How to Create a Quarterly Report in Looker

Creating a quarterly report in Looker can feel like a complex task, but it’s really about turning your data into a clear story about the last three months. This guide breaks down how to build a comprehensive and automated quarterly report, walking you through the entire process from planning your key metrics to designing clear visualizations and sharing the finished product with your team.

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Good Planning is Half the Battle

Before you even open Looker, a little bit of planning will save you a massive amount of time. A great report isn't just a collection of charts, it’s a focused narrative that answers specific business questions. Rushing this step is how you end up with a cluttered dashboard that nobody understands.

1. Define Your Audience and Their Questions

First, who is this report for? The metrics that matter to your executive team are different from what your marketing team needs to see daily. Tailor the report to its audience.

• For Leadership/C-Suite: They need high-level, summary metrics. Focus on business health, growth trends, profitability, and progress against company-wide goals. Think MRR growth, Customer Lifetime Value (LTV), and overall Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).
• For Department Heads (e.g., Head of Marketing): They need a mix of high-level outcomes and performance drivers. Show them which channels are most effective, campaign performance comparisons, and cost per acquisition by source.
• For Your Team (e.g., Marketing Team): They need more granular, tactical data to optimize their work. Break down performance by specific ad creative, landing page conversion rates, or keyword performance.

Once you know your audience, identify the core questions your report should answer. For a quarterly review, these often revolve around performance, trends, and future planning. For example:

• How did our revenue this quarter compare to last quarter (QoQ)?
• How did this quarter compare to the same quarter last year (YoY)?
• Which marketing channels drove the most valuable customers?
• What was our sales team's close rate, and how is it trending?
• Are we on track to hit our annual goals?

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2. Identify Your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

With your questions defined, select the exact KPIs that will answer them. Be ruthless here - more is not better. A report with 5-7 core KPIs is far more effective than one with 25 metrics nobody can make sense of.

Here are some examples based on team:

• Sales: Deals Created, Win Rate, Average Deal Size, Sales Cycle Length.
• Marketing: Website Sessions, Leads Generated, Cost Per Lead (CPL), Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), Conversion Rate.
• E-commerce: Total Revenue, Average Order Value (AOV), Customer Lifetime Value (LTV), Cart Abandonment Rate.

3. Sketch a Quick Storyboard

Finally, sketch a quick outline of your report on a whiteboard or a piece of paper. This storyboard thinking helps you structure the flow logically. A common and effective structure is:

1. Executive Summary: The 3-4 most important KPIs right at the top, answering "how did we do?" at a glance.
2. Trend Analysis: A section showing performance over time (QoQ and YoY).
3. Deep Dives: Sections dedicated to specific areas like channel performance, regional sales, or product category analysis.
4. Key Learnings & Next Steps: A text section summarizing the takeaways and proposed actions for the next quarter.

Building Your Quarterly Report in Looker: Step-by-Step

With your plan in place, it’s time to move into Looker. The process involves creating individual data visualizations (called "Looks") and then assembling them into a cohesive "Dashboard."

1. Start with an Explore

In Looker, everything starts in an Explore. This is the interface where you select dimensions (the 'what,' like Traffic Source or Date) and measures (the 'how much,' like Total Revenue or User Count) to build a query.

Navigate to the Explore section and choose the dataset that contains the information you need, such as Orders, Users, or Web Events.

2. Create Your First 'Look' (Chart)

Let’s build a simple chart showing revenue by month for the last quarter.

1. In your chosen Explore (e.g., Orders), select a time-based dimension like Order Created Date. It's best to use a monthly timescale for a quarterly view.
2. Select the measure you want to track, like Total Revenue.
3. Click Run. Looker will generate a data table.
4. Go to the Visualization tab and choose a chart type. A line chart is perfect for showing trends over time.

You have your first Look! Now, let’s make it specific to the quarter.

3. Apply the Correct Date Filters

Filtering is the key to creating a truly quarterly report. The filter section is on the right side of the Explore interface.

• Select your date dimension as the filter field (e.g., Order Created Date).
• Choose the correct time range. For a quarterly report, you have a few powerful options:

Run the query again. Your chart now only shows data for the specified quarter.

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4. Add Comparison Periods

Your quarterly data is much more powerful with context. Comparing it to the previous quarter (QoQ) or the same quarter last year (YoY) provides the story.

1. Create your quarterly Look as described above.
2. Create a second Look for the comparison period. The easiest way is to duplicate your first Look and just change the date filter. For example, change the filter from is in the past 1 last quarter to is in the past 2 complete quarters and before 1 last quarter (this isolates the quarter before last).
3. Save both of these Looks. Later, you'll place them side-by-side on your dashboard or use table calculations to merge them. For more advanced users, you can use Merged Results or LookML to combine these periods into a single visualization for a cleaner look.

5. Save Your Look and Add it to a Dashboard

Once a Look is ready, save it to a new or existing Dashboard. From the gear icon in the top right of your Explore:

1. Click 'Save' → 'As a new Look' (give it a descriptive name like "Q3 Revenue Trend") OR
2. Click 'Save' → 'To an existing dashboard'.

Repeat this process—building, filtering, and saving Looks—for all the KPIs you identified during your planning phase. Arrange them on your dashboard according to your storyboard.

Best Practices for Visualization and Storytelling

A functional report is good, but an insightful one is great. Use these tips to make sure your dashboard tells a clear story.

Use the Right Chart for the Right Data

• Line Charts: For showing a trend over time (e.g., weekly revenue over the quarter).
• Bar/Column Charts: For comparing categories (e.g., sales per region, traffic per channel).
• KPI Tiles (Single Value charts): For displaying a single, important number very clearly (e.g., Total Quarterly Revenue). They're perfect for your executive summary at the top.
• Tables: For showing detailed, granular data when the specific numbers matter.
• Pie/Donut Charts: Use sparingly, only for showing the composition of a whole when there are fewer than five categories (e.g., traffic mix by mobile vs. desktop).

Add Context with Text Tiles

Don't make your audience guess what the charts mean. Add Text Tiles to your dashboard to add titles, descriptions, and, most importantly, your analysis and key takeaways.

At the top of your dashboard, add a text tile summarizing the quarter's performance in a few bullet points:

*"Q3 Highlights:*

This turns a data dashboard into a true strategic report.

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Automate and Share Your Hard Work

The best part about building your report in Looker is the automation. Once your dashboard is complete, you can schedule it to be delivered automatically.

Click the clock icon at the top of your dashboard to set up a schedule. You can have it automatically emailed as a PDF or sent to a Slack channel on the first day of every quarter. This “set it and forget it” capability ensures stakeholders always have the information they need, right on time, without you having to manually run reports ever again.

Final Thoughts

Building a quality quarterly report in Looker moves from being a technical exercise to a strategic one once you master the basics. By focusing first on the story you want to tell and the audience you’re telling it to, you can create a powerful resource that doesn't just present data, but also drives better business decisions for the quarter ahead.

We know that tools like Looker are extremely powerful but come with a significant learning curve and require a lot of manual configuration to create the reports you need. That's why we built Graphed - to remove that friction. Our entire approach revolves around using simple, natural language to get answers. Instead of learning to navigate Explores and build Looks, you just ask what you want to see, and a live, shareable dashboard is created for you in seconds. We connect to your data sources to give you real-time insights, turning hours of reporting into a simple conversation focused on growing your business.