Updated Nov 6, 2024
Today let's talk about Slideform's most popular integration: Looker Studio dashboards!
But getting the charts, tables, and metrics from Looker Studio 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 integrate Looker Studio with 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 content into Google Slides, to easily generate custom, recurring, reports from your dashboards in seconds.
Looker Studio and Looker are two different products, and Slideform integrates with both! If you want to embed Looker (Classic) visuals into your slide deck, check out this post.
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.
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!
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".
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!