My first hour with Google Data Studio
I'd never opened Google Data Studio before, so I hit record and tried to rebuild a Tableau dashboard from scratch to see how it feels as a Tableau user.
- Data Studio is entirely browser-based and free to start, with native connectors to Google data sources like YouTube analytics plus a large library of partner and open-source connectors built right into the product.
- It does not connect to Excel files directly through the web uploader, so you need to convert to CSV (or route via Google Sheets) before uploading.
- Boolean logic must be written with a CASE WHEN statement rather than a simple greater-than expression, and the community documentation was essential for working that out.
- Themes and layout hints are genuine strengths over Tableau, letting you restyle a whole dashboard in a click while still respecting manual colour choices, and snapping objects into alignment.
- Number formatting (currencies, percentages, compact thousands/millions) lives in the field definition rather than directly on the chart, which is less intuitive coming from Tableau.
- What Google Data Studio is0:00
- Trying it blind, not as a comparison0:57
- Free signup and first interface2:18
- Connecting to data sources5:10
- Uploading Superstore as CSV7:38
- First chart and dropping in Google Maps11:08
- Recreating the profitability calculation18:21
- Category charts via filters33:45
- Colouring the map by profit ratio40:44
- Scorecards and number formatting48:18
- Adding filters and interactivity57:44
- Final reflections64:12
0:00Hello, and welcome to another video. Today
0:01I'm going to be doing something very
0:03different. I'm going to be trying out a new
0:06tool. Now, in my previous video, I covered
0:10Google Analytics. This is the sort of web
0:12tracking and analytics platform that Google
0:14have, you can connect it to your website.
0:17And in the last video, I shared how to
0:18connect to it in Tableau. Now, Google
0:20Analytics itself is part of a much bigger
0:24product, which is called the Google
0:25Marketing platform. It's essentially a tool
0:27for marketing purposes, that allows you to
0:28connect to your website.
0:29It allows you to use different services to
0:30bring together intelligence about how your
0:33products are performing on the web. And so
0:35obviously being able to track your website
0:38is an important part of that. But they also
0:40have other products, Data Studio, which is
0:43a reporting tool, optimized surveys, tags,
0:47360 displays, and, you know, basically a
0:50whole suite of tools allowing online
0:52marketers to better understand how their
0:55products are doing.
0:57Now, today, I actually had this article pop
0:59up in my stream, Google kind of shoved this
1:02in front of my face. And it was a little
1:05sort of post about getting started with
1:07Google Data Studio. And I hadn't actually,
1:10you know, clocked that it was a reporting
1:11tool in the past, I'd come across it, but I
1:13hadn't clocked that it's a reporting tool.
1:16And I read this post just very quickly. It
1:18's a three minute read, I'll put a link to
1:19it in the description below.
1:21It's by a chap called Pranav Kaushik. And I
1:24read it, and it looked really
1:27straightforward. So I thought, why not let
1:30's try and do this for the first time.
1:34So I thought, why not let's try and do this
1:36for the first time, and do it live on
1:38camera. So I haven't actually tried to
1:40follow the steps that he's put in his blog,
1:42I'm going to do it blind, I'm actually not
1:44going to follow his blog post.
1:45And I'm just going to see how it is as a
1:47Tableau user, if it's an intuitive platform
1:49for me to connect to. Now, it's also
1:51important to note that this shouldn't be
1:53used as a comparison to Tableau.
1:55I've been using Tableau for nearly six
1:56years. And this is going to be the first
1:59six minutes of me using Google, the Google
2:03platform. So this isn't a comparison. This
2:06isn't something that you can walk away and
2:07say, Hey, look, you know, Data Studio is
2:09better or whatever.
2:11This is just me sharing my experience of
2:13using something for the first time. Okay,
2:16let's get stuck in.
2:18Okay, so to get started here, I'm in the
2:21basic sort of Google marketing platform
2:24page, I'll go ahead and click on Data
2:27Studio. And it's actually free to start
2:29using. So the first straight out of the
2:31block, here's an immediate comparison to
2:33Tableau.
2:34I said it wouldn't be a comparison. But
2:36this is an important thing to try out. Most
2:38analytics tools have some sort of upfront
2:41costs for trying them out, or trial period.
2:44Well, here, I've just gone on to the Data
2:45Studio homepage, there's a button there to
2:47try it out for free.
2:48So let's go ahead and tap and see what
2:49happens. I'll go ahead and close these
2:52other tabs now that I'm into the video.
2:55When it loads, you get this interface, it
2:57looks kind of interesting, it looks like I
2:59'm in my Gmail inbox, except for I'm about
3:01to sort of engage with analytics,
3:04analytical products here. So I'm just going
3:05to click on some of these, it's often a
3:07good idea to just click on something else
3:09and see how it's been brought together.
3:11And it looks very much like the interface I
3:14've seen in Google Analytics in some
3:17respects. You know, you can choose sort of
3:21start and end periods, you can choose pred
3:24efined periods. And the nice thing is, this
3:26is all entirely in the web, I haven't had
3:26to download any software to try this out.
3:29So this is another sort of big plus. So
3:31straight away, I'm getting some sort of,
3:33you know, context here. And if I click
3:36Apply, because this is a web tool,
3:39obviously, it's a little bit more
3:40responsive than you'd expect. But you've
3:43got some very standard chart types here.
3:47You can choose sort of different, different
3:49data sets. In fact, here, what I think I'm
3:52seeing is my own data. So I can actually go
3:55in and click on some of my own data sets
3:57that I have available to me in Google
3:59Analytics.
4:01Let's go ahead and try and build something
4:03new. So let's go back. And let's just get
4:06started. Okay, so this is my first time. So
4:09I get this sort of onboarding screen.
4:11Again, this is this is something I wish
4:13Tableau had, it'd be really, really nice
4:16feature. The minute you start building
4:18something, if you're new to something, it's
4:19nice to have this little guide. So you can
4:21connect to data, visualize, and then share
4:26the three kind of vital parts of analytics.
4:28If we get started, obviously, you've got
4:30terms and conditions here, and always
4:31recommend you quickly scan these, but I'm
4:33using my own personal account. And I'm only
4:36sort of playing around with data here. So I
4:38'll go ahead and accept in an enterprise
4:40context, you probably want to pay more
4:42attention to that as well.
4:44Sign up for emails to get the most of the
4:47Google Data Studio platform. I'm really
4:50reluctant to sign up to these, but I think
4:53tips and recommendations is actually a good
4:57one.
4:58Would you like to receive emails with tips
4:59and recommendations about how to get most
5:01of the Google Data Studio account? I think
5:03that's a good one to finish with. So I'll
5:06just click no to the rest and click
5:08finished.
5:10And please continue with trying to create
5:14something new. Okay, great. So here I am, I
5:17've clicked on that. And okay, we get
5:20prompted with this interface to connect to
5:22a data source.
5:24Immediately, obviously, I'm seeing Google
5:26data sources here. So a USP here is if you
5:28're completely sort of connected to the
5:31Google experience, the Google data
5:33experience, then actually, this is probably
5:35going to work out really well for you,
5:37because it's already got native connectors
5:40right in there.
5:41So Google connectors have their own sort of
5:43section. And these are the ones up here, I
5:46can even connect to my YouTube analytics,
5:49it's actually pretty cool, because, you
5:52know, getting that data out of Google
5:54YouTube is actually requires an API.
5:57So immediately, there's already a USB here
6:00that that's quite, quite, quite unique,
6:03Google are obviously making it very easy to
6:06connect to their own data sources, which
6:10which you'd expect. They've also got
6:12databases that are hosted by Google.
6:13So maybe if you've got these running inside
6:15of the Google Cloud Platform, I'm assuming
6:17that's what these would let you connect to,
6:19you can build your own connectors.
6:21It's good to see that as well, they've got
6:23partners here. So the 208 partner
6:25connectors to connectors built and
6:27supported by Data Studio partners.
6:30So this also informs me that there's quite
6:33a big crowd of professional partners who
6:35are building connectors that Google is
6:38endorsing here inside of the product. So
6:42this, again, is quite cool.
6:43In the Tableau world, this would be a web
6:45data connector, there is a web data
6:46connector, you know, web page. But here, it
6:49's actually in the product as I'm connecting
6:51. So it's apparent to me what I can connect
6:54to.
6:55So if I was just type in YouTube, for
6:57example, you see, I'd get the YouTube
7:00connectors from partners, as well as
7:02YouTube's own connectors.
7:05And this is really cool, because it allows
7:06you to see instances where maybe a partner
7:08connector can do something that the native
7:10connector can't, if that makes sense.
7:13So it's really cool. And they've also got
7:15this section for open source connectors.
7:17That's kind of nice. It's kind of nice to
7:19see that.
7:20If I just close that, and then just go to
7:22my data sources, I'm wondering what this is
7:25. Okay, so these are, okay, these are sample
7:28data sources, a bit like Superstore sales
7:30that you'd get.
7:31And these have been sort of, you know,
7:33dropped into this instance of that can
7:36connect to them.
7:38Now, the data I'm familiar with the Super
7:40store sales, and obviously, that's not going
7:43to be in the Google Cloud Platform.
7:46But what I can do is I can bring it into
7:47Google Sheets. So let me go ahead and do
7:50that. I'm going to probably fast forward
7:52this process because this is really boring.
7:55I'm basically going to try and bring in
7:57Superstore sales. In fact, better than that
8:00, I'm just going to upload the file rather
8:03than rather than create that.
8:05Let's just see if it supports Excel. It
8:07doesn't doesn't outwardly immediately say
8:09that that's a connector.
8:11So I'm assuming Excel itself isn't a
8:13supported connector. But maybe you have to
8:17go through Google Sheets.
8:19CSVs and Excels aren't the same thing. So
8:22let's, let's, let's try and do this first.
8:27Yep, they see the upload your data Google
8:28Cloud Storage, we need your authorization
8:30to connect to Google Cloud Storage. Okay,
8:32let's go ahead and authorize that.
8:35I should have some enough sort of Google
8:37Cloud Storage space available to my account
8:40, I have actually signed up to the Google
8:42Cloud Platform in the past.
8:45So let's go ahead and click to upload files
8:47. Let's go to my documents. Let's go to my
8:50Tableau repository data sources. And I'm
8:52worried this is not going to be a CSV that
8:55it's going to see here.
8:57That's correct. So that's not a CSV. So I'm
9:00already a little bit of a snag here, it
9:02seems like through the web, it's not able
9:04to natively connect to an Excel file.
9:07So let me go ahead and turn this into a CSV
9:09. And we'll be back in a second. So I'm just
9:12going to fast forward through this bit. It
9:15's a little bit boring.
9:16Okay, so I've got my CSV file here, I'm
9:40just going to go ahead and essentially
9:42connect to that by uploading the file.
9:45So let's go ahead click to upload files.
9:52It should open up the location as before,
9:57except for in here, we do now have a CSV if
10:02I just make sure that I select it there,
10:07click open.
10:09Okay, so I've got my CSV file there. It
10:16looks like it's processing it. So it's
10:16looking at the basically the total number
10:18of files is one, it's now finished
10:20processing it, it's uploaded, it's two meg,
10:233% of my 100 meg used.
10:26I think this might be my sort of file limit
10:30, creation date, and last modified date. So
10:35let's go ahead and add that.
10:39Okay, cool. So you can obviously clearly
10:42add more files and then potentially connect
10:45more information to this if that makes
10:47sense.
10:48So I'll just go ahead with this simple data
10:53set for now. It authenticated me there. And
10:56okay, now we're inside of the product. And
10:58this is interesting, it's actually taken
11:00one of my, you know, columns order ID, and
11:04it's immediately started to sort of create
11:06something very simple.
11:08It's got like a canvas here that we can see
11:10and then across the top here, you've got
11:12the tool pane on the right, you've got the
11:15blue and green that we're familiar with in
11:17the tableau.
11:19You know, denoting dimensions and measures,
11:21you can actually see that it's got the
11:23available fields list here on the right
11:25hand side, a little bit disorienting,
11:28because normally this is on the left.
11:30And most web pages you read from left to
11:31right. So by putting it over there, I think
11:33it's a little bit difficult to see it. But
11:35maybe that's just, you know, me needing to
11:37get used to the platform.
11:39I can obviously add different aspects here
11:42to this table. So it's obviously chosen
11:45this particular table type. So what I'm
11:47going to do is I'm actually just going to
11:50delete this, I'm just going to not try and
11:52use any of the hints that it's giving me.
11:54And just let's try and go from scratch. So
11:57now that I've deleted that it's giving me
12:00themes and layouts. This is actually quite
12:02cool. It's making me think about the design
12:05upfront.
12:06And it's kind of interesting. These look
12:08like the kind of layouts you get in
12:11Microsoft Excel, or, you know, office word
12:14in terms of design.
12:16So let me just let's just click what
12:17happens when I click on one of these. Okay,
12:19nothing really happened. I think it just
12:21themes the contents that's already on the
12:23canvas, but because we don't have any,
12:26there's nothing for it to work with.
12:28So I'm going to go here and click Add a
12:30chart. And now we can see the different
12:32chart types. You've got a scorecard style
12:35design, this is really cool time series, a
12:38couple of others.
12:40You know, these look like the standard
12:41chart types that we're used to. But the
12:43cool thing here is, you know, where we talk
12:45about mapping, they've obviously got Google
12:47Maps.
12:48So again, that is a USB, not many places
12:50can you drag in a Google Maps, sort of item
12:53here and have that as part of your chart.
12:57Okay. And that is really cool. Okay, I did
13:00not expect it to do that I dragged in
13:02Google Maps.
13:04And what it's clearly done is it's it's
13:06looked at my data, and it's gone and got
13:08the country of origin, and it's dropped it
13:10into the view and it's using Google Maps to
13:13do that.
13:14And okay, that's pretty cool. I like that.
13:16I like that a lot. And in tablet, we've got
13:19Mapbox and some other really rich sort of
13:21assets. But here, we've got, you know,
13:23Google Maps, I was trying to preview it,
13:26but actually, I think I'm in the build view
13:28.
13:29I'm not able to preview it very well. If I
13:31click View, then yes, okay, that gives me
13:33the ability to zoom in. And it behaves just
13:36like Google Maps, I can even sort of go
13:38down to street level view here, right
13:40inside of the visualization.
13:43I don't know why you'd want to do that.
13:44Although I have dropped myself here. So
13:46very interesting. That's pretty cool. Okay,
13:48let's go back and let's just zoom back. How
13:52would I reset this?
13:54Okay, so that goes full screen, let's exit
13:56that we don't want to go full screen. Okay,
13:59cool. I think I have to go back to edit
14:01here. And then we're where we are where we
14:04need to be.
14:05Now, this page is very sort of wide. What I
14:09'd probably like to do is change the layout.
14:12So let's add the width here, I found this
14:14on the right hand side. So let's make this
14:171600.
14:18Okay. And if we just scroll down there,
14:20there, you can see that, okay, it's just
14:23sits in the view nicely now. So we'll have
14:26this here. Now, what I've got in my mind is
14:29this visualization in Tableau. This is the
14:32default view that you get inside of Tableau
14:35, when you open up one of the sample work
14:37books, and I'm just going to try and get as
14:39close to this as I possibly can, and see
14:41where we end up.
14:43This could take a while. So apologies, if
14:45you're watching along and trying to see how
14:48I do. And I should have done this as a live
14:50stream, but it's just a spur of the moment
14:52idea ahead. So let's, let's call this what
14:54do we call it in Tableau executive overview
14:56profitability. Okay, so let's just type
15:01that in.
15:09Cool.
15:10I can't type.
15:12Now, I really like the fact that this is in
15:14the browser, my laptop fans aren't spinning
15:16, everything is nice and smooth.
15:19It's just in the browser, nothing to
15:21install on straight into my sort of
15:23analysis. And I am going really slowly here
15:26because I have no clue what I'm doing. But
15:28I'm just going to try and see if I can set
15:29this up. So we've got another chart here
15:31with monthly sales by product, office
15:34supplies and technology. Okay, cool.
15:38So the other thing is this map is a Google
15:41Maps map. If I delete it, let's just see if
15:44we add this other one, a geo map. What map
15:47format does this give me?
15:50Okay, gives me a filled map. Cool. So
15:53Google Maps is obviously a specific map
15:55type. Okay. Now, interestingly, Google Maps
15:59zoomed in to the area that I was actually
16:02interested in, whereas this has given me an
16:05entire world map.
16:07So I'm sure there's probably is a setting
16:09here to change this, but we'll just leave
16:12it as is. And then we can kind of try and
16:15figure out what we're doing here.
16:18If I look at these options, what does it do
16:22?
16:23Okay, cool.
16:25Now, just looking at some of these options
16:27on the right here, you've got the ability
16:29to blend data. Okay.
16:31So there's a little bit of a demonstration
16:32here about how to blend data, you obviously
16:35create some sort of relationships.
16:37And you do joins here. And again, I have to
16:40give it to Google here. This is in the
16:42product because it's in the browser. It's
16:45innately very easy for them to link to this
16:47.
16:48So I just basically clicked on this
16:50information icon, and it pops up this tab
16:52straight to the documentation.
16:55And this can actually be sort of a big deal
16:57breaker for a lot of people because a lot
16:59of people will just spend time getting
17:01frustrated in the product, never thinking
17:03to go to support pages because they sort of
17:06expect things to be intuitive.
17:08So having that nudge there just makes it
17:10that little bit easier to find what you're
17:12trying to do.
17:14Right, I've done a lot of talking, I really
17:15need to start building charts here. So let
17:17's, let's try and add another chart. And for
17:19this one, I think we want an area map.
17:23So I'm going to put it over here. Notice as
17:25I do this, it's giving me little layout
17:27hints. Man, I wish this was in Tableau.
17:29Let's just drop this here. And let's just
17:32see if we can drag this out. Yeah, we can.
17:35Cool.
17:36Okay, it's filled it with something. I didn
17:38't want it to fill it with country. So maybe
17:40here, I'm going to have to start checking
17:42this out.
17:43So it's got the breakdown by dimension. I
17:44don't want it to be broken down by anything
17:46.
17:47So interestingly, I dragged the country
17:48onto the canvas thinking that would remove
17:50it, but actually it's dragged the map.
17:53So I need to just right click on that and
17:54then delete that. Okay. And then go back in
17:58here.
17:59And I think if I, if I just remove this
18:02over here, I actually can't remove it.
18:07I can change the breakdown, but I just want
18:09to remove the breakdown entirely.
18:12I guess I haven't got the other object to
18:15break it down by. So in this case, we'd
18:18need to basically check if the item is
18:19profitable or not.
18:21So let's go to Tableau and let's just go
18:23see the condition that's actually coloring
18:26this order profitability.
18:28Now, where are we here? Trying to find the
18:32ranges that are used here.
18:35So where is it? Where is it gone? Let's
18:38just type it in here. Order profitable or
18:41not.
18:42Okay. So here's my calculation. Oh, God, it
18:44's a fixed, it's a fixed level of detail
18:46calculation inside of the calculation.
18:50So I basically just need to find if the
18:52profit is greater than zero or not at the
18:55level of the order ID.
18:57Right. So let's go ahead and see how this
18:59can be done.
19:01Okay. So let's see if we can add a custom
19:04calculation. You've got the dimension here,
19:07which is the order date.
19:09That's what's going across the bottom. We
19:12have the record count, which is I assume
19:15this is the number of rows.
19:17Let's say I was to just replace that with
19:20profit. Then this would give me the total
19:24profit.
19:25Yes. By the different countries. I actually
19:28don't want to do the breakdown, so I need
19:31to really figure out how to remove this.
19:34Let's just say I do that. What happens if I
19:40, okay, I can drill down the dates like we
19:42can in Tableau. That's pretty cool.
19:44Let's switch that off. Breakdown dimension.
19:50We can create a field. Here we go. So we
19:52can create a field right there.
19:53That was a little bit hard to find. Okay.
19:56So the profitability. Let's just paste that
20:01in.
20:02Oh, that's my web address. It's not copied
20:04the format of the calculation. So let's
20:07just click that again.
20:09I'm just going to take that as is. It's a
20:11little bit rogue to expect us to just work
20:15inside of Google.
20:17But let's just go ahead and delete this.
20:20Okay. And just see what happens if we say
20:24sum of profit is greater than zero.
20:27Okay. Is that a valid calculation? Okay.
20:31Invalid formula, invalid input expression
20:33unsupported.
20:35Okay. So let's just see. It's got these
20:38squares which Tableau needs. We don't need
20:41that in Google.
20:43So now that looks to work unsupported
20:45operator greater than. Okay. So, okay, let
20:51's just do something else then.
20:53Let's just say I do that. And we don't do a
20:58text. It should be a Boolean. Let's see if
21:01that changes anything.
21:04Okay. So this is already proving a little
21:06bit tricky. Let's just see how we can solve
21:10this now.
21:11Let's just say, okay, this is the profit.
21:14The profit is greater than zero. Un
21:17supported operator greater than or equal to.
21:23True or false? Interesting. So this is
21:31correct. I can't think of any other way to
21:34write this.
21:35So let's just clear this and go back. Okay.
21:41It's obviously got this calculation. It's
21:42given me an error here.
21:43So let's just add a field here. And when
21:47you do that, you get this option to see all
21:50the fields, right?
21:51And I think if I click add a field here, we
21:54get to the formula. So I can just paste
21:57this.
21:58And I'm hoping here I can get a little bit
22:00more assistance as to how to write this
22:02calculation.
22:04So it gives it like an ID. We can call this
22:09profitability.
22:12And again, this the way I'm writing this
22:15isn't making sense. So in this case, what I
22:19'd normally do is I'd go over to Google.
22:21Surprise, surprise.
22:22Interestingly here, it's not actually
22:26giving me the option to learn how to write
22:31a calculation. It's not giving me any sort
22:34of hint anywhere.
22:36So whilst I congratulated it earlier on,
22:38here it's not doing the same thing. So we
22:41're going to have to go ahead and do that.
22:43So Google Data Studio formula. Cool.
22:53So let's just see sums. So here,
22:56aggregation sum, sum of the thing you want
22:58to do. That's correct.
23:00Okay. So let's say Google Data Studio
23:11Boolean. There you go. Boolean. That's the
23:14thing. How to work with Boolean data type.
23:15So I've got this article here, but there's
23:18also this thread. So, okay.
23:23So there's the case thing here as well. But
23:26I think that's typically something else. So
23:30let's just see. Okay. That's a case again.
23:33How to work with Boolean's data types. Let
23:35's see. Okay. Cool. So here we go. Here the
23:39field is revenue, grades and forecasted
23:41revenue.
23:42Only two possible things. True or false.
23:45For Google Sheets, the value trues and
23:46false. This seems straightforward, doesn't
23:48it?
23:49Yeah. It's not going to work. When you
23:51create a report from the data source, which
23:53is file revenue_shooker, you'll get system
23:55error.
23:56It's happened because Studio did not
23:57recognize a Boolean value stored in Google
23:59Sheets as a Boolean value.
24:01Instead, it treats these Boolean fields as
24:03text fields. Okay. No matter how you store
24:06Boolean fields in blah, blah, blah, blah,
24:09the Studio won't recognize them. So add a
24:13field, enter the following formula into the
24:17field. Okay.
24:19So this is interesting. New, for example,
24:26enter the name of the field, enter the
24:27formula in the formula field.
24:31Right. Make sure you see the green colored
24:33checkmark at the bottom of the formula box.
24:36You've entered the formula correctly. If
24:39the formula is the symbol instead of the
24:42green checkmark,
24:44the case when is revenue true, then true,
24:48else false, end. This means if the value...
24:51Okay, great.
24:54Right. Right. You can now see new
24:59calculation listed in the data source
25:04schema.
25:06Okay. When you create the report based on
25:08this data source, which uses new
25:09calculation, it will look like one of these
25:11.
25:12Yeah. We'll only do a short video. Okay,
25:14cool. So let's just try this out a little
25:17bit.
25:18So I go back to all fields and I click add
25:23a field and I say profitability. Prof
25:31itability.
25:33Let's call version two because we're being
25:36rather successful. What's this formula?
25:41Okay. This formats the formula. Let's click
25:43on this help little icon and let's say we
25:46can click on this Boolean.
25:47So this time around, I seem to have found
25:49the help thing. When I type in Boolean, it
25:52comes up with this case command.
25:53So I think it can only do this using a case
25:58command, which seems a bit odd, but that's
26:01fine.
26:02Okay. So let's just try case. And then you
26:08can say when some... Let's just do this.
26:13When profit is greater than zero, then...
26:20And this one that you want to say false...
26:23True, sorry.
26:24This profit is greater than zero. So let's
26:27just type in the function true.
26:30Yeah. When profit... Okay, you got some
26:42more to completion going on there.
26:45Is less than or equal to zero. Then false.
26:56You can see it's also doing auto-completion
26:58there. And then you just need to type end
27:01here.
27:02Okay. And this one seems to work. So, okay,
27:07that's my first hurdle there.
27:10I think understanding the way formulas work
27:12in Google Data Studio is really important,
27:15but thankfully you can just problem solve
27:17it like you can anywhere else.
27:19And it's actually good that there was a
27:20community article on this already.
27:22That's a really important part of learning
27:24Tableau, right? So you always need to be
27:26able to Google and find these solutions for
27:28yourself.
27:28So here I am in real time just finding that
27:30solution. So I'm going to hit save.
27:33And then what I can do is I can hit
27:35finished. And what I can do is bring
27:38profitability version two in place of that
27:43one.
27:44There we go. Okay, great. And we've got
27:47this true and false here, but you can see
27:50it's very, you know, it is actually
27:52separating.
27:53They've got two different colors. I can't
27:55see the colors too well, but that's fine
27:57because I think it's just the theme that I
27:59've chosen.
28:00So the next thing I'm going to do is I need
28:02to actually choose the right level for this
28:05date going across the bottom here.
28:09Okay, because at the moment it's by day,
28:11but actually I think I just want it by
28:14month.
28:15So let's try and figure out how to do that.
28:17So let's remove the year and just keep the
28:22year month and let's see what happens here.
28:25Okay, very nice. There we go. So we figured
28:27that out. We can ignore the colors for a
28:29little bit.
28:30Also, the order of profitable and not
28:33profitable is not in the right sort of
28:36order.
28:37So again, we'll need to come back to that.
28:40But okay, I'd like to give this a title.
28:44So I can't. There's no. Let me click on the
28:49style tab here.
28:50If I click on the style tab or click on the
28:53style tab, go to style. And then is there a
28:56title thing here?
28:58I can show the axis. I can change a few
29:00things here and there. I can give it a grid
29:02, customize it.
29:04There's quite a few design options, I have
29:06to say. This is actually quite nice.
29:09One bugbear in Tableau is the fonts. And oh
29:12my word, this uses the Google Fonts API, of
29:16course.
29:17So it has a slightly nicer range of fonts,
29:19if that makes sense.
29:21So you can obviously probably customize the
29:23fonts that you want to see in that list as
29:25well.
29:26I'm just assuming that's a feature because
29:29it's a Google API to use those fonts.
29:32100% stacking. Okay, cool. So this shows
29:36you the percentage of total, which is kind
29:39of nice.
29:40Although that doesn't make sense. 100%
29:42stacking. What does that mean? What does
29:45that actually mean?
29:48Interesting. I'm not sure what that
29:51actually means, 100% stacking.
29:53I can do a running total. I can show the
29:56data points. I can show labels. That is
30:01messy.
30:02Compact numbers, what's that? I don't
30:07understand these, but I'm assuming they'd
30:09be documentation.
30:11You can color them by series order or
30:13dimension values.
30:15Okay, cool. When I click on those values,
30:17you can see here I actually get a color
30:19pane that allows me to manage these
30:22centrally.
30:23That's quite cool. So let's go down and
30:26click on true. Let's make our own custom
30:30colors.
30:32Nice, we get a little bit of a nice color
30:35palette here. Let's choose a nice green
30:39here.
30:41Let's just go down. There you go. That
30:43sounds good. And false. Let's just go ahead
30:47and choose maybe an orange.
30:51Maybe a bit more wild here. Just click on
30:55orange. Cool.
30:57So we've changed those two. Hit close. And
31:00now you can see that it's filling.
31:02Although it's doing something weird with
31:03the fill in between.
31:05So the line and the fill are slightly
31:07different variants of the same color. That
31:10's really frustrating.
31:12And yeah, that's kind of annoying. Anyway,
31:14we're not done with this chart because if I
31:17go back to Tableau
31:20and look at furniture, office supplies and
31:22technology, we've got this sort of
31:23breakdown here.
31:24And this breakdown, I think, is the
31:26category. Yes, it's the category.
31:28So we need to try and see if we can break
31:30this down by category. Right. How would I
31:34do this?
31:35Now I've got the profitability here. Then
31:38it's got the metric profit.
31:41And so I think I'm just going to just try
31:46and see what happens if I put.
31:50Wherever. Can I add a dimension there? Yeah
31:53, let's put category there and see how does
31:56that break things down?
31:58It doesn't at all. Okay, let's bring it
32:02back up.
32:04Okay. That doesn't seem to be doing
32:06anything, which is a shame. Let's just
32:08click a preview in case it's a bug.
32:11Oh, cool. You get nice tool tips when you
32:12hover over these. So that's kind of nice.
32:17It's kind of done for me.
32:19Oh, nice. And it even gives you this hover
32:20over over the axis. That's kind of cool.
32:28Okay, so let's let's go back. Where is. How
32:34do I break this down?
32:36This is the challenging thing you see when
32:38you try something new and you don't know
32:40what you're doing.
32:42And you just try to figure out how do I
32:45break this down? All right. When in doubt,
32:49just try and put this thing pretty much
32:51anywhere.
32:52So we've created one for profitability. I
32:54don't want it to break down that metric
33:00again.
33:02I want to see if I can just do that. What
33:07does that do? Oh, interesting. That
33:12replaces the metric that's on there, which
33:12is frustrating.
33:13That's not what I want to do. I can go back
33:17here with undo.
33:21Okay. Let's go back again. No. Okay. The
33:27undo button is not actually working here.
33:32Right. Okay. It's just not working. Okay.
33:34Cool. So let's click on the chart again.
33:39And let's drag in profitability version two
33:41. Let's replace that and just get back to
33:43where we were before.
33:45I think my only option in this, at least
33:48for the sake of this video, not make it a
33:51half an hour video about how to break this
33:53into two.
33:54I think what I have to do is I have to
33:55filter this and then duplicate it three
33:57times for the different categories.
33:59That's the only way I can think of doing
34:00this very quickly. I'm certain this is me
34:03not understanding how to use this.
34:06Although that might not be the case. So let
34:13's apply filter.
34:17Let's add the filter first. And what we can
34:20do is we can.
34:22I'm getting a few bugs here as I'm using it
34:24. It might be my laptop.
34:26You can now hear the fan going. I've been I
34:28'm recording a video in the background, so
34:30that doesn't probably help.
34:31But let's let's bring category here and to
34:36can I scroll down that scroll down even
34:40further.
34:41Add a filter category. Okay. You have to
34:45add a filter.
34:47Let's say where are we? What is category?
34:51Okay.
34:54So it makes you build the filter manually.
34:58Right. And the categories we're interested
35:01are furniture and office supplies.
35:04So let's start with furniture. I'm
35:08intrigued that it's making me build this.
35:13So if I hit save. Right. There we go.
35:18So that's very interesting. I also think
35:20this shot is wrong. So this is this is the
35:22furniture department.
35:25I don't think at any point the furniture
35:27department gets is negative unprofitability
35:30.
35:31There is no profitability, but it doesn't
35:34drop below zero.
35:36It could just be actually this chart in
35:37Tableau is not showing negative values.
35:40Right. Because if I go to edit the filter
35:42here, you can see that it's now it's
35:45showing the full range.
35:47So if I do that and hit apply, what happens
35:49? Okay. So it does go negative.
35:52Click OK. And if I edit the axis just just
35:55to indulge this a little bit, I just do
35:59minus.
36:01Let's say this is actual hard sell. So let
36:04's do minus 100,000.
36:08Yeah, you can see the profitability never
36:09sort of goes below zero. Right.
36:13Kind of negative profitability because you
36:14'd have to literally be giving people money,
36:17if that makes sense.
36:18So my chart in Google isn't quite correct.
36:22I think the way it's aggregating this is
36:26making it so that we're actually seeing
36:29instances where we're potentially selling
36:32something at a massive loss.
36:35And it's aggregating those by the month.
36:37And so we're not able to see that sort of
36:40behaving slightly differently to how to
36:42expect.
36:43Okay, that said, I can duplicate this.
36:52There it is.
36:56And we get this nice ability to sort of
36:58line these up. I have to say that that's
37:00much easier than in Tableau.
37:02Let's duplicate this again.
37:07And let's bring that down here.
37:10All right. So this one was furniture. The
37:13next one should be office supplies. So let
37:15's go ahead.
37:18And get rid of that one doesn't change my
37:23previous one. But then I do have to go in
37:26and add a filter here.
37:29So what I have to do is I have to bring
37:32category in here and then create a filter.
37:38Select a field.
37:42Category.
37:50Yeah, equals two. It's a shame that it's
37:54not auto filling this. I feel like I'm
37:57missing a trick here.
38:00So let's just make sure that's correct. It
38:05's sparked correctly. Hit save.
38:07There we go. There's the office supplies
38:09one.
38:10And then this last one is technology. Cool.
38:20So let's, in fact, if I just clear that,
38:23add a filter, create filter, select a field
38:27.
38:27And equals two and technology.
38:31So I feel like auto completion should be a
38:35feature here and I'm probably just missing
38:39it. And that's why this is behaving this
38:40way. Cool.
38:40So where are we so far? Let's just say I
38:44said at the beginning of this, this wasn't
38:46going to be a comparison and it shouldn't
38:49be.
38:50But as a first time user, I've, you know,
38:53with some understanding of Tableau and
38:55another analytics product that does help me
38:57here.
38:58I'm sort of looking for synergies between
38:59the two products. And actually it's got me
39:01this far. I've got a basic map.
39:04I've got this, you know, chart that shows
39:06profitability. Right. And I'm actually able
39:10to start to understand what's going on with
39:14my with my data.
39:16Now, earlier on, you saw me look at these
39:17themes and I think what these do is they
39:19wholesale change the look of the dashboard.
39:22So let's say if I click on this, you see it
39:24changes the whole entire look. And man,
39:28this is something I've always cried out for
39:29in Tableau with style sheets, actually.
39:31Where just just have some of these themes
39:33here and just in the click of a button, it
39:35changes the whole chart to match that
39:37specific theme where possible.
39:40And so I think that's really cool. And it
39:42doesn't seem to be changed these because I
39:43gave a specific coloring for true and false
39:45here.
39:46So it's also respecting my personal choices
39:49that I've made in this particular space.
39:52Whereas here, you know, I haven't made a
39:53choice about that yet.
39:55And when I go to a dark layer, it actually
39:57keeps those same colors. It's not changing
40:00those as well.
40:01So it's just quite cool to have that kind
40:03of capability. And actually, now that I do
40:05that, I can see I have an issue there.
40:07If I can actually drag this down. Now we
40:10have something that looks kind of cool.
40:14Now, this map, I'd like to zoom in. There's
40:17so much that needs to change on this.
40:20Number one, if I go back to the view, and
40:23this is taking so long, those three charts,
40:25I couldn't figure out how to separate them.
40:28So I had to build three charts to do that.
40:30And then the same would happen here. So
40:32that would be six vertical charts.
40:35I'm not going to do that in this video. I'm
40:37just going to try and get this world map to
40:40show the profitability on the actual color.
40:44Okay, so I'm going to take the profit ratio
40:46, which is a calculation. We're going to try
40:48and put that on color.
40:50So I'm a bit lazy. Let's go ahead to Table
40:53au and let's grab the profit ratio.
40:56The reason I'm using Tableau as a point of
40:59context is because that's the tool I'm
41:03coming from. And people are typically
41:05coming from another tool and they want to
41:05try and bring their understanding as well.
41:08So analytics tools generally need to follow
41:11sort of the same principles so that users
41:14can just hop in and out of many tools.
41:17Because if I'm strictly honest, no
41:19analytics platform uses just one tool in
41:21their stack.
41:23You either use this database, that platform
41:25, and you use different things for different
41:27reasons.
41:28If I knew how to use Google Data Studio, I
41:30'd probably use it to build my YouTube
41:32analytics dashboard because they already
41:34have a connector right there.
41:36And so it's just something to be aware of
41:39when you're working with this kind of data.
41:43Now, I've selected this map. I've obviously
41:45got this option here to change it to a
41:47Google map if I wanted to.
41:49And actually the Google map has these sort
41:52of nice elements actually.
41:55I wonder if I can make it a filled map at
41:57the same time.
41:59Let's have a see. So we've got this. We've
42:04got these options at the top.
42:07I think maybe in the style tab, if I click
42:10on the style tab, click on the chart and
42:15then click on the style tab.
42:17Here we go. Right. OK, so you get the map.
42:23OK, you get the colors, you get the bubble.
42:27Bubble there. You can change the size of
42:29those bubbles.
42:31You get colors, but it doesn't let you
42:34choose the specific fill type.
42:37OK, and you've got the theme and stuff like
42:38that.
42:39And you can kind of reduce the complexity
42:41to do with things like labels from lots of
42:43complexity to no complexity.
42:46I like that slider actually. Rather than in
42:48Tableau, you have to choose the levels
42:50manually.
42:51And this one, it just gives you a slider so
42:53you can kind of just choose the level of
42:55detail.
42:56So that's kind of cool. And, you know, in
43:01some respects, it's kind of a nice to have
43:04feature.
43:06It's not a necessary feature. But I can't
43:08seem to make this a filled map.
43:10So let's go back to the one which I had
43:12before, which was a filled map.
43:15And maybe when we go to the style settings
43:17here, we might be able to change a little
43:22bit of the context.
43:25You get this little sort of toolbar across
43:27the top when things are happening.
43:29And so now that's loaded up. Cool. We're
43:32back in here. Let's go to style.
43:34And we've got different size. So mid color
43:37value, min color value.
43:39OK, so you can choose the color that drives
43:43the formatting. We haven't created that
43:46calculation yet.
43:48I can't seem to make it zoom in on this
43:51particular area.
43:53I don't know. I don't know. I don't know
43:55what it would take to do that.
43:57But that would be a really nice feature to
43:59be able to just zoom into the scope that's
44:02actually shown in my map,
44:04because there's no need to show me the
44:08whole of the world when I only have
44:11European data in here.
44:15OK. Yeah, I again, if you if you know what
44:18I'm doing wrong, drop something in the
44:20comments and let me know what you what I
44:23should be doing instead.
44:25Maybe I can crowdsource some knowledge on
44:27Google Data Studio.
44:29So, yeah, I'm just going to leave that as
44:31is if there's no other way of showing that.
44:34But what we can do is we can correct this
44:37this profit ratio calculation.
44:40So let's go ahead. And the record count is
44:43actually what's on color, I believe.
44:46OK, so the number of records. So I'm just
44:48going to go ahead and add a field and we're
44:51going to create our own.
44:54I'll just paste the profit value that we
44:57saw before. So let's just remove that.
45:01And then. This is going to write an
45:04aggregation. It's good to see that
45:07basically writing it the same way.
45:11OK, this should be a valid calculation. Yes
45:13, it is great. So let's type this in.
45:22You get like a field ID. I assume these can
45:24then be called in APIs.
45:26And when you're creating them, it's nice to
45:28be actually able to see that in Tableau.
45:30This actually happens as well. But what you
45:31have to do is you have to know what it's
45:33called in the data source.
45:35And it can be could be really, really weird
45:36. So it's just nice to see that metadata
45:39here whilst you're creating it.
45:41So now we've created a a profit ratio. I'm
45:45just going to go ahead and drop that onto
45:47the metric.
45:49And now we see this color range. So what I
45:52'd like to do is is change the legend.
45:55Let's try and see if we can change the
45:57legend. OK, we can show the legend here.
45:58That's fine.
46:01Oh, so you can change. Yes. OK, so you can
46:03set the top. I can see how this works now.
46:05So you can set the max color value, which
46:07in this case, let's just keep it as blue.
46:10You can set the min color value if I just
46:14click out of this. If I go to maybe this
46:17this red here and then the middle value, we
46:20can set to something neutral.
46:22So I think I'm just going to set this up to
46:24like a very, very light yellow.
46:27So you can kind of we're trying to kind of
46:29emulate the Tableau map here.
46:31But obviously, you can see that this is
46:34this is just very sort of basic.
46:37So if I just go preview this very quickly,
46:39you can see here that we obviously get some
46:42really nice capabilities here.
46:44And you can download that specific data
46:46just from these three dots. And again, you
46:49can drill up and drill down.
46:53So this is kind of cool because I think I
46:55broke something in doing that. Oh, I
46:57removed the I removed the information.
47:01OK, cool. So I now know what that does.
47:03This drill toggle lets me cycle through
47:05whatever is in the drill down tab.
47:07But I don't think it should show you that
47:09if there's nothing else in the in the drill
47:11and the drills context.
47:13So I go back to editing and I click on this
47:17chart.
47:19You'll see that there is actually a drill
47:21down context menu and it tells you what you
47:23can add to that drill down.
47:25And I took a year and month away. So you
47:28can see I've got a drill down and it's only
47:31got the profitability as a breakdown
47:32dimension.
47:34And it's got category and year, month in
47:35here. But fundamentally, if I don't have
47:38something in there, it shouldn't be showing
47:41me that at the top.
47:43So that's pretty much it. That's actually
47:46been a really interesting, interesting sort
47:49of journey because I'm sure with maybe a
47:53week,
47:54you know, if I did exactly the same
47:55training that I've done in my first month
47:57of Tablo, I'd get extremely comfortable
47:59with this.
48:00And it's again, it's an inviting tool. And
48:03there are already some aspects in this
48:05product that are better than what we have
48:07in in Tablo today.
48:09So, you know, I don't know when Google Data
48:11Studio was launched, but, you know, out of
48:13the box, it's got some really nice
48:16capabilities.
48:18The last thing I'd obviously want to do is
48:20these big numbers at the top. And these are
48:22actually a chart type.
48:24So we can just go in here and just add a
48:27total. These are just totals, right?
48:29So we just it's funny in Tablo, what you'd
48:31have to do is you'd have to create a sheet,
48:34then format it, then make it big.
48:36It's all it's exactly the same step. But
48:38here it's just it's just giving you that as
48:40an interface items, right?
48:42So the profit ratio is zero point one three
48:44. OK, that is actually correct. Thirteen
48:47percent. Look at that.
48:48OK, so the thing here now is how do I
48:50format this as a percentage? Right.
48:53So we've got a let's see, how do I format
48:57this metric data type?
49:00So if I if I click on this, how do I
49:08default range? And so here we are.
49:12We're in this position where I need to tell
49:17the tool how to format this number.
49:22And I can't figure it out. That is the
49:24right number. It is 13 percent.
49:29I tried double clicking that.
49:40Interesting. So let's.
49:47Let's see what we can do. Date range, data
49:54control. What's that do? What does data
50:00control do?
50:05OK, maybe. Oh, it lets you change the data
50:08source. That's cool. I think I saw this in
50:11one of the other demos.
50:13But that's not what I want to do. All right
50:17. I'm going to have to ask you guys to help
50:18me out here.
50:19How do I change that into a percentage? It
50:22must be straightforward, right?
50:25I'd expect some sort of formatting option.
50:29I'm not seeing it here.
50:31I don't believe I'm missing anything here.
50:35So maybe, maybe, maybe.
50:41Go back to the field interface.
50:50OK, so here in this interface. OK, cool,
50:53cool, cool. I think I found it.
50:58It's not immediately sort of where I'd
51:00expect it to be, but this is a number
51:05numeric percentage.
51:09And I would expect this then to change.
51:13Right. This is a number percentage. Yeah,
51:15there we go. Perfect.
51:18All right. That took a while. It's a shame
51:21there's no immediate option right there.
51:23So that was that was a little bit of a
51:26hurdle. But interestingly, I think now that
51:29I know how to do that, sales and profit are
51:32the next two.
51:33So let's let's just bring these in. Let's
51:35do total sales. We can just do that there.
51:39And this one, it's going to be all you have
51:41to do is you have to click on that and then
51:44I can just sort of replace that value with
51:47sales.
51:48OK. Right. We're on to our next issue,
51:52which is how do you.
51:54OK, I guess I guess I know the answer to
51:56this, which is go back to my fields.
52:00And what I need to do is be a little bit
52:02more diligent at the start when I bring my
52:04data in by defining what the columns are.
52:07So I'm going to do that in bulk here. So
52:12the discount is at a, you know.
52:16A different level of detail. Record count.
52:19This is number of records in Tablo.
52:22Text. Where do we have more values here?
52:26Quantity, profitability, profit. This is a
52:33currency.
52:35Let's just call that British pounds. It's
52:38nice that it has a different currencies in
52:40there.
52:41Built in. That's kind of nice. Discount.
52:46Discount is a number. That's fine. Sales
52:51where sales.
52:54I can search the fields here. So actually,
52:56let's just type that in. Let's just be a
52:58bit lazy and just search.
53:02I think what's happening now is that my
53:04laptop is really not liking the fact that I
53:06'm recording a video whilst doing this.
53:09So that's fine. We'll just have to allow
53:12for that. So sales. And this should be a
53:17currency.
53:19So this will actually go here and do that.
53:22It's unintuitive to have currency and
53:24numbers in different places.
53:26I'd expect the currency to be a subset of
53:28number, if that makes sense. But hey, hey.
53:31OK. And this is cool, but OK, you've got
53:36the default aggregation here.
53:40So if I go to sales again, the default
53:43aggregation is sum. I can give a
53:46description, but I can't choose the level
53:48that this shows.
53:50I want this to say 2.9 million. I think
53:53that's correct in Tablo. It's different,
53:55actually. It's 3 million in Tablo.
53:59Maybe I'm not connected to the same data
54:02source. 3.4 million, whereas here it's 2.9
54:07million.
54:08Yet the profit ratio is basically the same
54:10at 13%. So it might be slight differences
54:14in what I'm actually connected to and the
54:16sample workbook itself and what that
54:19connects to.
54:21So that's fine. So let me just give this
54:27more space. Now, how do I make this say
54:38millions?
54:43OK, this is all formatting again.
54:54So you can choose the number of decimal
54:55places. Let's say zero here and that will
55:00disappear.
55:03Oh, I see. Compact numbers and automatic.
55:08OK, cool.
55:09So that's a term I've never heard of before
55:13, but taking this compact numbers detail is
55:17actually kind of interesting.
55:20You can also do a comparison metric to that
55:24. So let's say I have the same value from
55:28the previous month.
55:30I could actually add a comparison metric, I
55:34think. Comparison date range. OK, cool. So
55:39I can choose previous year. Hit apply.
55:48And OK, it says no data, but I assume this
55:52would mean that because obviously this is
55:56there's no data in this time frame, but it
56:00's really nice that it gives you the ability
56:02to do a comparison straightaway there.
56:04So if I was to go back far enough and
56:07actually choose the date range relevant to
56:10this thing, then I think I'd see that there
56:12.
56:13But again, it's not being smart with those
56:16timelines. It's not really showing me that
56:19here. OK, we'll just have to leave that as
56:21is.
56:22But that is a cool feature. I'm expecting
56:23that's what it would do. If I actually had
56:25data up until today, this would do the
56:27comparison for me.
56:29And same here, right? So if I was actually
56:31able to choose, I could choose a profit
56:33ratio from the previous month and then have
56:35it.
56:36Oh, actually, it's appearing all the way
56:39over here. That's so weird. Previous period
56:44. Apply. Again, no data.
56:48But now we can start to format these a
56:50little bit. That's cool. When I was
56:53adjusting that, can you see that it shows
56:55you the similar proportion to the next
56:57thing?
56:58So it figures out you're trying to line
57:00them up. Again, that's just such a neat,
57:02neat feature. OK, so, yeah, this is taking
57:05a while, but I'm actually discovering a lot
57:07of things that it has that Tableau doesn't
57:09have.
57:10And whilst I could do this much, I would
57:12have done this in five minutes in Tableau.
57:15But the point is, this is a new tool and I
57:18'm sort of discovering how it works.
57:21Look at that. Look at that placement hint
57:23to just drop it there. And, you know, that
57:26that would just be so useful in Tableau.
57:29Honestly, the amount of time you spend ages
57:31putting things in containers and just. Yeah
57:34, it can be really, really tough.
57:36And I definitely hitting some sort of limit
57:39with my computer and the fact I'm recording
57:41this video at the same time.
57:44Hence, things are taking a little bit
57:48longer here in the browser.
57:51Yeah, so the other thing to bring in is
57:53profit. So let's just bring I'll do profit
57:55and then we'll probably call it a day there
57:57.
57:58Let's put profit on there. And we now know
58:04that we have to go here to style compact
58:10numbers. It's automatic. Interesting.
58:14This one's gone to thousands. 372.83
58:18thousand. OK, that's fine. We'll leave that
58:22as is. And again, we can do the comparison
58:26if we wanted to.
58:28And you could just do previous period. Hit
58:41apply. OK, so if we have a look at that.
58:48Now we're starting to sort of get somewhere
58:50. Now, the cool thing is in Tableau, you
58:52normally have interactivity. So rather than
58:55spend ages building out this top level, I
58:57want to try and see if I can add some
58:58interactivity to this entire chart.
59:01The first thing to do is to add filters.
59:05And there's this filter control option here
59:08. I know this because I've used Google
59:09Analytics. I know that icon means filter
59:12control.
59:13So if I just click on that and bring it in.
59:31Here we go. So it didn't work the first
59:33time, but you can choose a country region
59:36here and I can just place this here and I
59:39assume then what will happen is if I go to
59:41my visualization and I deselect that and
59:44just select.
59:46I can't deselect all, which is an
59:48interesting sort of challenge. But check
59:52this out. It's actually got the values of
59:55the profit ratio in here. That's cool. That
59:59's very cool. I like that. I like that.
60:01So I can select France, for example. Let's
60:17give that time to think. Again, I don't
60:17think this is the performance of the tool.
60:18This is my browser and my laptop struggling
60:19to do a recording and also handle what's
60:20going on here.
60:21I've got another sort of app running in the
60:23background as well that's probably eating
60:26the performance. But you can see here that
60:28that filter isn't just a filter. It's
60:31giving me context. I can actually see where
60:33there might be a problem already.
60:36For example, Ireland. Ireland is a good
60:39place to go where there is a lot of
60:42negative profitability. And this filter is
60:46applying across the whole entire sort of
60:49data set. And I can obviously deselect all
60:51and choose. It's got a really nice search
60:53function there as well.
60:54And yeah, it just works really nicely. Cool
60:58. So, okay, that's been a really interesting
61:03sort of journey. The last thing I'll do is
61:08let me add a date filter.
61:11Okay. And when you add a filter, what it
61:13does is it kind of cycles through the
61:15different measures. So interestingly, let
61:18me just see what it brings in. So it's
61:21brought one for profitability. So I can
61:24just look at the unprofitable items on
61:27their own.
61:28And then if I bring in another one, and
61:33this time I want to filter by date, I'll
61:38see if I can change the filter type to date
61:43.
61:44So I've got a really, really bug experience
61:58here. Yeah, it's got the order date set up.
62:03So interestingly, it's, it's actually, it's
62:05actually made some really smart decisions
62:07there.
62:08I didn't tell it what filter to bring in,
62:10but it's clearly got some sort of context
62:12of country profitability and order date.
62:15And when I just bring more filters in, it
62:16kind of goes through that rank of
62:18importance and figures out what I'd like to
62:21see.
62:22So now if we go back in and hit this, you
62:24can obviously just look at the profitable
62:26and unprofitable items. But also, I can see
62:29anything happening on a specific order date
62:32.
62:33Now, that's not what I was expecting. So if
62:35I go back into edit, I might be able to
62:37change the way this order date filter
62:39actually works, because at the moment, it's
62:42treating it like a dimension and actually
62:44like a, you know, start/finish date kind of
62:46selector or the last, you know, 12 months
62:49kind of, you know, periods like that.
62:52And I'm assuming this might be done in
63:01style.
63:04So you've got this pop up menu, fixed size,
63:08text. If I go to data,
63:13and scroll down.
63:20Again, it's not really giving me the kind
63:22of filter I was expecting. I can see it
63:26here when I go to my own filters, right?
63:34But
63:37it's showing me the top and the bottom.
63:41But I can't seem to change this
63:46five.
63:48I can enable the search box. I think it's
63:50because it thinks the order date was a
63:52dimension, which it is, but it's also
63:54clearly a date. So it knows that here.
64:05Okay, so I'm not able to figure that out
64:08right now. So,
64:12you know, if I just stop there for a second
64:15, let's just view what I've built. This is
64:18taking some time.
64:20I've been running for quite a bit of time.
64:23And again, I hadn't used this at all. I
64:26hadn't used this before.
64:29And this is what I've created so far. And
64:32is it great? No, there's obviously some
64:35issues here.
64:35I'd like to be able to control the
64:37formatting in a more direct way on the
64:40visualization. I'd like to be able to
64:42control some of the behavior of some of
64:43these items as well and how they behave.
64:46And there's probably some chart specific
64:48things I don't know how to do quite yet.
64:51But as you saw me do earlier on, I was able
64:52to Google and find out how to fix that
64:54formula that we can fix. And I was able to
64:56get into a very basic formula.
64:59And so with enough time investment, I think
65:01it's fair to say that I'd actually end up
65:03building something that was very close to
65:06this that resembles this very, very closely
65:08.
65:09And this was never about speed. This was
65:11never about sort of speed to usage because
65:14I've never used Google Data Studio before.
65:17What I did do is use some of my knowledge
65:19from Tableau. So that is one plus side.
65:22I was able to take some of my analytical
65:23experience and apply it to the product,
65:25sight unseen, and then use Google and any
65:27other tool to figure out how to do things.
65:30Okay. There are plenty of things here that
65:32I like that I don't see in Tableau. I like
65:35the layout in here. It's a lot more sort of
65:38guided.
65:40I like the ability to theme this. So, you
65:43know, just go into the edit tab here and we
65:46edit this and I can just very quickly hit a
65:49theme and it just applies across the board.
65:53It's a really, really, really cool
65:55capability that I'd love to see in Tableau.
65:58And because it's a web product, it's
66:00actually innately easy to connect to data
66:02sources, especially if they're owned by
66:03Google, but also other web data sources
66:06through the partner list that you saw.
66:08And that's all inside of the product rather
66:10than having to go to another web page,
66:11download it, install it.
66:13And because it's running through the
66:14browser, this is running on Google's own
66:16infrastructure.
66:18Okay. So this is going to be far more
66:21reliable to use and so on and so forth.
66:24So let's just let me just I can see I've
66:26done something really bad here.
66:28I've kind of squashed the map there.
66:31And what I what I really should do is just
66:34add more space to this to this map, but you
66:37can only see now see it that now that we've
66:40got these sort of different colors here.
66:42So we can see here I've got some real bugs
66:44here in terms of speed and performance.
66:48So maybe that is something to be wary of.
66:50I'm recording a video so that naturally
66:52eats up lots of resources on my laptop.
66:55That said, I record videos with other
66:57products and I never have sort of this kind
67:00of laggy behavior.
67:02So it's just an interesting thing to be
67:03aware of because it's running in the
67:05browser.
67:06You just want to make sure that your
67:08computer is optimized for heavy browser
67:11usage.
67:12You know, Chrome uses lots of resources.
67:14Browsers today use a lot more resources
67:16than the typical application do sometimes.
67:19So just be sure that if you're going to use
67:21this, you have a computer that's ready to
67:24handle that.
67:25Or just make sure you debug sort of what's
67:27causing those performance issues and don't
67:29do those things at the same time.
67:31OK, well, that's pretty much it.
67:35I think this is this is as far as I should
67:36carry on.
67:37I think if I carried on for another hour,
67:39you guys would just be seeing me kind of go
67:41across the same hurdles.
67:43What I will do, though, in the future is I
67:45will do this video again.
67:47Having understood how to use the product.
67:49So I don't know how long that will take,
67:51but at some point in the future, I will
67:52rebuild this dashboard that we've seen in
67:54Tableau here.
67:56I'll try and do it as close to the original
67:58as we can.
67:59But this time around, I'll be building it
68:01from scratch with some knowledge of how the
68:03product works.
68:04And then we can start to see a more fair
68:06comparison of, you know, how long these
68:08things are actually taking and where am I
68:10spending more time in Google versus Tableau
68:12.
68:13OK.
68:14Well, this has been a long video.
68:16If you've watched it to the end, thanks for
68:17your patience.
68:18Thank you for watching.
68:20Let me know how you found this video.
68:21It's a slightly different thing to what I
68:22've done before.
68:23I might do it with other products like
68:25Power BI and ClickView because I do get a
68:27lot of questions on the channel about those
68:29products.
68:30So rather than being ignorant about them,
68:32it might be a good idea just to try them
68:34for myself so I can give maybe more honest
68:36and open opinions about why I use Tableau.
68:39But otherwise, if you've liked this video,
68:40hit the like button.
68:42If not, hit the dislike button. They all
68:46count for the same thing, engagement.
68:47And I'll catch you in the next video.
68:49Thank you.
68:50Thank you.
68:50Thank you.
This was a fun little experience and the start of something I’ll be doing each weekend, trying new tools and experiences for the first time whilst recording. ----Join my Discord Server. https://discord.gg/shBuxXr it’s a little sparse at the moment but hang in there.