How to Embed Looker Studio in Google Slides

Updated Nov 6, 2024

Today let's talk about Slideform's most popular integration: Looker Studio dashboards! Looker Studio, formerly Google Data Studio, is a low-cost, easy-to-use dashboard solution. Their pre-made templates make it super simple to create a dashboard for Google Ads, Google Search Console, YouTube and hundreds of other data sources.

But embedding a Looker Studio report into a slide deck can be difficult. The new Looker Studio add-on with Google Gemini is a cool idea, but it falls short in terms of functionality. Slideform is the hands-down best way to connect Looker Studio to Google Slides. Not only can you embed charts, images, and visuals, but editable tables and even numbers (KPIs and metrics) can be pulled directly into your slides. Combined with all of Slideform's advanced features, you can see why so many Looker Studio users choose the Slideform Integration.

In today's post, I'll demonstrate how the Looker Studio integration works. We'll automatically pull Looker Studio charts and metrics into Google Slides, to easily generate custom, recurring, reports from your dashboards in seconds.

4 simple steps to integrate Looker Studio with Google Slides

1. Connect your Looker Studio dashboard to Slideform
   
2. Create a slide deck template
3. Match the Looker Studio content to your template
4. Generate and save the output file

Step 1: Connect Looker Studio to Slideform

Slideform works by pulling in your entire Looker Studio dashboard and all elements (charts, scorecards, KPIs, tables, images, & filters) for use in your slides.

For example, let's look at a sample Google Analytics dashboard. Here is a view of the main dashboard page. I need to embed charts and metrics from this page into my monthly marketing report for each client.

1. To connect this dashboard to Slideform, first, log into Slideform and go to Data Sources > Add Data Source. Then under Looker Studio, click Add Integration. 

2. Open your Looker Studio dashboard. Click Share and add viewer access for share@slideform.co. Make sure that Embed Report is enabled. Then just copy the URL of the dashboard into Slideform. Its super simple to set up, and you'll always have the latest data available for your reports! For more details on setup, see How to Connect A Data Source.

Step 2: Create a slide deck template

Next, you need a template for your presentation. With Slideform, you can use your own custom-branded slides in the format of your choice, PowerPoint or Google Slides. Just start with a previous version of the presentation and insert placeholders (enclosed in curly braces) for any elements that will change between versions of the report, like text, numbers, images, charts, logos, and names. You can find a detailed explanation of the template in our Help Center. 

Here is a simple report template with placeholders for charts, numeric values (views and sessions), and a data table from my Looker Studio dashboard. 

Placeholders are denoted by curly braces, and table or chart placeholders are contained inside shapes. The date range for the report is set to the Prior Week. All the colors, styling, fonts, and sizing of the elements in the template will be carried through to the slide deck output.

In Slideform, go to New Project to upload a slide template. Give your project a name and associate the Looker Studio data source. Remember to save your project!

Step 3: Match each placeholder to the Looker Studio content

Now, we need to match each placeholder in the slide template to the correct chart or other content that will fill it. Open the project for editing by clicking Configure Data on the project card. 

Each placeholder from the template is shown in a blue box. Let's look at {{chart:sessions_over_time}}. Set the data source, then choose the chart, and set the anchor position.

To pull in a number, such as a KPI or metric, it is a similar process. Slideform captures the data behind each table and chart and you can filter and perform simple functions to select the data you want to use. For example, I can pull out the number of Views and embed it into the report in a text box.

Data Filtering: With Slideform, you control the filters dynamically, without having to go to the dashboard. You can filter the data with any filters that are included in your dashboard, such as date range, client, or campaign. You can filter the data for each chart separately, or you can set an overall filter for the project. Slideform supports custom date ranges, plus several built-in date ranges. In the example, I set the project-level date filter to "Prior Week".

Step 4: Generate and save the output slide deck

Generate a Google Slide deck from your Looker Studio dashboard by clicking Generate on the project card. If you did not preset the values for all placeholders, you will be prompted to fill them in now. 

Save the deck to any Google Drive location, or convert it to PPT and save to OneDrive. The output will appear on your Projects page when it's done. You can also Set a Schedule for Recurring Presentations to auto-generate and email the slides to you. Or you can create a batch of presentations, one for each client, with Slideform Bulk Mode. Awesome, right!

Check out my report! The styling, colors, fonts, and layout are preserved and the charts and metrics are filled in from the dashboard!

Slideform is the most powerful solution to connect Looker Studio to Slides

• No screenshots! And no copying & pasting
• Set filters and date ranges 
• Auto-generate reports on a schedule
• Insert metrics and text from the dashboard
• Combine Looker Studio with other data sources
• Use a custom slide template in the format of your choice