakdown of paid media ROI for last month. Pay attention to the strong performance from the X campaign." makes the report much more valuable.
Click "Send" and you're done. Your team will receive the report directly in their inbox.
Choosing the Right Format
Looker gives you several format options, each with a specific use case:
CSV (Comma-Separated Values): Sends the raw data table from a Look or an individual dashboard tile. This is perfect for team members who want to dig into the raw numbers and do their own analysis in Excel or Google Sheets. This sends only the data, not the visualization.
XLSX (Excel File): Very similar to CSV, but it delivers the data in an Excel-native format. Choose this if you know your team works primarily in Excel.
PDF (Portable Document Format): This sends a static, visual image of the dashboard or Look. It’s best when you want to preserve the layout and branding exactly as it appears in Looker. The recipient can’t manipulate the data, making it ideal for high-level summaries sent to leadership or clients. You can also configure page size and orientation.
Visualization (PNG): This captures a screenshot of your dashboard as a single image file. It's great for quickly dropping into a presentation, Slack message, or email body.
Text: A simple, plain-text version of the data, which can be useful for certain automated workflows or integrations.
Method 2: Automating Reports with Schedules
While sending is great for one-offs, the real power lies in scheduling automated reports. A schedule delivers your chosen report to your team on a recurring basis - daily, weekly, monthly - without you having to lift a finger after the initial setup.
This method transforms Looker from a tool people have to remember to check into a proactive source of information delivering insights directly to them.
Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Schedule
The setup process is very similar to a one-time send, but with a few extra settings to control the automation.
From your Dashboard or Look, click the gear icon (⚙️) and select "Schedule..."
Fill out the delivery details just like you did with the "Send" option (Title, Recipients, Format, Message).
Now, configure the automation settings under the "Trigger" section.
Repeating Interval: This lets you set the cadence. You can choose daily, weekly, monthly, hourly, or even by the minute. For weekly reports, you can specify the day of the week and time. For monthly reports, you can pick a specific day of the month.
Datagroup Update: This is a more advanced option. It ties the report delivery to when your data warehouse gets updated. For example, if your sales data is refreshed every morning at 3 a.m., you can have the schedule run as soon as that new data is available. This ensures your team always gets the very latest information.
Under "Advanced Options," you have more controls:
Send this schedule if: You can choose "there are results" to prevent blank reports from being sent out, or "there are no results" for notifications when something hasn't happened. Most often, you'll choose to send regardless.
Include links: Always a good idea to check this. It includes a link back to the live Looker dashboard in the email, so viewers can click through to explore the data further.
Click "Save All", and Looker will handle the rest. Your daily traffic report will land in your CMO's inbox every morning at 9 a.m. like clockwork.
Pro Tip: Using Custom Filters for Personalized Schedules
One of the most powerful scheduling features is the ability to apply filters. Imagine you have a sales dashboard that shows performance for your entire team. Instead of manually creating separate reports for each person, you can set up one schedule with a custom filter.
In the "Filters" section of the schedule options, you can change a filter value. For example, you can set the "Sales Rep Name" filter to "Jane Doe" for one schedule delivery and send it only to her. Then, duplicate that schedule, change the filter to "John Smith," and send it to him. Each person receives a report tailored specifically to their own performance.
Method 3: Sharing via URLs
Sometimes you don't need to email a file, you just want to direct a colleague to the live report within Looker itself. This is the quickest way to share, but it comes with an important caveat: the recipient must have a Looker license and the proper permissions to view the content.
To get the URL, simply go to your dashboard, click the gear icon, and select "Get Look URL" or "Get dashboard URL". You can then paste this link into Slack, email, a project management tool, or wherever your team communicates.
This is best for collaborating with other Looker users who are actively working with the data and may want to apply their own filters or drill down further once they've opened the link.
Best Practices for Effective Sharing
Setting up a delivery is easy, but making sure it’s effective requires a little thought.
Know Your Audience: A C-level executive probably wants a high-level PDF summary monthly, not a daily CSV with thousands of rows. A marketing analyst, on the other hand, might love getting that daily CSV. Tailor the format and frequency to the needs and data literacy of your recipient.
Always Provide Context: A chart without context is just numbers. Use the message field in your send/schedule to explain what the report shows, why it’s important, and what they should look for. Guide their interpretation.
Use Clear, Consistent Naming: Name your schedules descriptively (e.g., "Weekly Marketing KPI Report for Leadership"). This makes them easy to find and manage later in the Admin panel.
Periodically Audit Your Schedules: Over time, it’s easy for a Looker instance to get cluttered with dozens of old, unused schedules. Periodically review active schedules to ensure they are still relevant and needed. This prevents inbox fatigue and keeps your instance clean.
Final Thoughts
We've covered the main ways to share a Looker report - from one-time sends for quick updates, to powerful recurring schedules that build data-driven habits, to simple URL sharing for active collaborators. Mastering these methods will transform your Looker dashboards from personal analysis tools into a central source of truth that empowers your entire organization.
Of course, for Looker to work its magic, you first need to connect your data sources, build your models in LookML, and then design each visualization. Sometimes you just want answers without all the setup. We built Graphed for precisely those moments. You can connect your marketing and sales tools in seconds, then ask questions in plain English - like "Show me a dashboard of my Shopify revenue versus Google Ads spend this month" - and get a live, interactive dashboard built for you instantly. It gives anyone on your team the power to explore data without needing to become a BI expert.