What is Looker?

Looker is a Business Intelligence Software and Analytics platform that helps you explore, analyze, and share insights. 
Looker lives in the Cloud and is accessed via a web browser. That means you can access your data and dashboards anywhere, as long as you are connected to the internet.

Pro-Tip: Remember, nothing is stored on Looker. Looker simply "Looks" at what is on a database and allows users to create and share content about that data (eg: charts, dashboards, and reports).

How do I access Looker?

To gain access to Looker, please submit a request via the Business Systems & Reporting Service Desk. Once the request is processed, you will see an email inviting you to set up your Looker account. 
Once your account is all set up, you can get to Looker any time by navigating to https://captivate.looker.com on your web browser (Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc).

How do I use Looker?

Anyone can get good at using Looker! Check out Looker's Getting Started guide and Building Reports in Looker training. 
Hungry for more? Check out the rest of Looker's free training here: https://training.looker.com/

What does Looker look like?

Looker's strengths lie in aggregating (summarizing) large datasets by turning them into charts and graphs. A color-coded chart is easier for human eyes to consume, and can tell a clearer story than a big table full of numbers! Here is an example of a dashboard defined and designed by a fellow Captivator. (Please note: names are blurred for confidentiality)

How does Looker work?

A great use case for Looker is to automate reporting based on NetSuite data. What previously would have required an analyst to manually export saved searches and/or reports to mash information together, we can use Looker to pull the information and visualize for us automatically.

As mentioned above, no data is stored in Looker. Rather, Looker looks at data stored on a database (Captivate uses a powerful cloud warehouse called Snowflake). Data is synchronized (one-way) from NetSuite to snowfalke via a tool called Fivetran.

^{NetSuite's streamlined Looker dataflow} 

Older data sources, such as SFA and CRM, require some more steps to extract information out of. Here is an example of a more complex workflow to see the information in Looker. For example, to automate reports out of SFA, the following process runs in the background: