Create a Live Dashboard from a Zapier Table using Google Looker

Hi ​@SJH747 

Available app integrations can be searched here: https://zapier.com/apps

Each app has a profile page that lists the available triggers/actions and help links.

Looker: 

• Triggers/Actions: https://zapier.com/apps/looker/integrations#triggers-and-actions
• Help: https://zapier.com/apps/looker/integrations#help

Hey Steve, good news: you don't need Looker for this and the Zapier-to-Google Sheets path is actually the right call.

To answer your questions directly:

A) No native Looker integration in Zapier right now, and I haven't seen anything on the roadmap.

B) Yes, a dedicated Zap to sync your table to Google Sheets is exactly what you'd build. It's straightforward: trigger on record updated in Zapier Tables, map your fields, write to Sheets. Looker Studio (free, formerly Data Studio) then connects directly to that Sheet as its data source.

C) A few things that'll save you time:

Looker Studio handles your color coding natively through conditional formatting rules on table columns. Set it once, it's persistent.

For the refresh requirement: Looker Studio auto-refreshes on a schedule you control, but the 10-minute interval during business hours only is not something it handles natively. Easiest workaround is to leave the dashboard open in a browser tab and use a free Chrome extension like Tab Reloader to force a refresh on whatever schedule you want. For the public holiday exclusion, that logic lives in your Zap, not your dashboard. Just add a filter step that checks the date before syncing.

For the desktop shortcut: once your Looker Studio report is published, bookmark it and create a browser shortcut on the desktop. Done.

The main lesson from this setup: keep your Google Sheet clean. Looker Studio gets confused fast if your field names or data types are inconsistent. Lock down your schema before you build the dashboard.

Hey Stacy,

Thanks for the reply. I have now built the dashboard via the ZAP and Google Sheet method, however the Looker Report (dashboard) using the Google Sheet data source is not refreshing every 15mins,  as set. I have triple checked the data source settings and reauthenticated the Google Sheet within Looker, however unless I manually refresh the data within the open Looker Report window,  the dashboard does not refresh. I am unfamiliar with the Chrome extension you reference and how that may assist.   Comments ?

Steve

Hey Steve,

This is a Looker Studio quirk that trips a lot of people up. The refresh interval you set in the data source controls how long Looker Studio caches data, not how often it actively re-queries the Sheet while the report is sitting open in your browser. In practice, it won't pull fresh data without a page reload.

That's where a Tab Reloader comes in. There are actually several different tab reloaders available as Chrome extensions. The one I use is called ‘Auto Refresh Plus | Page Monitor’. What it does is force the browser tab to reload on a timer you set.

To set it up just install it from the Chrome Web Store, then open your Looker Studio report in a tab, click the ‘Auto Refresh Plus’ icon in your toolbar, there are a bunch of different options you can pick but for this all you’ll need to do is set the interval to 15 minutes, and turn it on. Once you’ve done that it will automatically reload the tab every 15 minutes. Looker Studio will then fetch fresh data from the Sheet and your dashboard will update without you having to do it manually every time. That's the whole thing.

Search "Auto Refresh Plus | Page Monitor" or tab reloader in the Chrome Web Store, it's free and takes about two minutes to configure.

Hey there ​@SJH747 👋 Did you have any luck with the Chrome extension that Stacy suggested? 

If not, I wanted to share that it looks like the auto refresh on a Looker Report wouldn’t automatically refresh the cache:

Which might explain why you're not seeing the data update. It may be that when you manually refresh the report that then forces it to refresh the cache. 🤔

Google’s guide on Caching queries explains how to lower the cache retention time, so it might be worth trying that to see if it allows the report to be updated more frequently with new data that the Zap adds to the spreadsheet.

Keep us posted on your progress!