Create Reports from Google Spanner Data in Looker Studio

Looker Studio, formerly known as Google Data Studio, empowers users to craft customized reports featuring data visualizations that can be shared with clients while reflecting your brand identity. When combined with CData Connect AI, you gain immediate cloud-to-cloud access to Google Spanner data to create visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article provides step-by-step instructions on establishing a virtual database for Google Spanner and generating reports from Google Spanner data within Looker Studio.

CData Connect AI offers a seamless cloud-to-cloud interface tailored for Google Spanner, making it straightforward to construct reports directly from live Google Spanner data within Looker Studio without the need for data replication. As you create visualizations, Looker Studio generates queries to retrieve data. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect AI efficiently channels all supported query operations, including filters, JOINs, and more, directly to Google Spanner. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly provide the requested Google Spanner data.

Configure Google Spanner Connectivity for Looker Studio

Connectivity to Google Spanner from Looker Studio is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Google Spanner data from Looker Studio, we start by creating and configuring a Google Spanner connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
👁 Adding a Connection

2. Select "Google Spanner" from the Add Connection panel
👁 Selecting a data source

3. Google Spanner uses OAuth to authenticate. Click "Sign in" to authenticate with Google Spanner. 👁 Authenticating with OAuth (Salesforce is shown).
   
4. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Google Spanner Connection page and update the User-based permissions. 👁 Updating permissions
   

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Google Spanner data from Looker Studio.

Visualize Live Google Spanner Data from Looker Studio

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from Looker Studio to create a new Google Spanner data source and build a simple visualization from the data.

1. Log into Looker Studio, click data sources, create a new data source, and choose CData Connect AI Connector.
👁 Create a new connection in Looker Studio

2. Click Authorize and allow access to your Google account. 👁 Granting permissions to the Connector
   
3. Click Authorize to authenticate with your CData Connect AI instance 👁 Authenticating with CData Connect AI
   
4. In the CData Connect AI Connector in Looker Studio select Connections to import from the dropdown and click Next
👁 Importing from Connections

5. Now select a Connection (e.g. GoogleSpanner1) and click Next 👁 Selecting a Connection
   
6. Select a Table (e.g. Customer) or use a Custom Query and click Connect to continue 👁 Selecting a Table
   
7. If needed, modify columns, click Create Report, and add the data source to the report.
👁 Configuring column definitions

8. Select a visualization style and add it to the report.
9. Select Dimensions and Measures to customize your visualization.
👁 Visualizing Google Spanner data in Looker Studio

Live Access to Google Spanner Data from Cloud Applications

Now you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Google Spanner data from your Looker Studio workbook. You can create more data sources and new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating Google Spanner data.

Try CData Connect AI and get real-time data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications.