Looker for visualization in GCP - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Looker for Visualization

📖 Scenario: You work as a data analyst at a retail company. Your manager wants you to create a simple sales dashboard using Looker to visualize monthly sales data. You will set up the data, configure a Looker view, create a LookML model, and finally build a Looker dashboard to display the sales trends.

🎯 Goal: Build a Looker project that includes a LookML view for sales data, a model to connect the view, and a dashboard that visualizes monthly sales totals.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a LookML view file named sales.view.lkml with the sales data fields

Create a LookML model file named retail.model.lkml that includes the sales view

Define a measure for total sales in the view

Create a dashboard in Looker that shows monthly sales totals using the defined measure

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Looker is widely used in companies to create interactive dashboards that help teams understand business data and make informed decisions.

💼 Career

Knowing how to build LookML views, models, and dashboards is essential for data analysts and business intelligence professionals working with Google Cloud Platform.

1

Create the LookML view for sales data

Create a LookML view file named sales.view.lkml with a dimension month of type string and a measure total_sales of type sum on the field sales_amount.

GCP

# Define the sales view with month dimension and total_sales measure
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use view to define the sales data structure. Add a dimension for month and a measure for summing sales_amount.

2

Create the LookML model to include the sales view

Create a LookML model file named retail.model.lkml that includes the sales view by adding it to the explore section.

GCP

view: sales {
  dimension: month {
    type: string
    sql: ${TABLE}.month ;; 
  }

  measure: total_sales {
    type: sum
    sql: ${TABLE}.sales_amount ;; 
  }
}

# Add the explore section to include the sales view
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Add an explore block with the name sales to include the sales view in the model.

3

Create a Looker dashboard to visualize monthly sales

In Looker, create a dashboard named Monthly Sales Dashboard. Add a tile that uses the sales explore, selects the month dimension and the total_sales measure, and displays the data as a line chart.

GCP

# In Looker UI, create a dashboard named 'Monthly Sales Dashboard'
# Add a tile with 'sales' explore, select 'month' and 'total_sales', and choose line chart
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the Looker UI to create the dashboard and add a tile with the sales explore selecting the month and total_sales fields. Choose line chart visualization.

4

Finalize the Looker project with dashboard filters

Add a filter to the dashboard tile to allow filtering sales by month. This filter should be named month_filter and connected to the month dimension in the sales explore.

GCP

# Add a dashboard filter named 'month_filter' linked to the 'month' dimension
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the Looker dashboard filter feature to add a filter named month_filter that controls the month dimension in your sales explore.