Modern organizations make decisions and act based on trusted data. But to fully empower their users, it isn’t enough to simply make trusted data available. Organizations need to enable users to access that data through tools they use every day, like the ubiquitous spreadsheet. Today, Google are announcing general availability of Connected Sheets for Looker, allowing you to access centrally defined metrics and data relationships from Looker’s semantic layer through the familiar Google Sheets interface.

Looker + Google Sheets: Better together

With Looker’s unified semantic layer, data professionals can simplify complex data for end users by codifying business logic and metrics within centralized data models. To truly build a data-driven organization, the capacity to make data-driven decisions must both be accessible to the full range of employees and simple enough to apply to day-to-day decisions. Connected Sheets for Looker provides that simplified data access experience.

Carbon Health, an early user of this integration, is working to improve healthcare access by combining the best of virtual care, in-person visits, and technology to support patients. Connected Sheets for Looker is helping them do it by providing easy-to-access reporting that has already driven greater transparency and accountability around key metrics, resulting in improved operating results. Says Product Manager, Chris Prompovitch, “Between Looker and its integration with Google Sheets, we can meet the data needs of all our stakeholders at Carbon Health.”

Looker and Sheets: Row by row

Through Connected Sheets for Looker, Google Sheets users are able to access and explore trusted, modeled data from 50+ different databases supported by Looker. Looker views, dimensions, and measures are presented through a pivot table, enabling users to flexibly explore the data set by creating pivots, building charts, and adding new formulas. The live connection between Looker and Google Sheets means data is always up to date, and user access is secured based on Looker permissions.

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Pivoting to get started

To take advantage of Connected Sheets for Looker, the only thing admins need to do is enable the Looker BI Connectors or the Connected Sheets toggle within the BI Connectors panel in the Platform section of Looker’s Admin menu. The Looker instance must be on version 22.20 or later for Google Cloud-hosted instances or 23.4 or later for those hosted on AWS and Azure.

Once Connected Sheets for Looker has been enabled, users can begin exploring Looker data in Google Sheets by following these steps:

  1. Open a Google Sheets and navigate to the Data menu
  2. Within the Data menu, hover over Data connectors and then click on Connect to Looker
  3. Enter the URL of a Looker instance (for example: https://example.looker.com)
  4. Authorize Google Sheets to access your Looker data
  5. Select the Looker model and Explore that you want to connect to
  6. Create a pivot table and begin to explore your data