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Learn about Google Data Studio with Minhaz Kazi
138 Plays6 years ago
Minhaz Kazi is a Developer Advocate for Google Data Studio. A business intelligence veteran, Minhaz is always exploring new ways for developers to collect, analyze, and visualize data. He is available for long discussions on circular reference errors, benefits of pie...
The post Episode #138: Minhaz Kazi appeared first on PolicyViz.
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Transcript
Introduction to Minhaz Kazi and Data Studio
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome back to the Policy This Podcast. I'm your host, John Schwabisch. On today's show, we're going to talk about a new tool, Google's Data Studio. And with me to talk about it is one of the developers on the team, Minhaz Kazi. Minhaz, welcome to the show. Thank you, John. Great to chat with you. Happy to be here. So you were just telling me that you went to University of Maryland. Yes. So we have a DC connection. So do you want to start by talking a little bit about your background and your work and how you ended up here at Google?
00:00:39
Speaker
So, originally from Bangladesh, my undergrad was in business. And then I worked at Unilever in finance for about four years. So, lots of Excel, lots of graphs and charts. And that's where I kind of got interested in Infoviz. And then I moved to US to do my master's at University of Maryland, because the program there has some focus on Infoviz on it.
00:01:01
Speaker
So I did my master's there. I worked with Professor Benjamin over there. I did a project with him. And then I worked for a public policy research firm in DC doing business inclusions, analyst work with dashboards, creating visualizations.
Origin and Expansion of Data Studio
00:01:17
Speaker
And then I kind of moved to Google last year on the developer advocate for Data Studio. That role kind of involves working with external developers who develop solutions with or around a product.
00:01:30
Speaker
So where did Data Studio originate? What was the thought of we need this kind of tool? So Data Studio right now is Google's BI slash visualization platform. It originally started as an extension for the visualizations of Google Analytics.
00:01:48
Speaker
Google Analytics already has a ton of dashboarding or reporting built into it, but users wanted a lot more flexibility with that. They wanted to share the reports, they wanted to drill down, have a lot more customizability, and that's where the Data Studio sort of originated. Could we have a separate tool that would take the GA Google Analytics data and then build reports on top of it?
00:02:11
Speaker
And then it slowly grew from there. It can now talk to other Google data sources like Sheets, Cloud SQL, BigQuery. It can also talk to other data sources that are not internal to Google. Like, you can talk to MySQL. You can talk to Postgres. And you can also talk to bringing data from external APIs using community connectors. Interesting. So it sort of lives in the Google Sheets, Google Docs.
00:02:40
Speaker
environment. Yes. Can you talk a little bit about how you view the environment working? I mean, we have some of these sorts of tools, there's Tableau and there's Power BI, but for people who haven't tried, and of course I'll put the link on the website, but can you talk a little bit about how a person might use it and sort of how you start here with a nice blank canvas and sort of just dive in. So just talk a little bit about how one might use it and develop something. Sure.
00:03:06
Speaker
The good thing about Data Studio is that the barrier entry is very low. You don't have to pay to use it. It's completely free. So anyone can immediately just go to the website and start using it.
Data Connectivity and Real-time Updates
00:03:16
Speaker
When you start using it, you have to create a report. That's where you basically create, add your charts and stuff, and then share the report with other people or just use it, work on it by your own.
00:03:27
Speaker
When you get the report, it's a blank canvas, and then you start by adding data sources to it. Each data source is sort of like a table. Your data source can be a Google Sheet, your data source can be a BigQuery table, your data source can be an external API where you're putting the data from. And as you add the data sources, then you can use those data sources to add different charts. You can add multiple data sources to the same report, you can create multiple charts from the same report. We support basic chart types like bar charts, line charts,
00:03:57
Speaker
In the report, you can have multiple pages. Once you create all of these, you can also add filters. You can add date-based filters or even dimension-based filters. The filters work in two ways. You can add figures during the report creation time, which would limit the amount of data the user gets to view at the report viewing time, or you can add the filters at the viewing time where the user gets to pick what they want to see. I see. You can filter across the different sheets or tabs that you have. Correct.
00:04:25
Speaker
When it comes to the data, does the data live?
00:04:31
Speaker
So let's say I started a Data Studio project, and I import the data. Does the data now live? Is it directly connected to that, to the Data Studio, or do I need to keep moving my data file around my Google Drive to keep them all connected? The data remains connected, so there are multiple ways you can use it. The one way is that if you have a local file on your hard drive, a CSV file, you can just upload that to Data Studio, and that goes into Google Cloud storage, and it will always remain linked.
00:05:00
Speaker
However, if you have a separate piece of data somewhere else, let's say you have data on Google Sheets, once you link it, the data is always linked. And Data Studio doesn't store that data anywhere else. Whenever you open the dashboard, whenever you refresh the dashboard, it will always pull in the data from the sheet and display it in the dashboard.
00:05:18
Speaker
Same goes for other data sources. So if you have a SQL database and you're playing data from there, the connection will always be live. So whenever you're refreshing the dashboard or you're adding a new chart, it will issue a new query, get the data, show it to the user.
Creating Custom Visualizations in Data Studio
00:05:31
Speaker
And the data is not persistent on Google site. It's just cached for however long the user is using it. I see. So if you had a local CSV file on your computer,
00:05:39
Speaker
Would you, for workflow purposes, would you recommend that someone take that and load it into Google Sheets and then go into Data Studio so that it's always updated? And then that they don't have to, you know, sort of navigate to the spot on their local computer to find it? Or like, what's your preferred workflow when you when you create something in Data Studio?
00:06:01
Speaker
It will depend on two things. One is the size of the data and the two is what do I want to do with the data? So is it like already prepared? I don't have to do any kind of additional calculations or aggregations. It's completely ready and obviously the size. If you have a large size data, putting it in the sheet and then trying to do some work with it might become cumbersome. I see. So if you have like a let's say 100 megabytes CSV file, you might want to just upload that to the Cloud Storage and use it from there. Right.
00:06:28
Speaker
But if you want to play around with the data, add more calculations, do aggregations, change the data, or merge it with other data sources, then the recommendation would be yes. Put it on Google Sheets and then put one there. And you also get some calculations, model support in Data Studio itself. I think we support about 70 different functions right now. You can do sort of statements, regular expressions.
00:06:53
Speaker
different kinds of analytical calculations to the right of support.
Collaboration and Security Features
00:06:57
Speaker
Right. So can you talk a little bit about the graphs? I guess not just the graphs. There's a lot of things that you can insert into a Data Studio portfolio, I guess, or project, including text boxes and images and shapes. But there's also a graphing library here. And what's interesting to me is that it has your sort of
00:07:17
Speaker
obvious ones that you'd expect the lines and the column and the pie chart and the map which is which is really cool because it builds it right in but it's also I mean to me it's interesting that you know a bullet chart is one of those chart types because you talk about like why this set of graphs and you know like I mean I don't know we could pick out any chart type that we want that's not here but like I'm curious if what the thinking was when you were building out the menu
00:07:40
Speaker
So the current charting library we have, I believe it is a result of two different things. One is, since Data Studio started as an offshoot product from Google Analytics, the type of charts that people want to see or use in analyzing Google Analytics data, those are the charts that we introduced at first. So there might be some limitations around that.
00:08:01
Speaker
And from there, we look at our users. What do the users want? We have a feature request tracker. And people can go in, request for new chart types. They can vote for it. And whatever becomes the most popular, most requested feature or chart type, we will try to add those. So these are the two things that contributed to the current charting library we have. So you have line charts, bar charts, pie charts. Then you have maps, bullet charts, scorecards.
00:08:29
Speaker
One new feature that we're working on right now, and anyone can basically go and sign up for it, is you can write your own visualization in JavaScript. You can use T3 or any other charting library that you want, and then take that and plug it into Data Studio. So the possibilities are literally endless because you can have any kind of chart that you want, and then you can have that chart alongside any other Data Studio charts.
00:08:54
Speaker
You can put a leader on top of that and that will work across all the charts. So can you talk about that a little bit more? So if I'm a D3 programmer, which I'm not, but no, let's just imagine I magically have these skills. So if I build, let's pick one that's not in here, like a chord diagram, for example.
00:09:11
Speaker
So I build a core diagram in D3 and I can make that work on my browser. So now what's the process by getting into Data Studio and then also how do I allow or enable my team members to also use that as well?
00:09:27
Speaker
So one thing I'll get clear for us is if you build it, then anyone can use it. So if you build a new chart type and then create a report with that chart type, anyone can view that report and use it. Or if you put the chart type in your report and share that with Edit Access with someone, someone can go and edit it.
00:09:45
Speaker
we're still looking into how that can be leveraged so
Comparison with Other BI Tools
00:09:49
Speaker
that if you create a chart type, someone else who's creating a completely new report can use that chart type in that chart. So once this feature gets into developer preview or gets out of beta, then we'll have some solution around that. There will be maybe a library where you can go in and say, all right, I would use this chart type, and then you can import that.
00:10:09
Speaker
creating it. It's more of a developer feature right now, so there is a sort of API behind it, and there's a library that you have to use. We have the documentation available on our developer website, so if you go there, you'll have to sign up for a group, and that group will give you access to the future. At the same time, we have a step-by-step tutorial. The first tutorial lets you just draw one blue box on the canvas, and then it will slowly build up from there. You can have like a small part chart, and then you can
00:10:37
Speaker
Also add styling. There are some limited functionalities, like you won't get everything that D3 can do, or maybe even if you can render it, you won't get the flexibility of changing everything on the fly. But even with the limitations, it will be pretty flexible in terms of what you can do.
00:10:55
Speaker
I wanted to ask you had mentioned that that a lot of this came out of the Google Analytics what people are using in Google Analytics and you people who are using Google Analytics will continue to just live in that environment or do you think they'll move between these two to do the reporting.
00:11:11
Speaker
So for Google Analytics, what we see is that a lot of the user spectrum is a spectrum. The users who are casual users would probably not use this feature, but when you go to the middle or the high end, like where you have power users, they sort of tend to use both.
00:11:30
Speaker
you're out of the box, easy to use, what is going on right now kind of features, then you go into the Google Analytics dashboard. But if you want more customized solutions or when you're trying to drill into data or you want to answer a very specific question, that's when you build, bring in your GA data into Data Studio and then build that. That's cool.
00:11:53
Speaker
Let's also talk about Teams. We were talking about this before we started recording. It's clearly a big issue is how you get people to work on the same document or the same project. Google Sheets and Google Docs does that really well. Can you talk about how Teams can use this in a similar sort of fashion?
00:12:12
Speaker
The trend we're seeing right now is that not just for visualization, but for other works, it's more collaborative right now. People will work with other people, people will share their work and their results, their findings with other people. So the goal is to how to make that as seamless or as easy as possible.
00:12:31
Speaker
That's where we think the data suite really shines because it's a collaborative working environment just like Google Docs or Google Sheets. Multiple people can work on the same dashboard at the same time. You can start creating one chart on one side of the dashboard and you can see your colleague creating a separate chart on the other side. And these get updated in real time. And the permissions mechanism also work pretty well. So if you have access to certain data sources but you don't want
00:12:58
Speaker
other people who are working on the dashboard to look at the data, you can still share the data source, like the connection to the data, but not give them permission to download any data. I see. For example, you have access to the MySQL database where you're pulling the data from, and your colleague doesn't have access to it. You can create a connection to that, share the connection with your colleague, so your colleague will be able to pull in the data, but your colleague doesn't necessarily have access to the data.
00:13:24
Speaker
Then with the sharing and editing, so that means that people can move things around, they can change colors. What's the spectrum of things that people can do when they're sharing? When you're sharing it with edit capabilities, the owner of the file and the other editors can do everything. You don't get any limitation as an editor. You can add more pages, you can add chart types, you can add text, pictures,
00:13:50
Speaker
We also have a way where you can render image links within a table, so you can have nicely card type on this place. That's from the editing point of view. Once you've done the editing and you want to sort of share your results with other folks,
00:14:06
Speaker
You can share the report with the view access. You can do it just like other Google Docs or Sheets. You can share that with specific other people. You can share that within, across your organization. Or you can share that with the whole world.
Future Features and Community Involvement
00:14:19
Speaker
Anyone can be able to see your dashboard. You can send them a link and they can view it. You can also take the dashboard and embed it in iFrame. We also just recently started supporting Go embed. So you can take your dashboard and put it into a medium log. Gotcha. And there are no limitations around that.
00:14:36
Speaker
So when someone views it, when they just have the viewer, yes. So when I'm editing it, I'm seeing I have like the standard, you know, Google environment, it's the name and then the file edit view tab and then, you know, the data studio tab with all the chart types. So when I get just a view version, it just appears like a regular website.
00:14:57
Speaker
It appears as a dashboard. If you view it, it will be like, if you go to the direct link of the Data Studio dashboard, it will have a header that says Data Studio, but we need that, it will be just your canvas with your data on it. That's it. So my view of, this is probably not the way Microsoft and Tableau would argue, but my view of Power BI, for example. The aspect that I really like about Power BI is that you can create a dashboard where everything is linked immediately. You don't have to add filters the way you have to do in Tableau.
00:15:26
Speaker
But from my perspective, the trade-off is Tableau looks a lot nicer, whereas Power BI sort of, you know, kind of doesn't. But for me, it seems like Power BI, we sit around a table and we can make something a lot faster and we can drill down into the data. And I wonder, like all the graphs here sort of look very Google Sheets, you know, they have that sort of look. So I wonder, do you and your team, do they have a view on who you think is gonna be the primary user?
00:15:54
Speaker
Is it the people who are sitting around a table working, or is it going to be like the Tableau public community where it's like, let's make a nice, beautiful dashboard and post it to the site? Or is it going to be like, which probably will be like a mix of both of those? Since the barrier to entry to this product is very low, we think that
00:16:12
Speaker
A lot of people, like anyone who wants to do visualization can use this tool. Unless you're doing very specific kind of visualization where you want a lot of flexibility and a lot of customization, Data Studio should be able to meet your needs. You can build a dashboard in five minutes and share that with the whole world.
00:16:32
Speaker
from the point where you go into Data Studio to the point where you're sharing with the complete dashboard with the whole world can literally take five minutes. And we think that that's a very good advantage that people want to get things done. People want to get things done quickly. And they want to share their findings with others. They want to talk about their data story. And this is something that lets you do that.
00:16:58
Speaker
The low barrier to entry actually reminds me to ask a question that's actually my daughter would actually more interested because they at her school, their school newspapers run on Google sites. So I assume that you could create a dashboard in Data Studio and just embed it now. Is it embedded into Google site or is it iframed in or how does that work? I mean, it's all within the Google environment. So it's iframed in. It supports iframed embeds.
Future Prospects of Data Studio
00:17:27
Speaker
Looking forward, so this is, you mentioned there's a couple things that are beta that are coming out. There's a developer side and right now you mentioned this sort of, you know, there's a pretty good but somewhat limited library of graphs up there. So what does the next, I don't know, six months to a year bring for Data Studio?
00:17:44
Speaker
One thing that we're actively doing right now is trying to grow the number of data sources that we support. We have a program called the Community Connectors Program where developers can come in and write their own connector in Apps Script. Apps Script is a Google scripting language that is a subset of JavaScript.
00:18:03
Speaker
So you can go in and sort of write a connector that fetches data from your own API. We have a connector gallery that has about a hundred connectors right now that connect to more than, say, 400 different data sources. But we're trying to grow that because when you're doing a visualization,
00:18:23
Speaker
You have the data part and the visualization part. We want you to focus more on the visualization part. You shouldn't be really bothered about how do I get my data? How do I store it? How do I clean it? That should be taken care of for you. And that's where you're trying to make the process seamless so that if let's say you're trying to see
00:18:41
Speaker
what was your red post count like, you don't have to go in and fetch the data from the API. You don't have to go in or scrape the webpage. You just add the connector, put in your information, and it immediately gets you the data. You have the data, and then now you have time to explore the data. So that's one thing we're looking at. One of the big features that was requested by folks was data blending. So if you have data from different sources, how do you blend that? So we're working on that.
00:19:09
Speaker
We're also working on community visualizations where, like I mentioned, that you can come in and write your own videos in JavaScript. So these are some of the things that will come out in the near future. That's great. That's cool. Well, it looks like a great project. I'll link to, of course, Data Studio and all the things that you mentioned, where you can report feature requests, and the developer website so that people can come in and hopefully play with it. Minas, thanks so much. This is a really cool looking tool, and I'm looking forward to playing around with it. Thank you so much.
00:19:37
Speaker
And thanks everyone for tuning into this week's episode. If you have comments or questions, please let me know in the comment section or on Twitter. So until next time, this has been the PolicyBiz Podcast. Thanks so much for listening.