The real use of Google Data Studio
Clean Data
Cleaning data is a crucial step in every Data Analysis process. We mostly get data unorganised, missing values, and unordered. To make a proper visualisation and sync all visualisations we need to first organise data.
Steps to clean data
For Ex-
Let’s have this random data
|
City |
Delhi |
Mumbai |
Kolkata |
Bangalore |
Hyderabad |
Pune |
|
Population |
22876489 |
35466787 |
14536787 |
14355675 |
8076877 |
4089754 |
|
Mobile Phones |
212124567 |
45455678 |
11123456 |
23234545 |
5454556 |
3445678 |
|
Bank Accounts |
147588746 |
27883467 |
10984777 |
16774883 |
9088736 |
3099847 |
What do you think about the table format? Does this look fine to import? The answer is No.
Metrics & Dimensions
Before importing any data, you need to be clear on Dimensions and Metrics.
What is a Dimension?
Dimensions are the attributes for which a data is given or derived. In the above example, dimensions are cities (Delhi, Mumbai, etc.). Dimensions should come on the left most row.
What is a Metric?
Metric is a value, generally numeric values, like Population and Mobile Phones. Metric should be placed in the top most row of a data table.
So the correct representation of our data will change.
|
City |
Population |
Mobile Phones |
Bank Accounts |
|
Delhi |
22876489 |
212124567 |
147588746 |
|
Mumbai |
35466787 |
45455678 |
27883467 |
|
Kolkata |
14536787 |
11123456 |
10984777 |
|
Bangalore |
14355675 |
23234545 |
16774883 |
|
Hyderabad |
8076877 |
5454556 |
9088736 |
|
Pune |
4089754 |
3445678 |
3099847 |
Now, if you ask me a way to do it quickly, then use TRANSPOSE paste in excel.
Visit sheet.new on your browser.
Paste your existing data.
Copy the table.
Go to Edit -> Paste Special -> Transposed
Date Metric
Let’s say you have a date metric in your data. For example, year wise growth of population of these cities. Then you should place Years on the first column and city names on the top row.
|
Year |
Delhi |
Mumbai |
Kolkata |
Bangalore |
Hyderabad |
Pune |
|
2011 |
||||||
|
2012 |
||||||
|
2013 |
||||||
|
2014 |
Why put a year in the first column?
So this is done basically to make the date a dimension so that we can put your filter and get desired data whenever we want dates to be filtered.
Import Data
Importing data is really simple in Google Data Studio. We have so many data import options in Data Studio. The most basic one is to import excelWho sheet but here I find Google sheet to be more simple the reason behind the connectivity you need not to upload anything, you just need to attach a Google sheet to the data studio and that is very easy.
