Solving the reports vs dashboards dilemma

David_L · 2 weeks ago

At Google Cloud Next ‘25, we introduced the debut of Looker reports, bringing one of the most popular capabilities from Looker Studio to the Looker platform. This new unified experience combines Looker's strength in establishing foundational data logic with a semantic layer with Looker Studio's intuitive visualization, self-service and blending capabilities, promising a truly comprehensive data platform, made even more valuable and critical as organizations adopt and build with Generative AI.

The debut of Looker reports offers a simplified and unified user experience by enabling self-service access to both personal and governed data from the same place.

Terms of endearment

Understanding terminology is one of the first steps in selecting the appropriate tool.

As a core capability of the 'Studio in Looker' unification, we now have the public preview of Looker reports for all platform users. This reimagined interface empowers users to create self-service visual interpretations of their data, including blended data from various sources within a single report. Within the Looker platform, this functionality is exclusively found under the “Report” name.

For highly customized data experiences, particularly for embedded customer solutions, traditional Looker dashboards will continue to provide rich, tailored charting, graphing, and table capabilities using data from multiple Explores.

Reports or dashboards?

With this new functionality extending one of our existing strengths, many customers are asking which tool they should use. As is often the case, the answer is nuanced and depends on their specific needs and environment. Let's explore this by examining some key factors:

Should I build a LookML model? A crucial consideration is whether end users require a consistent, trusted semantic model for organizational-wide reporting, or if they are performing individual analyses with personal data that are not intended for broader distribution.

When deciding between Looker reports and Looker dashboards, data governance and user speed are key factors to consider. If data trust and consistency are paramount and the data is used frequently, modeling the data in LookML is crucial, and both Looker reports and Looker dashboards can leverage this semantic model. If you do not need to model your data in LookML you should use Looker reports.

For embedded analytics, Looker dashboards are preferred due to their current ability to support more embedded use cases along with their API capabilities.
New Looker customers primarily using Looker for internal business intelligence should consider starting with Looker reports due to their modern design options, self-service capabilities and AI-powered features.
Existing Looker customers can continue to rely on their existing Looker dashboards and have the same benefits they always have come to rely on. For new internal BI needs, Looker reports or Looker dashboards can be created based on specific requirements, both leveraging the same LookML semantic model.

Looker reports and Looker dashboards are designed to perform different functions, and have unique features and benefits, so the best tool for you will depend on your specific needs.

Consider Looker reports if you:

Have a new internal BI use case
Need precise formatting for your reports or dashboards
Users seek to connect to personal, governed, or blended data sources

Consider Looker dashboards if you:

Have already developed Looker dashboards in your existing implementation
Need to embed Looker into an external application
Want to use specific Looker dashboard functionality such as actions, advanced alerting, contextual drilling-across, etc.
Need a highly governed dashboard that does not provide self-service capabilities

To best understand how you can choose between Looker reports and dashboards, it’s worth reviewing each option’s particular strengths.

Looker reports:

Ease of Use & Precise Formatting

Looker reports’ Google easy, intuitive drag-and-drop interface empowers users with varying technical skills to easily generate sophisticated and visually appealing reports. The platform's simple design streamlines the report creation process, making it accessible to all users. Additionally, Looker reports provide extensive formatting options, enabling users to tailor reports to specific requirements while ensuring a polished and professional presentation.

Data Connectivity

Looker reports connect to a wide array of data sources, encompassing both Google products and third-party platforms. This allows users to consolidate data from diverse sources within a unified environment, eliminating the need for manual data integration.

Collaboration & Sharing

Looker reports foster real-time collaboration among team members, enabling them to work together on reports simultaneously. This collaborative environment promotes knowledge sharing and ensures that all stakeholders are aligned on key insights. By facilitating easy collaboration and sharing, Looker reports enhance communication and transparency across teams.

Data Blending

Looker reports' robust data blending capabilities save time and resources by empowering users to combine their own personal data with governed data benefiting from Looker’s semantic model. By integrating personal data with governed data, users gain a more comprehensive understanding of their business and make more informed decisions.

Looker dashboards:

Advanced Embedding Capabilities

Looker dashboards excel in embedded analytics scenarios, offering a wide array of sophisticated embedding features. These capabilities empower developers and businesses to integrate Looker's data visualizations and insights in their own applications, websites, or portals, offering a cohesive and interactive user experience.

Highly Governed Rapid Dashboard Creation

Looker dashboards streamline and accelerate governed BI dashboard creation. By leveraging pre-built layouts and direct integration with the Explore interface, users can efficiently transform LookML-modeled data insights into polished and effective dashboards. This ensures data consistency and accuracy.

Established, Reliable, and Future-Proof

Looker dashboards are a dependable and established solution. This makes them a particularly attractive option for existing Looker users who have invested time and resources into building an array of dashboards. You can be confident that your investment in Looker dashboards will continue to yield value.

Advanced Functionality

Looker dashboards drive powerful data interactions through action-based integrations, contextual cross-dashboard navigation, secure mass email, and extensible embedded extensions.

Git Version Control

LookML for Looker dashboards can be version-controlled by storing it in a Git repository. Looker reports have their own built-in version control but cannot be stored in Git by copying their underlying LookML.

Built on the Looker platform

Looker reports and dashboards are integral components of the Looker platform, inheriting its robust, enterprise-ready architecture. The Looker platform offers flexible deployment options, including Looker (Original), our fully managed offering, or Looker Core on Google Cloud, deployable directly within your Google Cloud Platform console. Included as part of Looker’s platform are benefits that enable your business to unlock the full power of your data.

Data Accuracy & Governance: Looker establishes a strong foundation for data integrity with the LookML semantic model.

By implementing robust data modeling and enterprise-grade governance, Looker ensures that data is structured and managed effectively.
Centralized definitions of business metrics and dimensions create consistency across your organization, minimizing discrepancies and promoting accuracy in data interpretation.

Powerful Data Exploration: Looker empowers users to delve deep into their data and uncover valuable insights.

The platform offers an intuitive and feature-rich interface that facilitates advanced exploration and analysis.
With Conversational Analytics, all users can quickly get data-driven answers by asking questions in simple, everyday language.
Users can also leverage tools such as drill-downs, which allow for the examination of data at increasingly granular levels; filters, which enable the isolation of specific data subsets; and advanced visualizations, which present data in a clear and meaningful manner.

Integration & Extensibility: Looker integrates data-driven insights into existing workflows and applications.

Through embedded analytics, Looker content can be incorporated directly into other platforms, eliminating the need to switch between systems and streamlining data-driven decision-making.
This flexibility extends to Looker's ability to connect with a wide range of data sources and tools, ensuring that businesses can leverage all of their data assets.

In-database architecture: Looker is designed to handle the demands of modern data environments.

Its architecture allows it to efficiently process large datasets and complex queries, delivering fast performance even as data volumes grow.
This scalability ensures that businesses can continue to rely on Looker as their data needs evolve.
Leveraging the power of the underlying database, organizations can empower users to access near real-time information and answer any questions at the most granular level of detail.

Gemini in Looker: Gemini in Looker enhances data exploration and analysis by providing an intuitive, conversational interface. Users can leverage natural language to:

Get answers to data questions using natural language, making data more accessible to users of all technical levels.
Accelerate data modeling by using Gemini to generate LookML code, streamlining the process for developers.
Quickly create charts and graphs using natural language, simplifying the process of data visualization.
Facilitate data discovery and uncover hidden patterns, leading to more informed decision-making.

This accelerates the process of data discovery, empowers users of all technical skill levels, and ultimately facilitates more informed decision-making by making data more accessible and understandable.

Self-service and governance in one offering

Data-driven organizations need both self-service data capabilities and governance, while traditionally, users had to choose between one solution or the other. Looker eliminates this by providing both in a unified experience, combining the governance and reliability of a standardized business model with self-service capabilities that empower users to explore data independently. This combined offering enables data-driven decisions across the organization, empowering everyone to ask questions of their data and get dependable answers.

Looker users gain the ability to analyze their own data and blend it with governed data, empowering them with the speed and agility to make data-driven decisions while avoiding being held up by older offerings that struggle to find a balance.

Learn more about Looker reports from our introduction at Cloud Next ‘25.