When a company realises it needs more advanced data visualisation, it’s often a good idea to hire a professional company to make a custom Looker Studio dashboard. This choice is the start of a journey that will completely change how your company analyses and reports data. You can get the most out of your investment and build a good relationship with the pros you’ve chosen if you know what to expect from the collaborative process.
During the initial consultation phase, you will have your first real contact with the agency’s Looker Studio dashboard development experts. During this important time, you can expect to have in-depth conversations about your business goals, current data infrastructure, and special reporting needs. Professional firms will look closely at the data sources you already have to figure out not only what data you collect but also how it moves around your business. This basic evaluation helps you figure out if your idea for a personalised Looker Studio dashboard fits with what’s technically possible and what you can afford.
Your agency partner will probably ask to see sample data sets, reports that are already made, and any dashboards that are already set up. By doing this, they can check the quality of the data, find any possible connection problems, and suggest the best way to build your Looker Studio dashboard. You should expect in-depth questions about user permissions, data sensitivity, and compliance requirements, as these things have a big impact on how your end solution is designed and how secure it is.
After this, there is the finding and planning phase, where the agency you chose turns the initial talks into detailed project requirements. At this stage, you will work together to define key performance indicators, set up a data structure, and decide which dashboard features are most important. Your unique Looker Studio dashboard needs, such as user personas, access levels, and preferred visualisations, will be written down in great detail. In this planning phase, experienced agencies often bring up ways to improve features that you might not have thought of at first. This is because they have learnt a lot from previous implementations.
You can expect your agency to show you wireframes, mockups, or designs that show how your Looker Studio dashboard will work. These early sketches are very important for communicating because they make sure that everyone has the same idea before construction starts. In the planning part, you also set the project’s due dates, milestone deliverables, and testing procedures, which will be used for the rest of the engagement.
One of the most difficult technical parts of making a Looker Studio dashboard is integrating data. Your agency will work closely with your IT team or data administrators to make sure that the links between your data sources and the dashboard platform are safe and secure. In this step, you can expect to have in-depth technical conversations about how to set up the API, when to refresh the data, and how to back it up. How hard this integration is to do often relies on how many different data sources you have and how well-developed your current data infrastructure is.
Professional companies know that clean, well-structured data feeds are necessary for a Looker Studio dashboard to work well. During integration, they will often find problems with the quality of the data and suggest ways to clean, transform, or expand it. This way of working together makes sure that your dashboard shows correct and useful data while also showing you ways that your company can improve its overall data governance.
A lot of care is taken to follow user experience guidelines and visual design standards during the design and development process of your Looker Studio dashboard. You can expect regular updates on the project’s progress, demos in the meantime, and chances to give feedback on new features as they appear. Professional companies use iterative development, which lets you see your dashboard change over time instead of waiting for the big reveal.
Your firm will set up advanced features like calculated fields, custom filters, and interactive elements that make your Looker Studio dashboard more powerful for analytics while it’s being built. They will also use responsive design concepts to make sure that your dashboard works well on all devices and screen sizes. This care for detail shows that the agency wants to make a solution that meets the needs of all the different people in your company.
Quality assurance and testing steps make sure that your Looker Studio dashboard works correctly in a range of situations. You can expect thorough testing of the accuracy of the data, the responsiveness of the visualisations, and the limits for user access. Professional companies use both automatic and manual testing methods, and your team members are likely to be involved in user acceptance testing to make sure the dashboard meets real-world business needs.
Performance optimisation is also done during the testing process to make sure that your Looker Studio dashboard loads quickly and responds smoothly to user actions. Agencies will fine-tune queries, make sure data connections work best, and set up caching systems that keep speed high even as your data volumes grow.
Training and sharing of information are important parts of professional Looker Studio dashboard implementations. You can expect structured training events that are made to fit the needs of different user groups in your company. Administrative users will be given thorough instructions on how to maintain dashboards, manage users, and fix problems. End users will learn how to use your new dashboard’s navigation, filtering, and explanation tools in a way that makes them most useful for analysis.
Your organisation should give detailed instructions on how to use the dashboard, how to connect to data sources, and common user situations. This documentation can be used as a permanent guide, allowing you to use the dashboard on your own and lowering your reliance on outside help for everyday tasks.
Launch and deployment processes make sure that moving from development to production environments goes smoothly. Professional companies work carefully with your IT team to make sure that there is as little downtime as possible while they set up security protocols and user access controls. You can expect thorough deployment checklists and backup plans for dealing with any technical issues that might come up during the launch process.
Professional agencies are different from basic service providers because they offer help after the launch. You can expect ongoing monitoring of how well your Looker Studio dashboard is working, quick resolution of any technical issues, and proactive ideas for ways to make things better. Many organisations offer tier-based support packages that offer different levels of help based on the technical skills and ongoing needs of your business.
Your Looker Studio dashboard business and you are likely to form a long-term partnership centred on constant growth and improvement. As your business grows and your data needs change, you may be able to improve your dashboard by adding more data sources, new types of display, or more users. Professional agencies keep thorough records of your implementation, which makes them useful consultants for future business intelligence projects.
Communication is still the most important part of this whole process. You can expect regular reports on the project’s progress, open conversations about problems or delays, and group problem-solving when unexpected problems come up. Looker Studio dashboard projects that are truly collaborative, where both parties share their knowledge and stay dedicated to achieving great results, are the ones that turn out the best.
If you know what the agency expects from you, you can go into the partnership ready to make a useful contribution to the development process while still sticking to realistic deadlines and budgets. Spending money on skilled Looker Studio dashboard development is a big step towards making decisions based on data that will help your business for years to come.
