Friday, December 2, 2022

CONCATenated Calculated Fields: A"\n"other idea



CONCAT is a fabulous function in Looker Studio, since it allows you to combine information efficiently in a calculated field. A simple example: if you have lastname and firstname fields in your data, you can combine them to create a Full Name calculated field as shown here (example output would be Smith, John.)

However, I recently learned that "\n" (newline escape character) can also be incorporated into a CONCAT field to include a line break in the resulting calculated field. This can be SUPER useful if you're trying to cut down on the width of a table so it fits better on your dashboard.

Originally, this table had one column for each field, so the table needed to be relatively wide.

After some creative CONCAT, including "\n", the table takes up much less horizontal real estate. Note that the table needs to have text wrap turned on in order for this to work.







 


The drop-down filters elsewhere in this report can still be used to filter records based on the individual fields (like Department), although one caveat is that the table can't no longer be sorted by Department with this approach (not a big deal in this case).

In this example, the (chart-level) calculated fields looked like this:




This approach also works well for the Tooltip on a bubble map, allowing you to bring lots of information into your Tooltip without the rollover label becoming too lengthy and running off the side of the report. (Side note: I have not been successful using this approach on a scatter plot, however.)

If you have additional ideas on how to use this type of line break in Looker Studio, let me know!

Wednesday, October 12, 2022

Look Out! It's Looker Studio! What does this mean for K-12 users?


Yesterday at Google Next 2022, the announcement was made that Google Data Studio has been rebranded as Looker Studio, which was a big surprise to many, especially if you found out by noticing a new name on the interface! 

For those that aren't familiar with Looker, it is a business intelligence software and big data analytics platform which was acquired by Google in 2020. The rebranding of Data Studio as Looker Studio is good news as it shows a continued dedication by Google to provide robust tools for data management and analytics. Yesterday's conference was also filled with exciting conversations about machine learning and artificial intelligence, to continue to allow organizations to gain valuable insights from their data. 

The important thing for those in K-12 education to know is that Looker Studio is still free, and you can continue to use this awesome tool to create and view reports just as you always have. Looker Studio Pro ($) will provide improved asset management, new team collaboration capabilities, and access to technical support.

There's a lot to unpack after yesterday's announcement, and I'm sure there will be more developments in the coming months. But don't freak out! The main thing to know right now is that nothing has really changed for K-12 users of Data Studio, except a name and logo...and the knowledge that Google is continuing to support and innovate tools for creating data-driven experiences. So LOOK to the future and go forth and create!

P.S. While I know this blog is not the most active any more, I don't plan to change the URL or blog name to go with this name change, and probably won't go crazy updating old posts and things. Feel free to follow me on Twitter @tiltondata which is where I'm more active these days!

Tuesday, August 9, 2022

Report Passwords for Custom Data Delivery

Here's a fun way to use Parameters in Data Studio! You can use them to set up a variety of passwords for your Data Studio report, and even customize the data delivery for different passwords. 

Check out this example for more information.