Google Cloud Delivers Enhancements to Looker that Optimize Performance and Accelerate Application Development

SANTA CRUZ, Calif., Aug. 6, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Looker, the business intelligence (BI) and analytics platform that is now part of Google Cloud, is helping customers augment their data experiences with enhancements in three key areas: modern business intelligence (BI), foundational optimization and performance improvements, and updated data and development tools. Included in this release is support for the complete Google Marketing Platform, significant upgrades for application builders, and an update to Marketplace where customers can access and share newly built data experiences.

"Looker is continuously evolving to meet the unique and ever growing needs of every business in the way that is best for them," said Colin Zima, Head of Looker Analytics and Strategy at Google Cloud. "Whether we're providing multiple choices of cloud providers, the ability to customize data experiences, or the unique solutions coming from our deeper integration with Google Cloud, Looker continues to focus on delivering solutions that have maximum impact on the day-to-day business outcomes of our customers."

New and revamped Modern BI features make it easier to quickly get data-rich business insights.

    --  The new Looker Blocks for Google Marketing Platform were crafted to
        provide a foundation of robust and shareable analytics for Google
        Marketing Platform advertising and web data. The fully-customizable
        experiences offer interactive data exploration, new slices of data with
        light machine learning (ML) predictions baked in, direct links back to
        Google Marketing Platform to adjust campaigns, and paths for pushing
        insights back into Google Marketing Platform. Created in partnership
        with experts at Google, the following Looker Blocks are available to
        deploy today on the Looker Marketplace or from the Looker Blocks
        Directory: Google Analytics 360, Campaign Manager + Display & Video 360,
        Search Ads 360, plus a refreshed version of the Google Ads Block.
    --  Cross-filtering allows users to quickly uncover new customer insights
        and patterns not readily evident in a dashboard. By accessing underlying
        data in Looker dashboards, customers can slice any metric on one tile by
        any dimension surfaced in another with a single click. This offers
        nearly endless opportunities for users to self-serve and surface new
        data points and insights.

Foundational enhancements optimize performance to make spend more efficient and help customers maximize data infrastructure investments.

    --  The performance enhancements include aggregate awareness to make queries
        faster and less expensive; parallel persistent derived tables (PDT)
        builds for customers to increase how many PDTs can be built at a time
        per connection; faster data downloads when streaming query results; and
        pooled database connections to reduce query latency.
    --  Looker also improved the overall experience for model developers: a
        newly redesigned Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that makes
        workflows intuitive with more advanced controls; an object browser that
        simplifies product navigation and easily tracks and reuses available
        objects; a single repository that can be shared across instances to
        share model development; and folders that improve project organization
        and collaboration.
    --  Several enhancements are also being released for Looker system
        administrators that provide more fine grained controls to manage roles
        and groups across larger enterprises. These include the ability to
        understand, analyze and control system activity, manage users and
        groups, and to merge Looker-based permissions with those of corporate
        systems.

"Data is essential to our mission of delivering an innovative talent acquisition suite that empowers our customers to grow their companies and help people find jobs," said Zach Linder, VP Machine Learning & Data Analytics at Jobvite. "As such, we have internal and external users at Jobvite using Looker. The only way this continues to be sustainable and scalable is because Looker provides tools such as the elite systems activity manager that allows us to manage content, improve adoption, and audit user data over time."

This announcement demonstrates how Looker continues to unlock new types of data experiences and accelerate development workflows for builders with new Data Products that allow for building better data solutions, faster.

    --  Looker Marketplace, now generally available, provides the ability to
        access and share newly built data experiences. Custom applications built
        by the Looker community can be rapidly deployed within their own
        organization and made available to the entire Looker customer base. The
        Marketplace is home to all Looker Blocks including the recently launched
        COVID-19 Data Block.
    --  Available in Looker Marketplace, the new Data Dictionary allows
        developers to quickly build an application using Looker's extension
        framework. It provides a dedicated and purpose-built UI to help business
        users find the field and metrics they need for analysis. It also
        provides the ability to quickly audit all LookML fields for visualizing
        the relationship between datasets and explorers to understand what data
        sets are used the most and what explores are duplicative.
    --  The development framework, announced in November as part of Looker 7 and
        now generally available, lets developers customize data experiences
        within Looker and embed those experiences into existing enterprise
        applications and workflows.

"The National Response Portal was developed to help U.S. healthcare organizations, governments and the public to understand and respond to the impact of COVID-19. Looker's ability to quickly integrate disparate data sources and rapidly iterate on visualizations was essential in our ability to launch the portal in the midst of a crisis," said Michael Ames, Sr. Director of Healthcare and Life Sciences at SADA, a Google Cloud Premier Partner. "Looker's unique extension framework gave us the ability to quickly build, integrate disparate data sources and rapidly iterate on visualizations was essential in our ability to launch the portal in the midst of a crisis."

For more information:

    --  Check out the Looker webinar that details the latest features and
        enhancements  launched in this release.
    --  Register for Google Cloud Next '20: OnAir to hear more from Looker, and
        learn more about how to solve the most important challenges facing
        businesses today

ABOUT LOOKER
Looker is the business intelligence (BI) and analytics platform that's part of the Google Cloud data and analytics suite. Transcending traditional BI, Looker powers data experiences that deliver actionable business insights at the point of decision and infuses data into products and workflows to allow organizations to extract value from data at web-scale. Over 2000 industry-leading and innovative companies such as Sony, Amazon, The Economist, IBM, Etsy, Lyft and Kickstarter have trusted Looker to power their data-driven cultures. For more information, visit Looker or Google Cloud and connect with us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

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SOURCE Google Cloud