Google Looker- An Introduction and 5 best resources to get started for an absolute beginner
Looker is a Business Intelligence and Analytics platform which enables deep insights and visualizations to uncover data insights. You can create interactive dashboards to analyze and explore data for further analysis. Looker was acquired by Google in 2019 and is now part of a Google Cloud Platform.
If you are new to looker and looking for resources to learn more about the platform you may find this article helpful. If you are a data consumer or you will be creating Looker reporting solutions as a developer, this could be a good starting point.
Official note from Looker as of writing of this article-
Looker documentation will be moving to cloud.google.com in mid-2022!
All the information you rely on will be migrated and all docs.looker.com URLs will be redirected to the appropriate page.
Topics Covered
- What is Business Intelligence and Analytics
- A look into Looker
- Why Looker
- 5 Beginner resources to get started
What is Business Intelligence(BI) and Analytics?
BI and Analytics is an umbrella term which covers BI and Analytics platform and processes which starts with collecting, storing and analyzing data and creating solutions to find insights. The data from various sources is collected and stored and unified in single data platform created by each company to support their business users and analysts which further analyze the data in the reporting solutions like Looker. These solutions can then give actionable insights to make valuable business decisions.
A look into Looker
If you have exposure to other BI tools, Looker has similar features like any other BI tools like reporting, dashboarding, modeling etc. but the approach and architecture to develop these solutions is very different from other BI tools. Looker is a web based tool where reports are developed on web interface and also consumed on web portal as well. It comes with Git version control where development and deployment happens through Git. You can refer to Using Version Control and Deploying for more details.
Looker also has ability to let users interact with reports and explore the data behind it. This makes it possible to also create users their own dashboards. Using the data behind the reports, they can select data fields, add or remove them from their analysis on the fly and create their own visualizations.This feature also called self service BI which is available in many popular BI tools.
As a beginner ,you may want to be aware of following terms while you are staring your Looker journey. I have provided resources for these, later in this article.
- Looks (analysts & data consumers)
- LookML (Looker Developers)
- Explores (analysts & data consumers)
- Views (Looker Developers)
- Version Control through Git (Looker Developers)
- Folders and Shared Folders (analysts & data consumers)
- Workflow integration using Looker API (Looker Developers)
- Embedded Analytics (analysts and developers)
Why Looker
This feature also called self service BI which is available in many popular BI tools. Self service feature helps report and dashboard consumers to go into further details and perform detailed analysis even if they don’t have background in Business Intelligence. They can select data fields, add or remove them from their analysis on the fly and create their own visualizations.
Looker Architecture :-
As discussed in earlier section, Looker has many features which sets it apart from many popular analytics solutions.
- Unlike many reporting tools, Looker starts on web interface and reports are deployed on the Looker portal
- Developers can simultaneously work on reports and any component which is controlled by Git version control. This feature is not natively available in many analytics reporting solutions
- Looker, part of Google Cloud, provides seamless integration with Google Cloud(GCP) BigQuery through an API
- Looker uses reusable development paradigm which enables usage of models and backend components.These components can be used by other reports and dashboards
- Looker is an integrated end to end multi-cloud platform which can bring data from multiple cloud datasets easily and create a single source of truth
5 Beginner resources to get started
Following are the resources you can get started to quickly get up-to speed on Looker.
There are multiple ways to learn Looker . You can go through Looker’s official documentation to get deep understanding of its features or various videos and practical trainings provided by Looker and Google Cloud.
- https://docs.looker.com :- This is an official Looker website if you want to deep dive into the components of looker. While going through various learning materials ,if you want to understand that topic better, this will be your go to resource to understand concepts throughly.
- https://connect.looker.com/ :- This another official Looker learning material which has a dedicated learning tracks based on your need. These three tracks are Data Consumer, Looker Developer and Looker Admin. This will introduce you the platform and provide training and materials only needed for your role and how you plan to use Looker at your workplace. It also has link to Practical lab which gives you an ability to learn and Practice looker in sandbox.
- https://www.cloudskillsboost.google/ :- Cloud skills boost is great platform which has BI and Analytics with Looker learning path. This is great for practical training which includes video courses and labs. The course is more focused on developer experience rather than just a data consumer. This is similar to Looker Connect website but this features dedicated learning path for Looker and also for various Google Cloud Platform technologies.
- Coursera :- It offers Creating Business Value with Data and Looker Specialization which is created officially by Google. The specialization is not free but it has the 3 individual courses. These courses can be freely audited at no cost. This content is similar to Looker connect and Cloudskillsboost which is available in Coursera format.
- Udemy(paid)- Udemy has a great course if you are a developer and want to start your Looker journey and solidify your understanding of LookML. This course is from a developer prospective so please review the course syllabus if you are not a developer.I am not affiliated with this course in any way, fyi.
Looker is a modern analytics platform and great tool to add to your toolbox if you are interested in BI and Analytics or report development in general. We will cover more topics in future like BigQuery, SQL, LookML which are really helpful to understand if you plan to use Looker and Google Cloud BigQuery.
Please let me know if you have any comments or inputs on this article. Thank you.
