Looker Business Analyst
A Looker Business Analyst uses Looker daily to create and curate content, develop reports, and use visualizations to represent data. A Business Analyst should be able to use Looker to query data and create actionable metrics, validate data accuracy, and apply procedural concepts to identify error sources. A Business Analyst can build Looker dashboards to meet business requirements, deliver reports for data consumers, and use appropriate visualizations to meet analysis requirements. A Business Analyst can apply procedural concepts to curate content for intuitive navigation, and control it for security.
The Looker Business Analyst exam assessed one’s ability to:
- Scheduling and sharing Looks and dashboards
- Table calculations and Looker expressions
- Customize and advanced filters
- The impacts of pivoting
- Best practices around designing dashboards
- The fundamentals of caching
The Looker Business Analyst exam was retired on 12/31/2021.
The exam assessed an individual’s capacity in the following topics:
Section 1: Analyze
1.1 Use Looker Explores to query data and
create actionable metrics in a given scenario. For
example: a. Utilize requirements and
create queries using fields (e.g., dimensions, measures,
filters, pivots) b. Determine additional
metrics needed and construct custom metrics using table
calculations c. Determine how to utilize
filters (e.g., standard filters, matches advanced
filters, and custom filters) d. Determine which fields
to use merge results for joining across different
Explores and data sources 1.2 Use Looker to validate data accuracy
in a given scenario. For example: a. Investigate data results
to determine accuracy (e.g., using SQL, drilling, A/B
testing, comparisons) b. Investigate
discrepancies by viewing row-level data using Explores
(e.g., review individual dimension values that make up
the result of a measure) 1.3 Apply procedural concepts to identify
error sources. For example: a. Utilize Looker's
features to determine the cause of the error (e.g., read
error message to get context) b. Interpret error message
to identify the source (e.g., caused by the database,
query, LookML code, permissions, visualizations)
Section 2: Build
2.1 Build dashboards to meet business
requirements. For example: a. Construct dashboards to
meet requirements (e.g., using dashboard filters, merged
results) b. Apply procedural
concepts to design impactful dashboards (e.g.,
storytelling, tile organization, use of text tiles,
amount of data per dashboard) 2.2 Deliver reports for data consumers.
For example: a. Determine appropriate
report delivery methods (e.g., file format, destination,
delivery cadence, recipients, scheduling, sending,
downloading, test delivery) b. Determine appropriate
download configurations (e.g., no option for unlimited
downloads, table calculations, pivots, lack of
permissions, database limitations) 2.3 Use visualization types to meet
analysis requirements in a given scenario. For example:
a. Select appropriate
visualizations to illustrate data results (e.g., bar,
line, scatter, column, pie) b. Determine which
visualization settings to use (e.g., conditional
formatting, subtotals, double axis, value label format
using spreadsheet functions, grouping)
Section 3: Curate
3.1 Apply procedural concepts to curate
content for intuitive navigation. For example: a. Determine appropriate
setups for folders and boards (e.g., structures,
subfolders, hierarchy) b. Apply naming conventions
to identify folders, boards, or other content for users
(e.g., clear titles, description fields, naming folders,
content, and conventions) 3.2 Apply procedural concepts to control
content access for security. For example: a. Utilize appropriate
Explores based on audience to prevent data leak (e.g.,
restricting sensitive data to specific users) b. Assign folders and
boards permissions to organize content based on user
groups