Looker Software

Overview of Looker

Pros

- Doesn't have a steep learning curve
- LookML can be powerful if created correctly
- Awesome support (chat)

Cons

- Not as flexible sometimes when creating your visualization
- Limited visualizations comparing Tableau

Really powerful but difficult for some colleagues to pick up

Pros

It's amazing for any deep data analysis, exporting segments, and stat dashboards, once all your dashboards are set up, comprehensive real time stats are available at the click of a button.

Cons

Because it's such a comprehensive product, it's quite daunting at first glance. We've had trouble with some of our less technical team members taking the 'I don't understand Looker' stance before giving it a proper go.

Plug it in, Plug it in.

Pros

I've used Looker in a few different platforms and it always works as expected.

Cons

I feel I have to click more than I should to get the right view. I think the UI could be simplified and updated.

Looker Brings A New Meaning To Big Data

Pros

Looker has been amazing with the data and analytics they provide. We've been able to make so many significant improvements to our client experience across the board!

Cons

It does get a bit overwhelming at times to see just how much insight you can get into your business. Just stay the course,

Excellent Data Visualizer

Streamlines data for those with less experience in excel, making it easier for us to coordinate efforts, drive decision-making, and on board new users.

Pros

Works well for those that aren't quite experts in excel and prefer a different method of visualization.

Support/Updates are solid. I always like to parrot "invest in the team," and that's what you're doing with Looker. It seems they listen to their customers & feedback and take action on that information to improve the experience.

Cons

Sometimes a power-user who multi-tasks w/ a larger dashboard (myself, ha) can find it takes longer to load. It's not a huge deal, and maybe our computers need an upgrade (when don't they), but it's something to mention. There aren't any huge drawbacks to this program I can really think of.

Pretty Standard BI Tool

We used it a lot in the beginning, then it didn't match our salesforce, so we lost trust.

Pros

Get's the job done. Easy to pivot and deep dive. Visualizations look pretty slick, and packed with features. Relatively easy to import data from warehouse.

Cons

Not much transparency reduces trust from the team. Small errors are hard to troubleshoot and result in not using the dashboard much. No SQL CLI makes it disappointing for power users.

Detailed Data

Pros

Looker has allowed my company to organized and dig deeper into data that we collect in our CRM. You can really get down to the specific details of things. I like that you can easily create a look whenever needed and have the option to not save it if it's not needed again. I also like LookerBot for Slack.

Cons

It definitely has a bit of a learning curve. I still struggle with creating some reports but as someone who is not data-centric I've learned how to use it pretty well

Easy to use once fully integrated

Strong tool across our entire company.

Pros

Easy to use. Strong data visualization tools

Cons

Very labor intensive to get set up, lot of initial issues.

Looker Review

Pros

I use Looker extensively to generate reports for my clients. I love the functionality. It allows me to create recurring reports that can be sent automatically to my clients. I can also create entire dashboards with multiple reports that can be pushed out automatically. The visualization is great and reports can be generated in multiple formats.

Cons

I don't have anything negative to say about the system itself. The only challenge I have is with how often the password needs to be reset.

Pretty easy to use but missing features and quite buggy

Pros

- It's pretty easy to work with once you have a working sample
- Creating a chart is simple and creating a dashboard is very intuitive - you can just explore and save a few looks to your dashboard in a single run.
- Warns about errors right on the spot when editing a view

Cons

It's just not very mature yet. I don't see why I should hit the "clear cache & refresh" multiple times before it actually gives me a result from now and not from 4 days ago.

Also, it's missing some features like a custom sort of the results order. It's important when you're putting things on a dashboard.

It's also letting you validate and commit and only when running it returns SQL errors if there are any. I think it should look for syntax errors at an earlier stage.

customizing the column names is done the wrong way - you can't edit the current name, you need to retype it (why? such a silly feature)

Lastly, customizing the colors is really not intuitive. I figured it out but I'd do it differently.

Great software with continuus updates

Pros

I like that you truly do not have to understand SQL to end up being an expert and ask the ideal concerns in Looker. Looker is continuously making updates, they deliver really rapidly. I have a favorable outlook of this item.

Cons

I dislike for how long it takes given that it never ever truly caches the information. I need to truly make certain the questions I compose or the concerns I ask are really restricted as an outcome.

Key Metric Reporting is cooler now

Pros

I love this tool as I've used the Microsoft Power BI and SAP tools for years to run reporting and to show our KPIs for our local department and our region. With Looker, not only I or a few key managers, but all the team can run queries to visualize our key metrics and to see where we stand from week to week.

Cons

Not really any cons, but I would love for Looker to give us the ability to access real-time data and see a query automatically update within a given dashboard.

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.

Great Customer Service

Pros

The looker team has great customer service. They are flexible and easy to reach. The chat feature in the product is awesome, as it quickly connects you to a Customer Success rep who can help you with pretty much anything!

Cons

The cost for this product is quite high compared to other BI tools. Also, this product requires a full time data engineer to keep the backend of the product to build new data models.

Great business intelligence tool

This software helps me have access, measure, analyze, and act on our trusted data to inform everyday business activities.

Pros

It is a great tool as it has helped my company unify and liberate data, drive our business forward with data, give anyone the freedom to drive decision-making with data and help all employees view data as integral to everyday business activities. It has also enabled our company to consolidate data into one single platform and assure the accuracy of its data.

Cons

Not intuitive at all. Requires hours of training sessions. I have only been using Looker for a few weeks now and still have A LOT to learn. I'm sure it will be a great tool and very useful tool once I'm fully on board but it definitely is taking me more time than I thought.

Powerful data exploration tool, invaluable for reporting complex business data

Pros

Able to rapidly organise very large data sets and share dashboards and views. Fairly straightforward to build queries even for non-technical

Cons

Some limitations in reporting data views (e.g. Histograms) and doesn't have wide range of options for exporting to other reporting packages

Great tool...but hard to learn

Pros

I use Looker for two reasons. 1) to see my sales statistics and 2) to pull lists of subscriber data. Looker truly helps you to understand your data better than other tools.

Cons

I've had a steep learning curve with this tool. There's not a lot of formal training opportunities or help documentation.

Super-powerful tool if you know what you're doing

Pros

I love Looker for its handy dashboards and queries. Of course, as someone who doesn't speak "database queries" I have to rely on someone more technical to set most of these things up for me.

Cons

There's only so much utility I can get out of the tool without knowing how to create database queries. I'd love to be able to manipulate data in Looker without knowing any query languages so I could take advantage of more of Looker's power.

A+ Service Management

Pros

The most point is Deployment was quick and easy and even though it has a good collaboration and most important Support was very good.

Cons

while using this platform I didn't find any major concern but I do feel that the data retrieval is a bit slow sometimes.

Good Program with a lots of possibilities

Good program with a lot of potential and you can get information for everything that needed

Pros

You can see different information, the update is quick and you can get a lot of different reports with all the information that you need

Cons

A little difficult to get around the program , I am used to to the reports that I have a the moment but I still need some help to create a new one