1.2. Looker Studio Essentials

In this chapter, we will quickly cover the basics of Looker Studio and get familiar with the user interface. Next, we’ll quickly see a high-level overview of most key features of Looker Studio through building a simple eCommerce dashboard from scratch

Connect to External Data

There are three types of connectors that you can use to connect your tool or data source to Looker Studio:

• **Google Connectors:** These are free data connectors for tools in Google Marketing and Cloud Platforms like Google Analytics, Google Ads, Google Sheets, YouTube and BigQuery.
• **Partner Connectors:** These are data connectors that are created and maintained by 3rd parties and can be used to connect to many different tools like Facebook Ads, Microsoft Ads, Shopify, Stripe, etc.. Partner Connectors expand Looker Studio’s connecting capabilities and are usually paid, with some offering a free trial period.
• Community Connectors: Anyone can create a custom data connector for a tool that has a properly documented APIs.

In case you’re using a tool that has no existing partner connector, you can have a developer custom build a community connector for you as long as your tool has a working API.

Collect User Input

In Looker Studio, **controls** and parameters are two mechanisms for collecting data, from the viewer.

You can define parameters and attach them to controls such as:

• Checkboxes
• Input Boxes
• Search Boxes
• Sliders
• Dropdown Menus
• Date Range Selectors

These mechanisms enable our report users to communicate with our reports. They also give us an idea of the kind of data our report users want to see.