How to Use Quick Analysis in Looker
Looker's Quick Analysis feature is one of its most powerful yet overlooked tools for getting fast answers from your data. Instead of manually building a query from scratch by selecting fields, applying filters, and configuring a visualization, Quick Analysis offers guided shortcuts to answer common business questions in just a few clicks. This guide will walk you through exactly what Quick Analysis is, how to use it step by step, and provide practical examples to help you turn data into insights faster.
What Exactly is Looker’s Quick Analysis Feature?
Think of Quick Analysis as an intelligent assistant within Looker’s Explore environment. An "Explore" is the starting point for any analysis - it’s an interactive view into a specific dataset, like your website traffic, sales transactions, or CRM data. Normally, you’d use the field picker on the left side of the Explore to select the dimensions (attributes like date, city, or product name) and measures (calculations like count, sum, or average) you want to see.
Quick Analysis streamlines this process. Instead of you having to search for the right fields, it presents you with a set of pre-configured analyses based on popular metrics. You simply pick a metric you care about - like “Total Revenue” - and Looker automatically suggests relevant ways to break that number down, such as by product category, traffic source, or customer location. With one more click, Looker builds the entire report for you, complete with a visualization.
The main goal is to lower the barrier to entry for data exploration. It's incredibly useful for new Looker users who are still learning their company’s data model or for experienced analysts who just need a quick answer without the fuss of building a detailed report.
Before You Can Use It: The Importance of a Solid LookML Model
Quick Analysis doesn’t work by magic, its power comes from a well-structured data model built by your Looker developers using LookML, Looker's proprietary modeling language. For the feature to be truly helpful, a developer has to anticipate the kinds of questions business users will ask and properly define the relationships in the data.
If you don’t see any options for Quick Analysis or the suggestions seem irrelevant, it likely means the underlying LookML model hasn't been configured for it. Your data team needs to do a few things in the background to make it work:
Defined Measures: The developer must create clear, well-named measures (e.g., Total Sales, Average Order Value, Number of New Users). These become the starting points for your analysis.
Logical Groupings: Dimensions and measures are often organized into logical groups in the field picker to make them easier to find. This same logic helps guide Quick Analysis.
Configured
start_optionparameters: For Quick Analysis to show suggested calculations on select measures, Looker developers addstart_optionparameters to desired measure fields, defining Quick Analyses that Looker users can choose from.
The takeaway? The usefulness of Quick Analysis is directly tied to the thoughtful work done by your data team. If it’s not working the way you expect, have a conversation with your Looker admin or developer. Giving them feedback on the questions you’re trying to answer is the best way to improve the options available to you.
How to Use Quick Analysis: A Step-by-Step Guide
Ready to give it a try? The process is incredibly straightforward once you know where to look. We’ll use a common e-commerce scenario: figuring out our total sales broken down by product category.
Step 1: Navigate to an Explore
First, open the Explore you want to work in. You can typically find your available Explores by clicking on a board and selecting the "choose from a list of explores to begin" prompt. For our example, we’d navigate to an Explore called “Order Items” or “Sales Transactions.”
Once you open the Explore, you’ll see the blank canvas where your report will be built and the field picker on the left, containing all available dimensions and measures.
Step 2: Launch Quick Analysis
Instead of using the field picker, look for the Quick Analysis section at the top of the Field Picker where the measures you can use as a jumping-off point will have a lightning bolt to indicate that there are available starting points for analysis. Click on the measure you're interested in, and you'll see a pop-up window showing the different queries to start with.
Step 3: Choose Your Starting Metric (the "What")
The "Start a new analysis..." menu is organized by the key measures your developer has enabled. This is your "what." What do you want to analyze?
In our example, we want to understand our sales, so we would find and click on the Total Sale Price measure in the measure list. Other common options you might see are "Order Count," "Customer Count," or "Average Days to Ship."
Step 4: Break It Down by Dimensions (the "How")
After you select a metric, Looker will present a list of dimensions to break down your metric by. This is the "how." How do you want to see that number segmented?
For Total Sale Price, Looker might suggest dimensions like:
Product Category Name
Order Creation Date
Traffic Source
User's State/Country
These suggestions are context-aware. An analysis of website sessions would offer different dimensions (like Device Type) than an analysis of sales orders. A dropdown will allow for additional dimensions to break down these measures by, in addition to viewing them over time. For our example, we’ll see Order Creation Date appear once we select our breakdowns and then select Product Category Name from the corresponding dimensions input area and Order Creation Date - Month. Before we clicked on anything, we could see a simple Total Sale Price by Order Creation Date.
When you've specified all of your Quick Analysis query parameters, you must click one more button: Run. This tells Looker to close the loop on this new Look.
Practical Use Cases for Quick Analysis
The best way to appreciate the power of Quick Analysis is to see it in action across different departments. Here are a few common scenarios where it shines.
E-commerce: Quickly Find Your Best-Selling Products
Business Question: "What are my top 5 best-selling product categories this month?"
How to Answer with Quick Analysis:
Go to the "Sales" or "Order Items" Explore.
In the prompt, start with the "Total Revenue" metric.
Select "Category Name" as the dimension to analyze.
Looker generates a table and chart showing total revenue for each product category.
Add a row limit of 5 and sort descending to see your top performers.
Then you can also filter on “Order Creation Date - this month” so you're focusing on current top best-sellers.
Marketing: Analyze Channel Performance on the Fly
Business Question: "Which traffic source brought us the most new users last week?"
How to Answer with Quick Analysis:
Navigate to your "Website Traffic" Explore.
Launch Quick Analysis and select the "New Users" measure.
Choose “Traffic Source” as the breakdown dimension.
Looker builds a report showing a count of new users attributed to channels like Organic Search, Paid Social, Direct, and Referral.
Apply a filter for the last 7 days to narrow the results.
Sales: Check on Team Performance in Seconds
Business Question: "Which sales reps have the highest deal value in the pipeline this quarter?"
How to Answer with Quick Analysis:
Open the "Deals" or "Opportunities" Explore from your CRM data.
Start a Quick Analysis with the "Total Deal Amount" measure.
Select "Sales Rep Name" as the dimension.
The resulting report will list each rep alongside their total pipeline value. "Open Deal Date Created - this current quarter" is also recommended to check quarterly numbers.
Tips for Getting the Most From Quick Analysis
While the feature is simple by design, a few habits can make it even more effective.
Start with a Clear Question. Quick Analysis works best when you already have a target. Rather than browsing aimlessly, come to your Explore with a specific question in mind, like "Which user acquisition channel has the best customer lifetime value?" That clarity makes it easier to pick the right starting metric and dimension.
Use It as a Starting Point, Not an Endpoint. The report generated by Quick Analysis is a fully functioning Look. Once it's created, you aren't done! Feel free to modify it further. Add more dimensions from the field picker, apply advanced filters, change the visualization type, or create custom table calculations. It's a great way to skip the first couple of steps of building a report from scratch.
Communicate with Your Data Team. If the analysis you need isn't available as a quick start option, don't just give up and build it manually every time. Let your Looker developers know. They can often add a popular query to the Quick Analysis menu in minutes, saving you and the rest of your team time in the future. Strong collaboration is the best way to improve your entire company's data experience.
Know Its Limitations. Quick Analysis is designed for simple, direct queries. It’s not meant for building complex, multi-layered dashboards that join data from different sources. For those heavyweight tasks, you should invest the time in building a standard report or dashboard through the full Explore interface. Use the right tool for the job.
Final Thoughts
Looker's Quick Analysis feature is an excellent tool for making data more approachable for everyone on your team. It replaces the initial hesitation of facing a blank report with a guided, intuitive workflow, allowing users to move from question to insight in a matter of seconds. By understanding its purpose and how it links back to your core LookML model, you can more effectively explore data and make faster, more informed decisions.
We built Graphed because we believe finding answers in your data should be even simpler than that. The core idea of quickly seeing a metric broken down by a dimension is powerful, but you still have to know where to click. Graphed takes this a step further by letting you use natural language to ask questions directly. Instead of navigating menus, you can just ask, "Show me my total revenue by product category" or "Which traffic source drove the most new users last week?" and instantly get a live, interactive dashboard with the answer, connecting all your marketing and sales data in one place.