Getting Started Exploring in Looker

After learning how to browse through other’s reports and dashboards, many users go the next step and learn how to create their own reports, harnessing their organization’s data for their own specific needs. This page will show you how to get started exploring data.

To get started exploring, follow these steps:

1. Select Explore.
2. Optionally, enter a keyword in the Explore search bar to find specific models or explores. Looker will display any explore that has the keyword in its name or in its description. Typically, the explores are listed under their model’s name which indicates the kind of data it uses.
3. In the list of explores, select the explore you want to access. If your Looker developers have added descriptions for the explores, hover over each explore in the list to see their descriptions.
4. Click one or more grey fields (called dimensions) to group your data.
5. Click one or more orange fields (called measures) to add information about those groups, such as totals and counts. In this example, we selected two measures.
6. Click Filter, if desired, to add a filter to your report based on that field.
7. Set the condition for any filters you’ve added. You can also click the Custom Filter checkbox in the upper right of the filters section for more flexible options.
8. If desired, choose a visualization type, such as a column chart in this case. You can click on the gear menu in the upper right of the visualization section to customize your chart.
9. Click Run.

These options are just the basics. The Explore section has additional features that you can learn about by following our suggested learning path.