Looker
what is it Looker?
Looker is a Google enterprise platform for business intelligence, data applications, and embedded analytics. It’s completely browser based so you don’t need to install desktop software.
Looker helps you explore, share, and visualize your company’s data so that you can make better business decisions.
Looker integrates data into the daily workflows of users to allow organizations to extract value from data at web scale.
Looker’s Features
With Looker you can view and analyze your data – from the cloud of your choice with the ability to integrate multiple data sources, create dynamic and collaborative dashboards, utilize embedded analytics, and schedule the distribution of reports and insights.
Looker’s interactive and dynamic dashboards enable real-time data experiences governed by one trusted and unified data model. Users can choose from a library of visualizations or build their own to tell a unique story. You can choose how to see your data from Looker’s library, or build your own costume visualization.
Looker unlocks the value of your data to deliver insights with impact and create data experiences tailored for every part of your organization. In addition team members work with consolidated sources of real-time data, ensuring that everyone is on the same page and working with the same data.
Looker Platform Types
- Looker (Core BI Platform):
The main Looker platform provides tools for data exploration, visualization, and dashboarding. It allows users to interact with data through queries, create visualizations, and share insights. - Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio):
A lightweight, free-to-use tool aimed at creating simple visualizations and reports. While it shares branding with Looker, it’s different from the core Looker BI platform.
What is Looker Embedded?
Refers to the feature of the Looker platform that allows businesses to integrate Looker’s powerful data visualization and analytics capabilities directly into their own applications, websites, or portals. It enables seamless access to insights and analytics without requiring users to interact with the standalone Looker platform.
The benefits of Looker Embedded:
- A simple, consistent experience for users across any platform or device. The solution utilizes responsive display for any device, whether mobile, tablet, or web.
- Tailor-made dashboards designed to present relevant data quickly and intuitively. The dashboards can be embedded in existing websites, thereby reducing integration efforts.
- Advanced visualization capabilities.
- Near real-time data retrievable for improved accessibility and user experience.
- Support for anonymous users.
- Integration with multiple data sources for reduced data management costs e.g. map data.
- Robust security measures to protect sensitive government data.
- Advanced billing mechanisms for cloud consumption.
Looker Embedded Use Case
LookML
Looker’s data modeling process is based on its unique language for data – LookML.
This new language for data is what makes Looker uniquely powerful, agile, and trustworth – for everyone.
LookML is constructed around SQL, which makes it easy and fast to learn, as it leverages SQL’s power in a way that’s familiar to analysts, while abstracting away the low-level concerns that analysts usually have to manage.
If you have any questions or need assistance with Looker, feel free to reach out for a quick and simple conversation—no commitment required!
Looker 101 - Get started with Looker
Getting started with Looker can seem overwhelming, but you’ll quickly unlock its full potential with the right guidance. This step-by-step guide is designed to help you master the essential Looker onboarding tasks: connecting BigQuery to Looker, understanding LookML, creating dashboards and visualizations, writing custom SQL queries, and joining tables for deeper data insights. Whether you’re new to Looker or looking to refine your skills, this guide provides the foundational steps to kickstart your first project and make data-driven decisions effortlessly.
Meetups
Part 1: understand the basics of what makes Looker a unique technology in today’s business intelligence landscape.
Expect to come out of this session with an understanding of how Looker works and why its approach is fundamentally different to those of tools that have come before it.
- Intro to Looker (15 mins)
- Architecture overview & summary of key technical differentiators versus competitors Looker 101 Demo (25 mins)
- A introductory demo, providing an end-to-end walk through of the Looker platform.
Part 2: Start witnessing the power of LookML (Looker’s proprietary modelling language) in action.
Targeted at those who have at least some experience with SQL.
- Recap of Looker’s Architecture (10 mins)
Focusing on Looker’s role as a Data Governance and Data Security
Platform. - Looker “Database to Dashboard” Demo (30 mins)
Walking through an introduction of how to complete basic LookML
modelling.