The perfect solution for our stage business

I could not be happier with Looker. My one hesitation in recommending it is that other tools seemed to be able to provide 80% of the value at 20% of the cost, but I've only demoed those tools and not actually used them so I'm not sure if they could actually deliver.

Pros

Looker is incredibly easy to use for a casual user, which most of our users are. As soon as your email is activated, you have access to the product and new users need very little direction to start getting value out of it.

Cons

Relative to other BI tools, the advanced charting functionality is somewhat limited, but frankly that's not the main reason we bought Looker. Data scientists can use another tool of their choice, we have Looker for people who aren't data scientists.

Data Models, Security, and Amazing Customer Support

Looker is quickly becoming our go-to for reporting and dashboarding for anything requiring more than one data source (and some that are based on just one). Paired with a kick-ass centralized data warehouse (we use Snowflake), Looker lets us roll things out very quickly (provided our data infrastructure is in good shape). It did take a while to get going with Looker because it lays on top of the existing data infrastructure. Now that we have quite a bit of strong infrastructure in place in our centralized data warehouse, we are able to produce data products in Looker quite quickly.

Pros

Provisioning security allows us to control the user experience (and only show users things they would actually care about). This makes a dashboard or data product rollout far smoother. Additionally, the customer support (especially through the chat interface) is absolutely fantastic. Because Looker creates a custom URL for each explore you're working on, you can share with Customer Support your exact problem and work together to find a solution.

Cons

Looker Sales told us beforehand that it "writes the most performant SQL possible." I have not found this to be the case, as it often casts and does a few other things (I suspect to make it runnable no matter how you've set up your data). There are some limitations on the visualizations, etc., but Looker Customer Service has been super responsive when those come up.

Provides valuable insights for all users (Technical and End Users)

This software has truly put our leadership team above the benchmark with data efficiencies and making informed data driven decisions.

Pros

Looker is incredibly easy to use, and it easily scales with your technical abilities. As an Analyst, I can create very easy to use self serve reports for stakeholders. This saves time and effort for both parties. Looker also has a very intuitive way of organizing data and letting you quickly visualize data in your warehouse. It is reliable and the data visualization options are abundant. Our leadership team is miles ahead of others I've seen because of how quickly they were able to learn how to use Looker.

Cons

I don't necessarily see this as a con, however I think there is a big opportunity to help guide some new users through some of the more technical setup of Looker. I relied on a mentor to help take me through LookML and Models/Explores, but I would have loved to have some in product help with this.

Controlled Analytics Exploration

Like I said, it's a great tool for analysts that don't need a lot of flexibility or maybe just aren't used to working with a lot of data. To get the full value out of this software, you'll need a core group of experienced Data Analysts that can learn fast (to learn Lookers Table Calculation code which is similar to SQL) who can build a bunch of dashboards and views. You really don't want people who aren't savvy with data doing a lot of the creating because measures are always aggregated based on the dimensions you pull into each table...if a user forgets to add a specific dimension then measures could show the wrong value. This could be offset by having really good developers who architect the data in a way that doesn't allow this to happen.

Pros

It's a great data exploration tool for users who normally would get anxious when given a large dataset in something like Excel. It's generally simple to use and there can be unlimited Viewers (users at the lowest permissions level) through the enterprise product. Data Visualization is essentially done for you and Exploers (users at the second level of permissions) can build new visualizations & turn them into interactive dashboards. On the Looker platform, Explorers can locate a view (called an Explore) and then are given a list of dimensions and measures they can pull into a table. Users can create new dimensions using calculated fields and then save their views so any users with Viewer permissions (and up) can see what was put together.

Cons

With simplicity comes lack of flexibility. More skilled data analysts will want more flexibility than Looker can provide but at the same time you need to have highly skilled Data Analysts to be the Developers (high level of permissions) to set up the data so that less skilled analysts (the users who benefit from Looker most) who are Explorers don't build views that grossly misrepresent the data. My biggest pet peeve with this software as an Explorer is that you cannot make calculations on the base data...only the data that you pull into your table (called table calculations). That is a major feature that Tableau has that Looker does not have at the Explorer permission level. Of course developers can use LookML (Lookers data language) to create a new column...but a Developer license is more expensive and creating the fields take time and it's something you constantly will need.

A game changing data tool

Looker is a game changing tool insofar as it provides a 21st century approach to data tooling that massively amplifies how organisations can get access to, explore and power applications through data without making sacrifices from an accuracy perspective. Looker's company culture is fantastic and the focus on customer support really helps to extent the impact of the product itself.

Pros

* LookML because it enables a scalable semantic layer wherein business rules can be defined in a single place and logic is code based thereby enabling version control, testing and auditing. * Extendability because the data platform focus enables businesses to serve data to applications and people through a single component * Customer experience focus

Cons

* It can be hard to navigate the huge volumes of content that users build on Looker and find the canonical/VIP products that are the foundation for any company