Create Reports from SharePoint 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 SharePoint data to create visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article provides step-by-step instructions on establishing a virtual database for SharePoint and generating reports from SharePoint data within Looker Studio.

CData Connect Cloud offers a seamless cloud-to-cloud interface tailored for SharePoint, making it straightforward to construct reports directly from live SharePoint 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 SharePoint. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly provide the requested SharePoint data.

Configure SharePoint Connectivity for Looker Studio

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

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

   Set the URL property to the base SharePoint site or to a sub-site. This allows you to query any lists and other SharePoint entities defined for the site or sub-site.

   The User and Password properties, under the Authentication section, must be set to valid SharePoint user credentials when using SharePoint On-Premise.

   If you are connecting to SharePoint Online, set the SharePointEdition to SHAREPOINTONLINE along with the User and Password connection string properties. For more details on connecting to SharePoint Online, see the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation

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

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

Visualize Live SharePoint Data from Looker Studio

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect Cloud from Looker Studio to create a new SharePoint 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. SharePoint1) and click Next
5. Select a Table (e.g. MyCustomList) 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 SharePoint Data from Cloud Applications

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

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