Guide · Google Cloud and dashboards
Google Cloud, BigQuery and dashboards: the guide
Collecting data is only half the job: you need to store it, query it and show it to the people who make decisions. This guide collects the articles on Google Cloud, BigQuery and dashboards, from Looker Studio to Grafana.
Where to start
Three reads to find your way
Google Cloud: introduction to the platform
How the platform is organised and which services you really need for a data project.
BigQuery: WITH clause
The first step to writing readable, reusable BigQuery queries.
Google Looker Studio: Complete Dashboard Guide 2026
How to build free dashboards connected to your data, step by step.
Google Cloud for data
The platform, data lakes on Cloud Storage and ready-made machine learning services.
BigQuery
Google’s serverless data warehouse: advanced queries, geographic functions, analytic windows, optimisation and spreadsheet integration.
Dashboards and reporting
From the first dashboard with Data Studio, now Looker Studio, to technical and IoT dashboards with Grafana.
- Google Data Studio: introduction and first steps
- Google Data Studio: introduction to charts
- Google Data Studio – The MySQL connector (Part 1)
- Google Data Studio – The MySQL connector (Part 2)
- Google Looker Studio: Complete Dashboard Guide 2026
- Grafana: Professional Dashboards for Technical and IoT Data
You will find every article in the Google Cloud category of the blog. For the databases behind your dashboards, see the database guide.
When you need help
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Frequently asked questions
Is Looker Studio free?
Yes, for most uses. You only pay for paid third-party connectors or the Pro version. The Looker Studio guide has the details.
How much does BigQuery cost?
You pay for stored data and for the data your queries read, with a free monthly allowance. Writing optimised queries, as I explain in the articles, makes a big difference to costs.
Looker Studio or Grafana: which is better?
Looker Studio is ideal for business reports and marketing data; Grafana for technical data, time series and continuously updated IoT data.
Want a dashboard that updates itself?
Start with an audit: I will tell you which data to start from and how to connect it.