Google Data Studio helps us beautify and share data, fast.
May 18, 2018
Google Data Studio helps us beautify and share data, fast.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Google Data Studio
We use Google Data Studio to beautify and simplify raw data for clients. At one point in time clients claimed they wanted the raw data and would do these things themselves. Unfortunately, and predictably, that ended up not being the case. Google Data Studio allows us—with some exceptions—to quickly get them the deliverable they want and we don't mind spending the extra time as it's minimal with maximum client satisfaction.
- The integration offering is robust and I've yet to run into a situation where we were not able to get our data into Google Data Studio
- Creating a beautiful report can be done with minimal training
- Sharing a report and determining the permissions takes seconds which is especially valuable when someone wants to see something quickly
- We often have data fields that have multiple values separated by commas. Some BI tools provide options to visualize that data as a group or as individual data points. Unfortunately, I've yet to find a simple way to do this in Google Data Studio
- Copying a report is, surprisingly, different from other Google Suite tools. Continuity is difficult in a company the size of Google but it's still disappointing.
- Forgiveness could be improved when it comes to configuring the data resource. Often, sometimes 20+ minutes can be wasted on a 1 second mistake. This could be a user error but it's one that I haven't found an easy answer for.
- Rather than using our more advanced BI tool(s) for certain things, when we're in a hurry and have already done the work in Google Sheets, it makes sense and has been very beneficial to be able to tie it into Google Data Studio and quickly get what we need. Time saved is money saved.
- Some of our other BI tools, using the integrations that we have, make it difficult to share dashboards and other visualizations with the permissions we need unless we create a license for a client. This does not make financial or practical sense in many cases. Google Data Studio lets us get things to clients without a headache.
This is starting to feel redundant but we just Google Data Studio to supplement the areas that are lacking in our other BI tools. Because it's free it's an easy decision to make. It does not allow us the deep diving that we get with others but is often simpler to use, more customizable, and easy to share when we need something simple done fast.