How to Add a Look to a Dashboard in Looker

Adding a saved Look to a Looker dashboard is the quickest way to create a comprehensive and consistent report. You can build powerful, shareable dashboards in just a few minutes by combining your pre-built visualizations. This article will walk you through exactly how to do it, step-by-step, and share some best practices for managing your content.

First, What Exactly is a Look?

Before adding one to a dashboard, it's helpful to understand what a "Look" is in the Looker ecosystem. Think of it as a single, saved answer to a specific question you've asked your data. It's essentially one report or one visualization.

For example, a Look could be:

• A bar chart showing revenue by sales representative for the current quarter.
• A single number showing the total number of new users this week.
• A data table listing your top 10 blog posts by pageviews from Google Analytics.

Each Look is built from an "Explore" (Looker's term for a query-building interface), has chosen fields (dimensions and measures), and is often customized with filters and a specific visualization type. Once you save it as a Look, you can easily go back to it, share it, or add it to one or more dashboards.

What is a Looker Dashboard?

A Looker dashboard is a collection of these Looks, arranged on a single screen. Dashboards give you a high-level, at-a-glance view of different metrics side-by-side. Where a Look is a single chart answering one question, a dashboard is the "cockpit" where you can see the answers to many questions at once, helping you spot trends and understand the bigger picture.

For example, a "Marketing Performance Dashboard" might combine several individual Looks:

• Total website sessions (Line Chart Look)
• Ad spend vs. conversions (Bar Chart Look)
• Leads by channel (Pie Chart Look)
• Top converting campaigns (Table Look)

Why Add a Look to a Dashboard (Instead of Building from Scratch)?

You have two options for building a dashboard: adding existing Looks or creating new dashboard "tiles" from scratch. While both have their place, adding an existing Look has some significant advantages.

• Reusability: If you have a chart you need to see on your marketing dashboard, sales dashboard, and executive dashboard, you only have to build it once. Save it as a Look, and then add that same Look to all three dashboards.
• Easy Updates: When you need to adjust that chart - maybe you want to change the color or add a new filter - you only have to edit the source Look. Once you save the changes, every dashboard using that Look will automatically update. This saves massive amounts of time and prevents reporting inconsistencies.
• Source of Truth: By using saved Looks, you ensure everyone is looking at the same data, with the same filters and logic applied. This prevents situations where one person's dashboard tile says one thing and another's says something slightly different because they were built independently.
• Collaboration: Your data analyst or another team member can create a library of certified, accurate Looks. Then, others on the team who may be less technical can use these pre-built Looks as building blocks to create their own dashboards without needing to know the complexities of the underlying data model.

How to Add an Existing Look to a Dashboard

This is the most common and recommended method for building robust dashboards. Here’s the step-by-step process.

Step 1: Navigate to Your Dashboard and Enter Edit Mode

First, go to the dashboard where you want to add your Look. In the top right corner of the dashboard, you’ll see a button or a menu. Click the Edit dashboard button. This will switch the dashboard into its edit mode, allowing you to add, remove, and re-organize content.

Step 2: Choose to Add a Tile

Once you are in Edit mode, you will see a blue bar at the top of the screen with several options. Click the Add button, and from the dropdown choose Look (in some older versions of Looker this might be labeled "Add Look" or "Tiles"). A dialog box will pop up, which will be your gateway to finding your saved content.

Step 3: Find and Select Your Look

Now you can browse for the Look you want to add. Looker organizes saved content in folders, often one for your personal Looks and several shared folders for your team or company.

• Use the search bar at the top to search for your Look by its title. This is the fastest method if you know the name.
• Alternatively, you can navigate through the folders on the left panel to find what you're looking for.

Once you locate your desired Look, click on its title to select it.

Step 4: Add the Look and Position it on Your Dashboard

After selecting the Look, Looker will add it to your dashboard as a new "tile." It usually appears at the bottom of your dashboard, and you can now customize its placement.

• To move the tile: Click and hold the top of the tile and drag it to where you want it on the dashboard.
• To resize the tile: Click and drag the bottom-right corner of the tile to make it larger or smaller.

Arrange your new Look perfectly alongside your other visualizations.

Step 5: Save Your Changes

This is a crucial step that is easy to forget! Once you're happy with the position and size of your new Look, click the Save button in the top right blue bar. Clicking this will exit Edit mode and lock in your changes, making the updated dashboard visible to anyone else who has access to it.

How to Create a New Query Tile Directly on a Dashboard

Sometimes you just need a quick, one-off chart for a specific dashboard and don't need to save it for reuse. In this case, you can build your visualization directly from the dashboard editor.

1. Enter Edit dashboard mode, just like before.
2. Click Add and select Visualization from the dropdown menu.
3. Looker will ask you to choose an Explore. Select the data source you need to build your query (e.g., "Users," "Orders," "Session Data," etc.).
4. This will open the Explore interface you're familiar with. Now, you can build your query just like you would for a regular Look:
5. Once you're satisfied, click Save from the Explore screen. This will save the visualization as a new tile directly onto your dashboard without creating a separately named Look in your folders. It essentially becomes a part of the dashboard itself.
6. Just like before, resize and reposition the new tile, then click Save on the dashboard to finalize your work.

The main drawback of this method is that the visualization you just created is not easily reusable on other dashboards. If you find yourself needing it elsewhere, you'll either have to recreate it or convert it into a saved Look.

Best Practices for a Tidy Dashboard

Following a few simple guidelines can save you and your team a lot of headaches as your Looker environment grows.

• Give Your Looks Descriptive Names: When you save a Look, don't name it "Test Chart" or "My Graph." Be descriptive! Use a clear name like "Weekly New User Count - Google Analytics" or "Sales Revenue by Region - Q3 2023." This makes saved Looks much easier to find later.
• Use Shared Folders: Don't keep all your best work in your personal folder. If a Look is valuable to the team, move it to a shared folder. Think about creating folders for each department (e.g., a "Marketing" folder, a "Sales" folder) to keep things organized.
• Be Mindful of Dashboard Filters vs. Look Filters: A Look can have its own filters saved within it (e.g., "Status is Complete"). A dashboard can have its own filters at the top that apply to all tiles (e.g., a date range). These can interact in complex ways. Understand how these filters work together to avoid getting confusing or unexpected results.

Final Thoughts

Adding saved Looks to your Looker dashboards is the most efficient way to build informative, consistent, and easy-to-maintain reports. Whether you use existing Looks or create new tiles from an Explore, you now have the steps to bring together a full picture of your organization's key metrics.

Of course, mastering any traditional BI tool involves a significant learning curve just to get basic insights. We built Graphed because we believe getting answers from your data shouldn't be that complicated. We enable teams to connect data sources like Google Analytics, Shopify, and Salesforce in seconds, then create dashboards and reports in real-time just by asking questions in plain English. This natural language approach gives you instant answers so you can focus on making decisions, not on learning new software.