How to Create a Supply Chain Dashboard in Looker

A great supply chain feels invisible, while a messy one creates headaches for everyone. If you're tired of piecing together supplier data, inventory levels, and shipping statuses from a dozen different spreadsheets, creating a dedicated supply chain dashboard in Looker can be a total game-changer. This guide will walk you through setting one up, step by step, to get a clear, live view of your entire operation.

Why Use Looker for a Supply Chain Dashboard?

Before diving into the "how," let's quickly cover the "why." Supply chains are complex, with data coming from your warehouse management system (WMS), enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, shipping carriers, and supplier reports. Attempting to manage this with static CSV files and spreadsheets is slow, prone to errors, and makes it impossible to see what's happening in real time.

Looker is built to handle this type of complexity. Here's why it's a great choice:

Centralized Data: It connects directly to your databases and various data sources, acting as a single source of truth for all your operational data.
Real-Time Insights: Dashboards update automatically with live data, so you're not making decisions based on last week's numbers.
Customizable Logic: Through its data modeling layer, LookML, you can define your business-specific metrics once (like "Order Cycle Time" or "Inventory Turnover") and reuse them everywhere, ensuring consistency across all reports.
Interactive Visualizations: You can build dashboards that allow users to drill down into data, filter by region, product, or supplier, and uncover insights on their own.

Step 1: Plan Your Dashboard by Defining Your Goals and KPIs

Jumping straight into building charts without a plan is a recipe for a cluttered, useless dashboard. The most effective dashboards are designed to answer specific business questions. Start by asking yourself and your team what you need to know.

Ask the Right Questions

Think about the pain points in your supply chain. What keeps you up at night? Your goals will likely inform the questions you need to answer. For example:

Goal: Reduce shipping costs and delivery times.
- Questions: Which shipping carriers are the most cost-effective? What is our average transit time by region? What percentage of our orders are delivered on time?
Goal: Prevent stockouts and reduce excess inventory.
- Questions: What are the current stock levels of our key products? What's our inventory turnover rate? Which products are selling fastest? How much safety stock do we have?
Goal: Improve supplier reliability.
- Questions: Which suppliers have the longest lead times? What is the defect rate per supplier? What is the on-time delivery percentage for our top suppliers?

Identify Your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Once you have your questions, you can identify the specific metrics (KPIs) that will answer them. Here are some of the most essential supply chain KPIs to consider tracking:

Inventory Management KPIs

Inventory Turnover: Measures how many times your inventory is sold and replaced over a period. A higher number is generally better.
Days Sales of Inventory (DSI): The average number of days it takes for a firm to sell its inventory. Aim for a lower number.
Stock-to-Sales Ratio: Compares the amount of inventory you have on hand to the number of sales you're making.
Carrying Cost of Inventory: The total cost of holding inventory, including storage, insurance, and obsolescence.

Order & Fulfillment KPIs

Order Cycle Time: The average time elapsed from when a customer places an order to when they receive it.
On-Time Delivery Rate: The percentage of orders delivered to the customer by the promised delivery date. This is a critical metric for customer satisfaction.
Fill Rate: The percentage of a customer's order that is filled on the first shipment.
Perfect Order Rate: The percentage of orders that are delivered on time, complete, damage-free, and with correct documentation.

Supplier & Logistics KPIs

Supplier Lead Time: The amount of time from when you place an order with a supplier to when you receive the goods.
Shipping Cost Per Unit: Measures transportation expenses on a per-item basis.
Transit Time: The time it takes for a shipment to get from one point to another.
Supplier On-Time Delivery: The percentage of time your suppliers meet their promised delivery dates.

Step 2: Connect Your Data and Model it in LookML

With your plan in place, it's time to get the data into Looker. Your supply chain data likely lives in several places:

An ERP system like NetSuite or SAP for order and financial data.
A Warehouse Management System (WMS) for inventory levels and locations.
A Transportation Management System (TMS) or carrier data for shipping details.
Possibly even Google Sheets or spreadsheets for supplier contracts or manual logs.

You'll need to connect these data sources to Looker. Once connected, the real power of Looker comes from its modeling layer, LookML. Don't let the term intimidate you. Think of LookML as a rulebook you create for your data. You define all your dimensions (like 'Supplier Name' or 'Product Category') and measures (like 'Average Order Value' or 'Total Inventory Count') in one place.

For example, you can write a piece of LookML code that defines "Order Cycle Time" as the average time a package spends between 'order_placed_at' and 'order_delivered_at' timestamps. Once defined, anyone at your company can drag that "Order Cycle Time" metric into a report without having to know the underlying calculation. This ensures everyone is using the same definition and looking at the same numbers.

Step 3: Build Your Supply Chain Dashboard, Tile by Tile

Now for the fun part: creating the visuals. In Looker, dashboards are made up of individual components called "Tiles," which can be a chart, map, table, or single number.

1. Create a New Dashboard

This is straightforward. Navigate to your desired Folder in Looker, click the New button in the top right, and select Dashboard. Give it a clear name like "Supply Chain Operations Dashboard."

2. Build Your First Tile: Order Cycle Time Trend

Let's create a core visualization to track your fulfillment efficiency over time.

Inside your new dashboard, click Edit Dashboard, then Add, and select Visualization.
This will take you to Looker's Explore interface. Choose the Explore that contains your order data (e.g., an "Orders" Explore defined in your LookML section).
From the field picker on the left:
- Under Dimensions, select your order creation date, and pivot by it (e.g., "Order Create Week").
- Under Measures, select your custom measure for "Order Cycle Time (in Days)."
Select the Line chart option from the visualization choices.
Click Run to generate the chart. You should now see a line chart showing how your average order cycle time has trended week over week.
Give your Tile a clear title (e.g., "Average Order Cycle Time (Days)") and click Save to add it to your dashboard.

You've just created your first tile! Repeat this process for your other essential KPIs.

3. Add More Tiles for a Complete View

Continue building your dashboard with different visualizations to cover all aspects of your plan:

Top-Level KPIs: Use the Single Value visualization to display your most important headline numbers at the top of the dashboard. Think On-Time Delivery %, Inventory Value, and Perfect Order Rate.
Inventory Levels: Use a Table visualization to show current stock levels for your top 10 products. Use conditional formatting to color-code rows where the "Quantity on Hand" is below your "Safety Stock" level.
Supplier Performance: Create a Bar Chart that compares "Average Supplier Lead Time" or "Supplier On-Time Delivery %" across all your key suppliers. This makes it instantly obvious who your most and least reliable partners are.
Regional Performance: Use a Map visualization to chart "Orders by Destination State" or "Average Transit Time by Region" to identify geographic strengths and weaknesses.

4. Organize Your Layout and Add Interactive Filters

Once you have a dozen or so tiles, it's about making the dashboard intuitive and easy to use.

Arrange the Layout: In Edit mode, you can drag and drop your tiles. Place the most important, high-level KPIs at the top where they're easy to see. Group related metrics together (e.g., all inventory-related charts in one row, all shipping metrics in another).
Add Dashboard Filters: This is what makes a dashboard truly interactive. In Edit mode, go to Filters > Add Filter. Common filters for a supply chain dashboard include:
- Date Range: Let users choose to view data for the last 7 days, 90 days, or a custom range.
- Product Category: Allow users to filter the entire dashboard to see performance for a specific category of items.
- Warehouse: If you have multiple fulfillment centers, this lets your team view performance for each location.
- Supplier: Let users drill down to see all relevant metrics for a single supplier.

After adding a filter, you'll need to link it to the relevant fields in each tile you want it to control. Now, anyone viewing the dashboard can slice and dice the data themselves to answer their own follow-up questions.

Final Thoughts

Creating a supply chain dashboard in Looker turns your scattered operational data into a command center that drives smarter, faster decisions. By starting with a clear plan, defining your KPIs, and building intuitive visualizations, you can move from reactive problem-solving to proactively optimizing your entire supply chain flow from supplier to customer.

While Looker is a powerfully deep platform, we understand that mastering data modeling and navigating complex setup can be a major hurdle, especially if you lack a dedicated analyst. That's why we built Graphed. We provide an easier way to connect your data sources - from Shopify and sales CRMs to ERPs and inventory systems - and build the live dashboards you need simply by asking questions in plain English. You can get straight to the supply chain insights without the steep learning curve.