Create Reports from Salesforce 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 Cloud, you gain immediate cloud-to-cloud access to Salesforce data to create visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article provides step-by-step instructions on establishing a virtual database for Salesforce and generating reports from Salesforce data within Looker Studio.

CData Connect Cloud offers a seamless cloud-to-cloud interface tailored for Salesforce, making it straightforward to construct reports directly from live Salesforce 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 Cloud efficiently channels all supported query operations, including filters, JOINs, and more, directly to Salesforce. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly provide the requested Salesforce data.

Configure Salesforce Connectivity for Looker Studio

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

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
2. Select "Salesforce" from the Add Connection panel
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Salesforce.

   There are several authentication methods available for connecting to Salesforce: Login, OAuth, and SSO. The Login method requires you to have the username, password, and security token of the user.

   If you do not have access to the username and password or do not wish to require them, you can use OAuth authentication.

   SSO (single sign-on) can be used by setting the SSOProperties, SSOLoginUrl, and TokenUrl connection properties, which allow you to authenticate to an identity provider. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the help documentation for more information.

4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Salesforce Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

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

Visualize Live Salesforce Data from Looker Studio

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect Cloud from Looker Studio to create a new Salesforce 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 Cloud Connector.
2. Click Authorize and allow access to your Google account.
3. Click Authorize to authenticate with your CData Connect Cloud instance
4. In the CData Connect Cloud Connector in Looker Studio select a Connection (e.g. Salesforce1) and click Next
5. Select a Table (e.g. Account) or use a Custom Query and click Connect to continue
6. If needed, modify columns, click Create Report, and add the data source to the report.
7. Select a visualization style and add it to the report.
8. Select Dimensions and Measures to customize your visualization.

Live Access to Salesforce Data from Cloud Applications

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

Try CData Connect Cloud and get real-time data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications.