In the world of data analytics, having the ability to develop and deploy dashboards effectively is crucial for providing stakeholders with insights that drive business decisions.
One of the key practices in Looker development is the separation between development and production environments. This ensures that changes made during the development process don’t impact live data or end users until they’re fully tested and approved. While most developers are familiar with this workflow for LookML models and views, it’s equally important and practical to apply the same principles to dashboard creation and modification.
By building and testing dashboards in a dev mode, teams can ensure the accuracy of the data being displayed, verify the functionality of filters and visualizations, and fine-tune the user experience before publishing them in production. This approach helps maintain data integrity, reduce the risk of errors, and provide a smoother experience for end users. In this step-by-step guide, we will explore how to efficiently create and manage dashboards in both development and production mode on Looker using one instance.
Step by Step
Create your dashboard
Assume you have two folders: one for production dashboards (“Prod Dashboard”) and one for development (“Dev Dashboard”).
Create the dashboard in the “Dev Dashboard” folder and add your tiles and filters.
Copy the LookML dashboard code for your dashboard.
Paste the code into a new dashboard LookML file in your branch.
Include the dashboard in the model file by adding:
include: "4_viz/*"(or your specific dashboard path).
Pre-visualize the dashboard to ensure everything works as expected before pushing to production.
Push your branch to production.
Switch to production mode.
Navigate to LookML Dashboards.
Move the dashboard to the “Prod Dashboard” folder.
Modify your dashboard
To modify the dashboard, go back to the “Dev Dashboard” folder.
Make changes to your dashboard in the “Dev Dashboard” folder.
Copy and replace the LookML code in your branch with the updated dashboard code.
Push the changes to production
That’s it! Your dashboard in the “Prod Dashboard” folder is now updated.
Conclusion
Having a structured development and production workflow for dashboards in Looker is essential for ensuring a smooth, error-free user experience. By separating the two environments, teams can confidently make changes, test new features, and ensure data accuracy before releasing dashboards to end users. The example above demonstrates a simple and effective way to manage dashboards between development and production using folders. In real-world scenarios, this approach becomes even more valuable as dashboards grow in complexity, and maintaining data integrity becomes critical. Leveraging this method allows for iterative improvements without disrupting ongoing operations, making it an indispensable practice for any data-driven team.
Thank you
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If you are looking for support on Looker, Data Stack or Google Cloud solutions, feel free to reach out to us at sales@astrafy.io.
