# My first hour with Google Data Studio

> This is content from just-tim, the data-and-analytics channel by Tim Ngwena (formerly 'Tableau Tim'). Tim has 12+ years of hands-on BI experience and covers Tableau most of all, plus Power BI, Looker, Hex, SQL and data modelling, the analytics industry, and the craft of doing the job — always tool-agnostic and honest about the trade-offs.

- **Author:** Tim Ngwena (just-tim, https://just-tim.com/about)
- **Published:** 2020-06-07
- **Format:** Video · 9 min watch · transcript available
- **Topics:** Data visualisation, Tool strategy
- **Tools:** Tableau (calculated fields, maps)
- **Canonical:** https://just-tim.com/posts/my-first-hour-with-google-data-studio
- **Watch:** https://youtu.be/z8du0h6YuzM

I try out Google Data Studio for the very first time, live and unscripted, approaching it as a long-time Tableau user. I attempt to recreate a familiar Tableau profitability dashboard using Superstore data, working through data connection, calculated fields, maps, filters and formatting as I go.

## Key takeaways

- Data Studio is entirely browser-based and free to start, with native connectors to Google data sources like YouTube analytics plus a large library of partner and open-source connectors built right into the product.
- It does not connect to Excel files directly through the web uploader, so you need to convert to CSV (or route via Google Sheets) before uploading.
- Boolean logic must be written with a CASE WHEN statement rather than a simple greater-than expression, and the community documentation was essential for working that out.
- Themes and layout hints are genuine strengths over Tableau, letting you restyle a whole dashboard in a click while still respecting manual colour choices, and snapping objects into alignment.
- Number formatting (currencies, percentages, compact thousands/millions) lives in the field definition rather than directly on the chart, which is less intuitive coming from Tableau.

## Chapters

- 0:00 What Google Data Studio is
- 0:57 Trying it blind, not as a comparison
- 2:18 Free signup and first interface
- 5:10 Connecting to data sources
- 7:38 Uploading Superstore as CSV
- 11:08 First chart and dropping in Google Maps
- 18:21 Recreating the profitability calculation
- 33:45 Category charts via filters
- 40:44 Colouring the map by profit ratio
- 48:18 Scorecards and number formatting
- 57:44 Adding filters and interactivity
- 64:12 Final reflections

Watch the full video, read the transcript and use chapter deep-links on the page: https://just-tim.com/posts/my-first-hour-with-google-data-studio

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just-tim — Data and analytics, with a point of view. · https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7HYxRWmaNlJux-X7rNLZyw · https://twitter.com/TableauTim · https://www.linkedin.com/in/timngwena