Looker

Looker  serves as our main business intelligence reporting tool by creating dashboards and reports. We create interactive dashboards that help users understand the changes in data and the current trends occurring day-to-day.

For example, daily at the end of the day, once we receive site closure for all the sites in our restaurant project, we refresh our PDTs and load the data into Looker  dashboards using DAGs. We have created an automated dashboard that loads the data directly into it. It has a map function, a bar graph, and also a pie chart, from which users can understand the sales of the previous day with the help of visualization. This is a day-to-day report.

The main use case is creating dashboards, reports, and giving business insights to the business users.

One of the best features that Looker offers is LookML, which allows us to develop dashboards directly rather than dragging and dropping. We can also customize some fields that are not available in the table by combining different tables using LookML. Compared to other reporting tools, Looker is somewhat more customizable and interactive.

With the help of Views and Explore in Looker, we can combine different tables and create a unique column that is not available in the table, and then use that column in our reporting dashboard.

Since we brought Looker into our project, it has improved data visibility and enabled faster interaction between us and our client. Rather than simply using free form or Essbase , seeing customizable and visualized data in Looker allows the business users to understand the trends in the data more easily rather than just seeing numbers. It has helped us save a lot of time. The automated dashboards that we develop allow us to run the dashboard for the coming years with only some modifications, which has reduced some manpower and working hours.

When I joined this project, there were around eight to nine people for developing Looker dashboards. Once the development part is completed for almost all cases, the next part is just monitoring the dashboards and making some minor changes required to align with business goals. After development, the team was reduced to three or four people, so the manpower has significantly reduced, and time taken has decreased as well. For a business user to understand data from free form or Essbase , it usually takes thirty minutes to an hour to go through the previous day's trend. However, with the visualization tools in Looker, they can easily understand the data and compare it to the previous one or two years using a bar graph, pie chart, or other graphs.

The return on investment has been very good. The number of employees has reduced to half, and time is saved by nearly two to three hours a day because of automated reports. We are just monitoring the reports to ensure they are released. This has saved nearly two hours per day, and the team has been reduced to half.

One thing is that Looker is not user-friendly to non-technical users. Someone with knowledge of Looker can understand it, but a person without any technical background finds it somewhat advanced or difficult to comprehend. Additionally, the pricing clarity when creating custom reports is not clearly mentioned.

Another area for improvement is the pricing structure, and the performance is not optimal on large data sets.

I have been part of this field since I started in January 2025, and it has been around one year and three months.

I have not experienced any software issues with Looker.

I rate Looker's scalability a nine because of how easily we can scale by simply combining tables.

The customer support is adequate since it is related to GCP. It is a vast organization, so the support is delivered as soon as possible. One thing to consider about Looker is the documentation part. Anyone with minimal knowledge of Looker can easily go through the documentation and understand the steps and the UI.

We have used Essbase or free form for reporting, but now we are transforming our reporting into Looker.

The return on investment has been very good. The number of employees has reduced to half, and time is saved by nearly two to three hours a day because of automated reports. We are just monitoring the reports to ensure they are released. This has saved nearly two hours per day, and the team has been reduced to half.

We have evaluated other options such as Power BI, Tableau, and also considered continuing with Essbase and free form. However, upon comparison, we found that Looker is superior to all of them.

My advice to others looking into using Looker is that if they are new users with some technical knowledge of SQL or Python, they can understand LookML code or use the explore tab to drag and drop the table columns easily. However, if they are not technical, I advise them to first go through a course or the documentation before starting with Looker.

I have expressed all the thoughts I would to share about Looker for this review. I would rate this product an eight overall.

I use Looker to deal mostly with simple visuals because it doesn't have much capability to clean data. I use Looker to manage simple visualization once I finish cleaning the data.

With Looker, I have experienced benefits in terms of usability and shareability.

The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a user-friendly tool that is easy to integrate. I can easily share Looker with somebody who has a Google email address. Those who don't have a Google email address can easily see what I have been working on since I can share it easily with them.

The visualization capability of the product is limited. From an improvement perspective, the product should have more visualization capability. I can't clean data in Looker, and if I try to do it, then it is a really big process, which contributes to the tool's limiting factors related to the area of pre-processing of data. The tool should offer more visualization capabilities and processing abilities.

I have been using Looker for a year.

It is a stable solution most of the time.

I have not used the solution's scalability part.

I have experience with Tableau and Power BI. With Looker, it is easy to sign up, and its onboarding process is straightforward. There is no need for me to download any app for Looker if I use it online, but for the other tools, most of the time, I have to download the app if I want to access more features or capabilities, and at times, I may have no idea about it. The spread of features and how much Looker offers is much less compared to what the other BI tools offer, which I feel are more advanced.

The product's initial setup phase was straightforward.

The product requires a PnP deployment. I already had a Google account, so I had to just sign up with my Google email address, and I was able to access the features of Looker.

I do not have to make any payments to use the solution. In the beginning, Looker may work fine for its users. If advanced users who have experience with BI tools use Looker, then they may find it to be a product with a few limitations.

I am a student who uses Looker for certain projects, but I use another solution at work. In short, I choose Looker for my personal use.

I do not need to do anything to keep the product up and running.

I rate the overall tool a six out of ten.

I have used the solution for real estate and customer behavior analytics. Currently, I am working on a tax project.

The product is better than any other BI tool. It is really helpful. If my data model is strong and I can code most of it in Google BigQuery, it's much easier to play around and perform a little data science in LookML. The product is easy to use.

Looker just shows whatever we have in SQL databases. It would be helpful if the product could retrieve user data and store it in Google BigQuery. The product does not have documented material. It does not have any active live projects that users could work through.

I have been using the solution since 2021.

The tool’s stability is the best. I haven't encountered any issues where we had to roll back.

The code works pretty fine. I haven't encountered issues with scalability. I rate the scalability a four out of ten. We have more than 250 users in the tax project, 25 to 60 in the real estate and mortgage project, and more than 300 in the financial projects.

Previously, we have worked on Power BI and Tableau.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. I rate the ease of setup a three out of ten. The solution is deployed on the cloud. The deployment takes place under sprints. The sprints are two to three weeks long, depending on the project.

We are using a legacy mode. My manager helped me learn the solution. I learned it in two weeks. If we have a real-time project within the company, it makes sense for new users to start working on the tool. Overall, I rate the tool an eight and a half out of ten.

At our work, we deploy services, especially for payments, and get feedback on the integrated percentage of these deployments. These services are scattered across different locations, so I also handle administrative tasks, integrating AI for subscription management and addressing globalization concerns. We're focused on securing our operational environment and streamlining account management. There seem to be some challenges in the process, and I utilize Looker for analysis and resolution.

Recently, I've found more value in what I'm currently exploring. It's quite effortless to navigate through various applications and review their updated data in real-time. While using Looker, I encountered a hitch in the application setup process; it took a bit of time and effort to configure, but once it was up and running, the results were remarkably impressive.

Stability needs improvement.

I have been using Looker for the last four years.

My experience over the past six and a half months has been quite intense. The challenges I faced were with Looker, which was crucial for the app we were developing. Initially, there were some issues in setting it up, and without resolving these, we wouldn't have been able to proceed. It was necessary to break down and address these hurdles to move forward.

I would rate the scalability an eight and a half out of ten.

I've only had a single encounter with it. The folks handling it did respond. I assured them that I hadn't faced many challenges. If I did encounter any, I'd go back and check.

The accessibility concerns are significant. We have approximately forty-five users, which makes the cost of licensing quite expensive. This aspect holds paramount importance for us. There are some specific reports we need to share. We use Power Desktop within our domain and intend to explore other options. That's why we use Looker—it provides easier and seamless access for individuals outside the licensing sphere.

It is easy to use.

It is cheap.

Our data usage is in Google, using SQL. However, the dataset size varies significantly. While some sets are not extensive, others fall into the category of large enterprise-level data, impacting costs. It's not a singular size; it varies. We're considering transitioning to Looker due to performance issues, specifically in this context.

I would rate the solution an eight. We have various pros and cons to consider. Right now, the key advantage is the easy access and availability. Sharing information is seamless, and it facilitates quick comparisons with near-immediate updates—it's almost live. We don't need instances for file logs; reports are accessible right there. Visualizing data is also straightforward. In terms of drawbacks, the experience is similar to Looker, functioning as an IPaaS.

I use Looker in my company to analyze the data from Google Analytics and also the data from our internal source.

The most valuable feature of Looker is that it is very quick with Google Data Studio. The solution offers good integration between Google Data Studio and Looker's visualization part.

I can say many things about the parts that need to be improved in Looker. The main area of concern in Looker is probably related to blending the data from the different sources, including the data present internally in the company and on the cloud. Blending data from different sources is not something that can be done easily.

I have been using Looker for six years. I don't remember the version of the solution. I am unsure if the last release of the solution happened in 2022 or 2023. My company has a partnership with Looker.

It is a pretty stable solution because it is a cloud-based product. Compared to other cloud-based products on the market, Looker is pretty much stable.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Five or six people in my company, including the manager, use Looker.

I have contacted the technical team of Looker several times in the past, but I have never been very satisfied with their support. Looker's technical team takes too much time to respond to my queries. I usually found the solutions to my issues on forums or through other communication channels.

I rate the technical support a five out of ten.

In my company, we use other products apart from Looker. In my previous company, we usually used to combine reports with the help of Looker and other BI tools because it's pretty much easy to integrate with Google.

The product's initial setup phase is very easy compared to other BI tools like Tableau, PowerBI, and BusinessObjects.

The product's installation deployment phase

The solution is deployed on the cloud services provided by Google.

Small companies can experience return and investment from the use of Looker as it offers easy and good integration capabilities, and the time needed for the adoption of the tool in a company is very short, making it one of the best things about Looker. With other tools apart from Looker, it takes too much time to adapt and to start sharing the reports. From the beginning, I have known Google Data Studio and Looker.

The price of Looker usually depends on the solution's provider, but it is usually cheaper than the other products in the market. Looker is offered at different prices for different companies.

I recommend Looker over other BI tools to those planning to use them in their company. The leaders and management in an organization have various reasons to choose other tools apart from Looker. You can manage a lot of reports with Looker. Looker is also easy to use and share with others in a company, while certain factors like the levels of authorizations and so on are helpful in the product when considering elements like security issues.

I rate the overall product an eight out of ten.