Data Sources in Google Data Studio – Tutorial

What is a data source in Google Data Studio?

A data source is a Data Studio file that is used to define how a connector should provide data from a specific data set to the report(s) in Data Studio.

You create a data source for a specific data set. So if you want to display data from multiple data sets in your Data Studio report then you would need to create a separate data source for each data set and then add each data source to your report.

Introduction to data sets

A data set is a place where your collected data actually resides.

Every data platform is made up of one or more data sets.

For example, the Google Analytics platform is made up of one or more reporting views. So a specific Google Analytics reporting view is an example of a data set.

Similarly, the Google Sheets platform is made up of one or more spreadsheets. So a specific Google spreadsheet is an example of a data set.

Data source connection

A data source connection is a connection between your data source and data set.

Editing a data source connection means changing how a data source connects to your data set. When you create or edit a data source connection, you are asked to select the data set you to want to use:

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The data source editor

The data source editor is used to do data modeling in Google Data Studio.

In order to open the data source editor of an existing data source, follow the steps below:

Step-1: Navigate to the home page of the Google Data Studio.

Step-2: Click on the ‘Data Sources’ tab:

Step-3: Locate your data source and then click it to open the data source editor:

Here is how the data source editor looks like:

Following are the various Data source editor legends:

	#1 Data Studio logo – click on it to navigate to the home page-
	#2 Data Source name – click on it to change the name of your data source.
	#3 Data Source Credentials
	#4 Data Source Freshness
	#5 Community visualization access
	#6 Field editing in reports
	#7 Data Source Version History
	#8 Share data source
	#9 Get help on Google Data Studio.
	#10 Navigate to other Google Marketing product (like Google Analytics, GTM, etc)
	#11 Edit data source connection
	#12 Data Source fields
	#13 Data source fields’ types
	#14 Default aggregation
	#15 Description of the data source field
	#16 Search fields
	#17 Make a copy of the data source
	#18 Create a new report from the data source
	#19 Create a new exploration from the data source
	#20 Add a new calculated field
	#21 Refresh data source fields
	#22 Number of fields in the data source

#23 Sort the schema in ascending or descending order:

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