Sessions need a laptop or desktop.
If you’re on your phone now, that’s fine. Enrol now and we’ll email you a link so you can pick up when you’re at a computer.
Data Studio · Foundations · formerly Looker Studio
Build a report your team can open at a link.
What you’ll end up with
One finished two-page report. Where the money is and why things come back, reading three connected spreadsheets, with eight fields you wrote, a sortable table, a branch control, a date range, and a link whose access you chose.
10½
hours in all — about 7½ guided, 3 on your own
6
sessions. Each designed to be completed in one sitting
Free
No payment and no card required.
Finishing gives you a completion record showing the work you built, and all three levels earn the Alongrail Certificate in Data Studio. See what you’ll build →
You don’t need prior experience with Data Studio. There’s no payment and no card required.
From three raw files to a finished report
0170 min
Get the data in front of you
Eastbrook's orders export is a spreadsheet Data Studio can read, a report of your own is reading it, and you can say what the software decided about every field before you touched anything.
02125 min
Make the numbers numbers
The money field that arrived as text is a number the software will add up, a total is on the page, the returns export is in the report alongside the orders, and the return date that arrived as words is a date you wrote yourself.
03100 min
Make the labels readable
Products that were split in two by a stray space are one product again, three channels written eight ways are three channels, and the note line the export put at the end of the returns file is no longer being counted as a return.
04135 min
The numbers the business actually asks for
An order count that counts orders rather than rows, an average order value, a margin, and three of them on the page as figures you can each explain and each check another way.
05120 min
The page people will actually use
One page that answers the question it was built for, with a branch table a reader can sort, a control that narrows everything to one branch, a date range a reader sets, and one chart that filters the others when it is clicked.
0690 min
A second page, a finding, and a link
A two-page report with one look, a sentence on it saying what you found, and a link you can give somebody — with you able to say exactly who can open it and what they get when they do.
What you need before you start
A laptop or desktop
Sessions need a laptop or desktop. If you’re on your phone now, that’s fine. Enrol now and we’ll email you a link so you can pick up when you’re at a computer. Data Studio runs in the browser, on Windows or a Mac.
Chrome or Edge
Alongrail runs in the browser too, in its own tab beside Data Studio.
The course files
Everything you work with is in the download.
What’s free
The whole course: every session, both parts, the files, and your record. Alongrail charges nothing for it. No payment, and no card at any point.
The software
None. The free tier of the product does everything this course needs, the Google account it runs on is free, and there is no card and no trial clock.
The data you’ll work with
Every file is invented — the companies, the people and everything in them are made up for the course, and the files are deliberately messy, the way real business data is. Cleaning them is part of the work.
Before you start
The course covers Data Studio, in your browser.
- A current browser — Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari — because the software runs as a browser tab alongside this one and there is nothing to install
- A Google account you can sign in to, free to create, with Google Drive available on it. Pick one account and stay on it: work built while signed in as somebody else is not visible from here
- The product itself, which you reach from the Data Studio link on Google Cloud's own documentation page for it. Google renamed this software in April and its web address moved with the name, so follow Google's own link rather than an address written down anywhere else, including here
- The data bundle eastbrook-data.zip, downloaded from the course page and unzipped into a folder of its own called Eastbrook
- The on-your-own bundle for Wrenford Textiles, downloaded from the course page and unzipped into a second folder of its own called Wrenford, so that two sets of files with identical names can never be confused for each other
- One thing to know before you start: the report you build can be opened up to anybody holding its link, and when it is, the spreadsheets connected inside it go with it. Both companies in this course are invented and their figures are generated, which is why it is safe to do that here. Never do it with anything real.
- Not a course in combining data from several sources. This level keeps each spreadsheet separate and says plainly why; combining them is the next level's first subject.
- Nothing here uses the paid tier. Team workspaces, scheduled delivery, the assistant and the administration features are all outside this level, and the course never needs them.
- No maps and no marketing connectors. The supplied exports carry no place names, and connecting an advertising account needs an account with real traffic in it.
- Not a formula tour. You will write eight fields and understand all of them rather than skim forty.
- The report you finish with can be opened by anybody holding its link, which is the trade for a free tool with a real audience, and is why this course ships invented data.
- The minutes shown for this level are its guided time. The on-your-own runs add about half as much again, and both are needed for the completion record.
Alongrail teaches the software and gives you a record of what you built, with a link to the work itself. What happens with it afterwards is yours. We don’t place people and we take no part in anyone’s recruitment process.
Enrol free and start now.
Sign in, confirm the one thing the course needs, and session 1 opens. No payment, and no card at any point.
If something goes wrong on the way, press “Something’s wrong” in the panel, or write to hello@alongrail.com — we reply within one working day.
Frequently asked questions
What you build
Start with three raw exports of a tool wholesaler's orders and finish with a two-page report on the web at a link you can send anyone, built by you, understood by you, and rebuildable without help.
A two-page report — where the money is, and why things come back — reading three connected spreadsheets, with eight fields you wrote and can each explain, a table a reader can sort, a control that narrows the page to one branch, a period a reader chooses, a written finding, and a link whose access you chose deliberately and can describe.
How a session works
- Open Data Studio
- Share your screen
- One instruction
- You do it
- It confirms it
- Next
You open Data Studio and share your screen. Alongrail reads what’s there and gives you one instruction. You do it. It confirms the step landed, then gives you the next one. If something doesn’t match what you see, one button gets you back on track.
Guided
In the Fields list, tick Region. The chart fills in.
One field on the axis, one measure as the value.
then
On your owna different company’s data
Same job, a different company's files. Alongrail stays quiet until you ask.
Guided, then on your own.
The second part of every session uses a different company’s data, with the same kind of mess in different places. Alongrail stays quiet until you ask. It’s the work your record points to.
About 10½ hours in all·about 7½ guided·about 3 on your own
What you earn — the record, the certificate and a sample
Completion record
- Name
- Your name
- Course
- Data Studio Foundations — build a report anyone can open at a link
- Completed
- The date you finish
- Project
- The report you built on your own →
- Skills demonstrated
- Getting an exported file into a place a reporting tool can read · Reading what a connector decided about every field, and telling a decision from a defect · Repairing a field by its type, and repairing one by writing a new field alongside it · Writing text, date, counting and ratio formulas, and guarding a division · Counting things rather than rows · Filtering rows out of an answer, and knowing what a filter does and does not reach · Choosing the chart that answers the question asked · Building an interactive page a reader can drive · Stating a finding in words · Sharing on the web, and being able to say who can see what
What was built
A two-page report — where the money is, and why things come back — reading three connected spreadsheets, with eight fields you wrote and can each explain, a table a reader can sort, a control that narrows the page to one branch, a period a reader chooses, a written finding, and a link whose access you chose deliberately and can describe.
The 6 sessions, and when each was completed on their own
Each session was completed twice: once with step-by-step guidance on one company’s data, then on a second company’s data from a brief, with guidance only when asked. Every check passed on both. Alongrail records the sessions, the checks and the dates; the dashboard itself is the learner’s own, hosted where they chose.
A completion record for Data Studio Foundations, now. It names the course, the date you finished, the skills you demonstrated, and links the report you built on your own. It’s private until you publish it, and you can unpublish it at any time.
The record is a description of work you did, not a claim about you. Anyone who opens it can see the work for themselves.
The Alongrail Certificate in Data Studio when all three levels are complete. Foundations is the first of three. Practitioner and Professional are in development, with no dates. See the track →
Your screen stays yours
It looks when you ask. Never otherwise. Images of your screen are not stored. What Alongrail sees →
Nothing you build is public until you publish it. Your record is private until you say so, and you can unpublish it at any time.
What’s Data Studio?
Data Studio is the software this course is built in. It runs in your browser.
You won’t learn it by watching hours of tutorials. You’ll learn it by building something real with it.
Who you’re building it for
Eastbrook Tools sells hand tools, power tools, fixings and workwear to independent builders' merchants through four branches. Three years of orders, a few thousand of them, and four branch leads.
The managing director has asked a question nobody in the company can currently answer: which branches are making money, and which are only busy. Sales are growing year on year. So are returns, and nobody knows whether those are the same story or two different ones.
There is no reporting system. There are three exported files, a long-running argument about which branch is best, and a board meeting.
Your job is to build the report that answers it.
Do I need to know Data Studio already?
No. The course assumes you’ve never opened it.
What if I get stuck?
Press the button in the panel and say what you see. Alongrail works out where you actually are and picks the instruction back up.
Why 10½ hours, when other courses are 40?
Because the time is spent doing the work rather than watching it. About 7½ hours is guided; the rest is you building the same thing again on your own.
What does Alongrail see on my screen?
Only the window you choose to share, and only when you ask it to look. Images of your screen are not stored by Alongrail. What Alongrail sees →
Can I use a Mac?
Yes. Data Studio runs in the browser.
What if I miss a week?
Nothing closes. The dates are there to help you keep moving, not to catch you out.
What’s the “on your own” part?
The second half of every session: the same work on a different company’s data, with Alongrail quiet unless you ask. Both parts are needed for your completion record.
Is it really free?
Yes. No payment, and no card at any point.
Who can see what I build?
Nobody, until you say so. Your record is private until you publish it, and you can unpublish it at any time. What you build stays in your own files or account; where a step publishes something to the software’s own site, the step says so and says who can see it.
Where this course sits
Data Studio Foundations is Foundations in Data Studio. The track has three levels; each one you complete earns its own record, and all of them together earn the Alongrail Certificate in Data Studio. All the courses →