These FAQs provides an overview of key features and answers to common questions in Looker Studio.
Looker Studio (formerly known as Google Data Studio) is a free data visualization tool that allows users to create interactive and customizable dashboards. It connects to multiple data sources, such as Google Analytics 4 (GA4), and presents data insights visually.
To view data outside Looker Studio, you can export the target table by selecting the three dots located on the above right of any data table and choosing to download the data as a CSV file. Your download will reflect the filters applied to the page.
Page Path Groupings are collections of page paths that share similar structures or URLs also called subsites or subfolders. These groupings help users analyze trends and performance across sections of a website. Pages that appear at least five times in a similar path structure are grouped together for easier analysis. If you don't see your "page path group" listed in your dashboard, please use the filter "Page Path" to select the multiple pages you need analyze.
Scorecards in Looker Studio display key metrics, such as total users or sessions, in a simplified format. They offer quick access to important data points and can be filtered by various dimensions, such as date range or specific pages.
The Date Range Filter allows you to narrow your dashboard results to a specific period like Month-over-month, month-to-date, year-to-date, last month, this quarter etc. Each report page in the dashboard will need to be updated when viewing the data set.
To drill down in a table in Looker Studio, users can click the down arrow above the table on the right (e.g., moving from Page Path to a more detailed view like Session Source/Medium in the Session Data Report). This allows deeper exploration of traffic sources and user behavior by viewing how specific pages perform in relation to their traffic origin. To return to a broader view, simply use the up arrow to navigate back to the higher-level dimension. To go back to the beginning, select the back arrow on the top left of the table above the table title.
Dashboards in Looker Studio may time out due to exceeding data quota limits, which occur when a report tries to load more data than Looker Studio can handle within a set time or resource limit. This often happens with complex queries or when multiple large datasets are being processed simultaneously. Looker Studio has certain thresholds for how much data can be processed in real time, and exceeding this can result in a time-out or performance lag. If you are seeing these errors in your dashboard, waiting 15-30 minutues generally resolves these issues. If they persist longer than a day, please reach out to grahamz@ohio.edu (Zoe Graham).
Filters don’t automatically carry over from one page to another in Looker Studio because each page is processed independently, and the data quota limits are updated separately for each page. Every time you load a new page, Looker Studio runs new queries and applies data limits specific to that page's visualizations. This means the filters you set on one page are not applied globally, which helps prevent exceeding data quota limits and ensures smoother performance across all dashboards. getting you the data you need faster.
Due to the complex nature of data collection and data interpretation in the new GA4 system, access to the raw GA4 data will not be accessible to general users. Ohio University’s University Communications and Marketing department has developed custom, preconfigured dashboards in Looker Studio that users will be provisioned to view and use. These dashboards contain pre-filtered data that is easily consumable and interpreted at a glance providing more accurate data than what was previously configured. To view our Google Analytics User policy please review, https://www.ohio.edu/ucm/web/google-analytics-user-policy.
Please review the training video and documentation for an overview of the main navigation of the Looker Studio Dashboard.