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Hey Looker Community!
As of version 7.4, Looker is offering a new, secure, OAuth-based action to send CSVs directly from Looker to Google Sheets on a one-off or recurring basis. Looker has documentation outlining exactly how to use the Action, as well as configuration options (spoiler: it takes all of 2 seconds to get up-and-running with your new Action). The purpose of this post it to discuss some common use-cases for your new Action. Let’s dive in!
Auto-updating Google Slide Decks (Personal Favorite)
How many of us update our teams and leadership with quantitative metrics every reporting period? I’d guess everyone. And how much time do we spend re-compiling those metrics into a presentable format every period? I’d guess the majority of us. Whether we like it or not, this often takes the form of Slides. Well thanks to this new Looker Action, and the native integration between Google Slides and Google Sheets, we can automatically update charts in our presentations on a scheduled basis with a few quick steps:
- Schedule a Look to send to Google Sheets on a recurring basis (we’ll do every morning).
- Build a chart based off that data in Google Sheets, and paste that chart into a Google Slides presentation.
- Refresh your Google Slides presentation, and you’ll see the update!
In the example below, we’re updating a monthly sales report on the first of every Month, though you could get as granular as updating every 5 minutes. The Data is automatically updated in Google Sheets on schedule. Upon opening Google Slides, the linked chart prompts users with the ability to refresh the data in the chart.
