Welcome to this instructional reading on creating visualizations in reports using Google’s Looker Studio.

This instructional reading is intended to give you the basic knowledge required to help you complete the hands-on labs and final assignment for Looker Studio if you decide to use this product instead of IBM Cognos Analytics

In this reading, we will discuss:

Configuring Page Settings

You can configure the settings of the current page by right-clicking on a blank part of the canvas and choosing Current page settings .

From here, on the STYLE tab, you can configure the canvas’s background color and dimensions.

You can choose a ready-made canvas size or create a custom size of your own.

Adding New Pages and Navigating between Pages

Typically, as you add more visualizations to your reports, you will need more pages in your report to contain them.

To add a new page to your report, either click Add page in the toolbar or from the main menu, select Page , and then New page .

After creating a second page, you will find that the Add page item is removed from the toolbar and replaced with a page navigation button.

You can use this to navigate between multiple report pages. You can also use the Report Pages pane on the right to switch between your pages or the numbered circles on the far left to do the same thing.

To add more pages after the second page, you can now use the menu as before or use the Add a page icon below the Report Pages pane.

To rename a page, simply click the ellipsis ( … ) button (the three dots) to the right of an Untitled Page for the relevant page in the Report Pages pane, select Rename , and then enter a new name for the page.

Blending Data from Multiple Tables

There will be occasions where you will have data spread across multiple different tables that you would like to use in a report. Looker Studio allows you to combine these pieces of data together using the Blend Data feature.

In Looker Studio, you do this by creating a relationship between the two datasets.

First, you need to add and upload multiple datasets.

Then, having added a chart, you click BLEND DATA in the chart’s properties pane.

When you select to blend your data, a Blend Data window opens at the bottom of the page, which enables you to join another table.

You then configure the join relationship between the two tables by selecting Configure join .

Here, you determine how the data rows from the two tables should be joined and how they relate to each other; in other words, which field is common to both of them. When you select to blend your data, a Blend Data window opens at the bottom of the page, which enables you to join another table.

The Blend Data window will display the updated join configuration.

The chart’s properties pane will now show Blended Data as the data source for your chart, and the chart will now display data that comes from two different data sources.

Adding Controls and Filters to Reports

You can add controls and filters to your reports to make them more interactive. Controls can either modify or filter the data displayed in a report or provide a way for you to incorporate user input in a report that allows users to either input data directly into a report or select values or items in the report from a predefined list.

You add controls from the Add a control button on the toolbar.

Controls are split into two types.

The top subdivision of the menu contains controls that you can use to filter data or configure parameter values, such as drop-down lists, input boxes, sliders, and checkboxes.

The second subdivision of the menu contains controls that you can use to perform specific functions but can’t configure parameter values, such as date ranges, data, and buttons.

This is an example of a drop-down list control.

This is an example of a slider control.

This is an example of a fixed-size list control.

This is an example of button controls.

You can add filters to your report to allow you to control what data is or isn’t displayed in a report. These can be helpful when you want to temporarily hide some data to focus on other, more important data or just to focus solely on one aspect of the data.

Filters are added directly in the chart’s properties pane by scrolling down the pane to the Filter section and clicking ADD A FILTER .

In the Create Filter window, you build your filter by specifying to Include or Exclude , and then you select the field, the condition, and finally, the value.

You can add further OR or AND clauses to your filters.

So, in this example, we would exclude any data from the city of Vancouver in our chart.

The chart now suppresses the data from Vancouver.

Adding Different Types of Visualizations to Reports

There are many different types of visualizations you can add to your reports.

When you click Add a chart in the toolbar, you see many different options available, including some of the more common ones, such as tables, scorecards, bar charts, pie charts, line charts, and maps.

But there are also several other less common types of charts, such as area charts, pivot tables, treemaps, gauges, and waterfall charts.

When you select a chart type, the next thing you need to do is place it somewhere on the canvas.

The chart will then display the data from its configured data source.

You can then resize the chart to suit your needs by dragging the handles in the corners.

You can then change the configuration of the chart by using the SETUP tab of the chart’s properties pane to modify which data is referenced by the Dimension , Location , or Metric fields.

Click the View button in the top right of the page to switch to read-only view to get a preview of what the report would look like to an end user.

Click the Edit button to switch back to edit mode again.

You can use the mouse wheel (if you have one) or the + and – symbols on the map to zoom in and out of it in either View or Edit mode.

Here is an example of a heatmap chart.

Here is an example of a treemap chart.

Here is an example of a waterfall chart.