Chord Commerce Data Platform
Dashboards and Looks

Looks vs Dashboards

2min



Introduction

Looks and dashboards are the two major building blocks of Looker. The dashboards present data and insights using customizable charts, graphs, and reports. You can drill into all dashboards and queries to discover information in multiple layers.



Take a look at Cloud Skills Boost to learn more about LookML.

What are Looks?

Looks are created from the Explores. They are saved visualizations and stand-alone reports that you can use to answer one specific question from your data.



Creating a Look

For instance, we want to know the Order Average Gross Revenue value for each Month this past year. Click Explore Select Order Created Year and click Filter by field





Order Created Year
Order Created Year




Select Order Create Date = Month Scroll down to Measure and select Average Gross Revenue



Report
Report


Click Run To save it as a Look, click the gear icon, and click Save, Save as Look.

Provide a Title "Average Monthly" and click Save



Save as Look
Save as Look




Save Look
Save Look




You have just created a Look!





What are Dashboards?

Dashboards allow you to place multiple tables, graphs or looks on one page to get a quick view of the related content. You can also make dashboards interactive and filter them down to the specific data that interest you.





Creating a dashboard from a Look

Suppose you want to add the newly created Look report to an existing Dashboard.

Navigate to Folders--> My Folder and select the "Average Monthly" in the Look section

You can click Add to Dashboard or click the gear icon and select Save --> Save to existing dashboard (you can also save to a new dashboard)



Add to Dashboard
Add to Dashboard




In the Add to a Dashboard in this folder form select an existing dashboard:

In this example "Current Week"



Save to Dashboard
Save to Dashboard




Add Look to Dashboard - This option will add a Look-linked tile, and if you make any changes to the Look, it will reflect in your dashboard.



Click Save to Dashboard - this tile is copied as a query tile to the existing Dashboard. That option is the most preferred choice as the Dashboard will not depend on the Look; any changes to the Look will not affect the tile in your Dashboard.



To verify that the new Look has been added to the Dashboard, navigate to Folder --> My Folders and click on the "Current View" Dashboard. You should see Average Monthly visualization display 



Tile added to Dashboard
Tile added to Dashboard




You've just added a Look to your existing Dashboard!