How to Embed Looker Studio in Slides

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 from Google Ads, Google Search Console, YouTube and hundreds of other data sources.

But getting the charts, tables, and metrics from Looker Studio into a slide deck can be difficult. Some people propose using screenshots, and other solutions are built for the classic Looker dashboards, not Looker Studio. Slideform is the hands-down best way integrate Looker Studio with Google Slides. Not only can you embed charts 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 content 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, KPIs, tables, & filters) for use in your slides. Because some dashboards contain many pages and elements, it is also possible to limit Slideform to only a specific page or pages.

For my example, I'm using the pre-built Google Search Console dashboard. Here is a view of the main dashboard page. I need to embed a couple of charts and metrics from this page into my monthly marketing report slide deck.

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 one slide from my report template with placeholders for two charts and one numeric value (site CTR) from my Looker Studio dashboard. 

Placeholders are denoted by curly braces, and image or chart placeholders are contained inside shapes. 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 your slide template. Give your project a name and connect it to the Looker Studio data source in the Data Sources tab at the top of the Project page. 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 on a blue box. Let's look at the {{chart:impressions_by_device}} placeholder. We choose the data source, then choose the chart, and set the anchor position. You can filter the data with any filters that are included in your dashboard, such as date range.

To pull in a number, such as a KPI or metric, it is a similar process. We pull in 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 select the overall site CTR percentage for my site and embed it into the report.

In my example template, I also have placeholders for text comments, logo images, and page numbers. I can link these up to data, or I can fill them in when I generate the report.

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. 

Next you will see a preview of your output slide deck. Or if you don't want to wait, just save the presentation to Google Slides. 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. Awesome, right!

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

Slideform is the solution to connect Looker Studio to Slides

• No screenshots! And no copying & pasting.
• Set recurring presentations to auto-generate on a schedule!
• Data (charts, graphs, numbers) automatically update when you generate a presentation.
• Combine Looker Studio with other data sources and content including spreadsheets, images, and text.
• Use your own custom slide template in the format of your choice.

Get in touch today and try Slideform for free