What is a Looker Report?

A Looker report is far more than a static data file, it's a dynamic and interactive way for businesses to share insights derived from their data. This article explains what they are, how they differ from dashboards, and provides a simple walkthrough for creating your own.

What is Looker (Now Looker Studio)? A Quick Overview

Before diving into reports, let's quickly get on the same page about Looker itself. Looker is a powerful business intelligence platform that is part of the Google Cloud ecosystem. Its primary job is to help companies make sense of their vast amounts of data by offering tools for real-time data exploration, visualization, and sharing.

One of Looker's defining features is its data modeling layer, called LookML. This is where data analysts define business logic and metrics (like what counts as "revenue" or an "active user"). By centralizing these definitions, LookML ensures that everyone in the company is using the same calculations and speaking the same data language. This creates a "single source of truth," which helps prevent the common issue of different departments reporting conflicting numbers.

It's also worth noting that Google has another tool called Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio). While it shares a similar name, Looker Studio is a separate, free-to-use tool primarily for building dashboards from data sources like Google Analytics and Google Sheets. The original, more powerful, enterprise-level platform is still commonly referred to as Looker, and that's the focus of this guide.

Decoding the "Report" in Looker

In a traditional business context, a "report" is often a static document - like a PDF or spreadsheet - that presents data and analysis for a specific time period. It's a snapshot sent out for review.

In the world of Looker, the term "report" is more fluid. A Looker report can be:

• A Single Visualization (a "Look"): Have you ever created a single chart, like a line graph showing website traffic over the past 30 days? In Looker, this individual visualization is called a "Look." A specific Look that answers a business question can function as a report.
• A Collection of Visualizations (a "Dashboard"): Dashboards are compilations of multiple Looks on a single page, giving a high-level view of performance. While they are often used for real-time monitoring, you can easily save and send an entire dashboard as a report.
• Scheduled Data Delivery: This is the most common use case for the term "report" in Looker. It refers to a Look or Dashboard that is automatically sent to specific people (via email, Slack, etc.) on a recurring schedule. For example, a "Weekly Sales Report" could be a dashboard that gets delivered as a PDF to the sales team's inbox every Monday morning.

The key takeaway is that Looker transforms reports from static, historical documents into dynamic, automated, and governable tools that deliver timely insights directly to those who need them.

Key Components of a Looker Report

Every Looker report, whether it's a simple chart or a comprehensive dashboard, is built from a few core components that work together to turn raw data into actionable information.

1. Data Sources and the LookML Model

The foundation of any report is the data itself. Looker connects directly to your company's database (like BigQuery, Redshift, or Snowflake). The LookML model sits on top of this connection, acting as a translator. It's what allows you to use business terms like "Total Revenue" or "Customer Lifetime Value" instead of writing complex SQL queries from scratch.

2. Explores

An "Explore" is the starting point for building a report. It's an interactive environment where you can freely query the data defined in your LookML model. You use the Explore interface to select the dimensions (the attributes you want to group by, like <em>Date</em>, <em>Country</em>, or <em>Campaign Name</em>) and measures (the values you want to calculate, like <em>Total Sales</em> or <em>User Count</em>) you need to answer your question.

For example, if you wanted to see sales by country, you would select "Country" as a dimension and "Total Sales" as a measure.

3. Visualizations

Once you've pulled your data in an Explore, the next step is to visualize it. This is the heart of the report. Looker offers a wide range of visualization types to effectively tell your data story:

• Tables and Pivot Tables: Perfect for detailed, granular data.
• Bar, Column, and Line Charts: Ideal for showing trends over time or comparing values across categories.
• Pie and Donut Charts: Useful for displaying proportions or parts of a whole.
• Maps: A great way to visualize geographical data.
• Scatterplots: Help identify relationships and correlations between two different variables.

The chart you choose can dramatically change how the insight is perceived, so picking the right one is crucial.

4. Filters and Parameters

Filters are what make Looker reports interactive. Instead of creating a separate report for every team, region, or time frame, you can add filters that allow users to slice the data themselves. Common filters include:

• A date range selector (e.g., "Last 90 Days," "This Quarter").
• A dropdown to select a specific region or country.
• A text field to filter for a particular marketing campaign.

This self-service capability empowers business users to drill down into the numbers and find answers to their own follow-up questions without needing to request another report from the data team.

Report vs. Dashboard in Looker: What's the Difference?

This is a common point of confusion for new Looker users. The terms "report" and "dashboard" are often used interchangeably, but they serve slightly different purposes.

Imagine the dashboard in your car. It gives you a real-time, at-a-glance view of everything you need to know to operate the vehicle: your speed, fuel level, engine temperature, and RPMs. A Looker Dashboard is precisely that for your business. It's a collection of key performance indicators (KPIs) and visualizations brought together on a single screen to provide a comprehensive, live overview of a department's or project's health.

A Looker Report, on the other hand, is more often a packaged delivery of that information. Think of it like a vehicle diagnostic summary you get from a mechanic. While the dashboard is what you look at while you're driving (monitoring), the report is the snapshot you review to make a specific decision (sharing and analyzing).

Here's a simple table to break it down:

Essentially, any dashboard can be sent as a report, but a report can also be something much simpler, like a single organized table of data sent in a weekly email.

How to Create and Share a Report in Looker (Step-by-Step)

Ready to build your first report? Here's a simplified process that walks through building a "Look" and scheduling it for delivery.

Step 1: Start in an "Explore"

Navigate to the Explore section in Looker and choose the data source you want to work with (e.g., "Sales Funnel," "Website Analytics"). This is your blank canvas for asking questions of your data.

Step 2: Select Your Dimensions and Measures

In the left-hand panel, you'll see a list of available fields. Click on the dimensions and measures you want to include in your report. For example, to see your daily user count for last month, you might select:

• Dimension: Created Date (grouped by Day)
• Measure: User Count

Then, set a filter for the date range to "is in the last 30 days."

Step 3: Run the Query and Choose a Visualization

Click the "Run" button. Looker will query the database and present the results in a data table. From here, you can select the best visualization type from the visualization bar. A line chart would work perfectly for showing a trend over time, so you'd select that option.

Step 4: Save it as a "Look"

Once you're happy with your chart, click the gear icon in the top right corner and choose "Save as a Look." Give it a clear, descriptive title like "Daily Active Users - Last 30 Days" and save it to a folder.

Step 5: Schedule the Report for Delivery

Now for the final step. From your saved Look, click the gear icon again and choose "Schedule delivery." Here, you can configure your report:

• Recurrence: How often it should be sent (e.g., Daily, Weekly on Monday, Monthly on the 1st).
• Destination: Where to send it (Email is most common, but Slack, Google Drive, and other options are available).
• Format: How to send it (PDF, Visualization {PNG}, or CSV data).

Click "Save," and you're done! Looker will now automatically generate and send this report on the schedule you set, saving you from ever having to do it manually again.

Why Use Looker for Reporting? The Key Benefits

Switching to a tool like Looker for your business reporting offers several significant advantages over traditional spreadsheet-based methods.

• A Single Source of Truth: By centralizing business logic in the LookML model, you eliminate data discrepancies. Everyone in the organization works from the same set of governed metrics, building trust in the numbers.
• Complete Automation: The "set it and forget it" nature of scheduled reports frees up countless hours. Data analysts can focus on deeper strategic work instead of manually pulling the same reports week after week.
• Empowers Self-Service: Interactive dashboards and filters enable non-technical users to ask and answer their own data questions. This fosters a data-driven culture where everyone can make informed decisions without creating a bottleneck in the data team.
• Always Live Data: Looker connects directly to your database, meaning your reports and dashboards reflect the most up-to-date information available, not stale data from last week's export.

Final Thoughts

In short, a Looker report is a powerful, flexible tool that transforms how businesses share information. By leveraging a governed data model with interactive visualizations and automated delivery, Looker turns reporting from a tedious manual chore into a streamlined process for distributing valuable insights across an organization.

While Looker is a phenomenal tool, its power comes with a considerable learning curve. Understanding concepts like LookML, Explores, and Looks is essential, which can be a barrier for teams who just want quick answers. We built Graphed to remove that friction completely. You can connect all your sales and marketing data sources with a few clicks, then ask for reports and dashboards using simple, natural language. It's like having a data analyst on your team who works instantly, letting you get insights without the technical overhead.