Google Data Studio (beta)

Google’s Data Studio is part of a suite of tools intended to be used with Google Analytics. However, the release of this beta opens a broader platform to create analytics and share them using your own data stored anywhere. 

I have been using Data studio for about eleven days. My first impression is one of joy and frustration. Joy because there is a Googly version of Tableau Public that allows me to integrate my Google Drive account as a data source. Frustration because measures magically become dimensions or the linked report would fail causing chaos? (IE: 4+4 = 8 but “Four” + “Four” = ?)  It was also difficult to understand how sharing works. Across all access points, you should be able to view a public dashboard without signing into your Google account. Doesn't seem to be so easy. Perhaps because I have two-step verification turned on. Who knows!

I made my first dashboard using IBM’s 3Q 2016 financial results with my own mean-reversion-like algorithm of stock price analysis created in Google Sheets. (You can view the dashboard here: https://goo.gl/P0g8m1). I was surprised at how easily everything came together. Navigating the interface and adding a new data source were very easy. Graphics come together fairly easily and there is also an option to geocode your data. While it was wonderful to easily display compact numbers with the click of a button, it quickly became apparent that this is a young tool and will need enhancements to replace something as mature as Tableau Public. Creating calculated measures directly within data Studio was tedious or impossible (compared to writing DAX expressions in Excel), updating data sources is tedious (compared to updating data sources in…anything else). Both of these drawbacks have workarounds thanks to the close relationship between Drive and Data Studio. You can do just about anything when your data lives on the internet, include loading and uploading data via R directly to Drive, so if you can create the data, you can probably make the visual work in Data Studio. While data Studio will not immediately replace other tools like Tableau, PowerPivot or Cognos, it is a great challenger to Tableau Public IMO. Give it a shot with your own data, let me know what you think! datastudio.google.com