Connecting excel data to looker explores

[SSaini]

Hi Looker users, 

I am trying to find if there is a way to add Excel file table into Looker explores, so that I can use Excel columns in my looker dashboard for analysis. 
The solution suggested to me is to add that excel table to Data warehouse and then access in looker, but it will be a manual process for me. 

Does anyone know any other way to connect excel data to looker? 

Thanks in advance. 

[kc3 · Accepted solution]

How about you import the excel to google sheets and use the looker connector for sheets?

[SSaini]

I talked to my team and they are looking into it. Do we have any documentation on this?

[alisha47]

Hi SSaini,

That’s a common challenge for many teams trying to get data from Excel into Looker with minimal manual effort.

In fact, Looker doesn’t support direct uploads of Excel files to Explores or dashboards. The data needs to live in a SQL-based data warehouse like BigQuery, Snowflake, or Redshift. So yes—the usual approach is to upload your Excel data into your storage solution first, then connect it to Looker.

Here’s how I would simplify the process:

1. Convert your Excel file to CSV
   
   
2. Upload the CSV to Google Sheets
   
   
3. Link the Sheet to BigQuery using the Google Sheets external table connector
   
   
4. In BigQuery, the sheet acts as a live table—no need for re-uploading
   
   
5. In Looker, define the table in LookML and include it in your Explores
   
   

This setup allows you to make changes directly in Google Sheets, and Looker picks them up almost in real time—no need to manually update the warehouse every time.

If you're using Snowflake, Redshift, or BigQuery, you can automate data syncing, eliminating CSV workarounds, with ETL tools like Windsor.ai, Fivetran, Airbyte, or Matillion, which sync your sheets to your data warehouse in minutes with no code.

Let me know if you'd like help setting this up or want tool recommendations based on your stack.