Item: Looker
Rating: 9
Author: Anthony Maggio

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We've been using Looker for about 8 months now. Our primary drivers in selecting Looker as a BI tool included:

Flexibility to control the data we expose to our internal team for reporting purposes
Looker's data intake model doesn't require data storage on their servers
Ease of building out the capabilities of the platform over time (vs. intensive upfront setup)
Ability to send daily reports to any email address

We have been very pleased with our relationship with Looker. The product is easy to use and we've been able to quickly onboard and train new users. Their support has been fantastic and their team has assisted with building particularly complex queries. I'd recommend them to any company that is looking for a very powerful and flexible BI and visualization tool.

Pros and Cons

Ability quickly build adhoc queries
Ability for users to create visualizations on the fly
Ability to change the data that is made available to end-users

Error checking could be better; would be nice to know that your code changes will break existing reports before you commit them
Documentation tools could use some improvement

Alternatives Considered

GoodData,RJMetrics,Tableau Desktop

Data Integration

It was very easy to connect our Postgress database

Collaboration and Sharing

Very easy to distribute reports by email and to schedule recurring reports

Likelihood to Recommend

I'd recommend Looker to any web-based business that is looking for a way to expose BI data more broadly through their company.

Powerful, flexible and easy-to-implement BI tool

Overall Satisfaction with Looker