Looker Studio offers two ways to control the timeframe in your reports:
- Setting the date range property for one or more components, for the current page, or for the report as a whole
- Using a Date range controli
Only editors can set date range properties. However, Date range controls can be used both by viewers and by editors.
In this article:How date ranges work
Date ranges filter your data within a specified timeframe. You can define a custom date range by choosing start and end dates, or you can select from a list of predefined ranges, such as Yesterday, Last 7 days (include today), Last quarter, This year to date, etc.
This article covers the following steps to set up date ranges in your reports:
- Select the Date Range Dimension. This is the dimension in your data source that contains the date (or date and time) data that you want to use to specify a date range.
- Specify the Default date range for the component.
- Specify the Comparison date range for the component (optional).
Date Range Dimension
The Date Range Dimension governs the timeframe of the selected components, of the current page, or of the report as a whole.
Set the Date Range Dimension
For Google Analytics components, the Date Range Dimension is set automatically and can't be changed.
For other data source types, you may need to set this manually if Looker Studio can't find a valid date dimension, or if your data source contains a different dimension that you want to use.
To set the Date Range Dimension for a chart, follow these steps:
- Select a chart or control.
- On the right, in the properties panel, select the SETUP tab.
- In the Data Source section, select the Date Range Dimension, and then use the dimension picker to select a valid date dimension.
To set the Date Range Dimension for the report or page, you can use either the File > Report settings menu or the Page > Current page settings menu.
Default date range
The default date range for your charts and controls depends on their data source. You can change the amount of data that is shown by setting the Default Date Range property. You can set this property for your entire report, for a specific page, or for one or more charts and controls on a page.
Set the default date range
To change the default date range for the entire report, edit that report and select the File > Report settings menu.
To change the default date range for a specific page, edit that page and select the Page > Current page settings menu.
To change the default date range for one or more charts or controls, select them.
Next:
- On the right, in the properties panel, select the SETUP tab.
- Scroll down to find the Default Date Range property.
- Make sure that you have already selected a Date Range Dimension.
- Select Custom.
- To display the date range options, click the currently selected range.
Date range options
When you configure date range properties for a chart, or use a Date range control, you have the following four kinds of date ranges to choose from:
- Auto
- Fixed
- Preset
- Advanced
For comparison periods, you can also select one of the following:
- Previous period
- Previous year
Auto date ranges are set as the default based on the data source for the selected chart. For example, Google Analytics defaults to the last 28 days from yesterday. Sheets data sources default to the entire date range found in the Sheet.
Fixed date ranges specify exact beginning and ending dates, for example, January 1, 2019 to January 31, 2019. Charts with this fixed range will always show data for those dates only.
Preset date ranges give you options such as Today, Last week (starts Monday), and This year to date. Preset date ranges are relative to the value of today and adjust as time passes.
Advanced date ranges let you create flexible custom rolling dates. See the following section for more details.
Previous period compares the currently selected period for the chart to the previous matching period. For example, if the current period is Last 28 days, the comparison is to the previous 28 day period prior to the last 28 days.
Previous year compares the current selected period to the same period last year. For example, if the current period is This week to date (starts Sunday), the chart displays comparison data for the matching dates from last year.
Advanced date ranges
Advanced date ranges let you configure custom date periods for both the current date range and the comparison date range. For example, you can create date ranges such as last 90 days from yesterday, or last 52 weeks from last week; or you can compare the current 30 days to the last 30 days, aligned by day of the week.
Configure an advanced date range
To configure an advanced date range, follow these steps:
-
Select the component.
- On the right, in the properties panel, select the SETUP tab.
- On the right, under Default date range, click Custom. Then click the calendar icon
.
(For a Date range control, just select the control and then, on the right, click the calendar icon - Scroll to the bottom of the list of preset date options.
- Click Advanced.
- Set the Start date:
- To make the start date a rolling date, select Today.
- To make the start date a specific calendar date, select Fixed.
- To make the start date a date in the past, select Minus.
- To make the start date a date in the future, select Plus.
- Enter the number of date units.
- Specify what date units to use.
- Repeat steps 4 - 7 for the end date.
- Click APPLY.
Examples
Last 90 days from yesterday:
| Start Date | End Date |
| Today | Today |
| Minus | Minus |
| 90 | 1 |
| Days | Days |
Last 30 days from today:
| Start Date | End Date |
| Today | Today |
| Minus | Minus |
| 29 | 0 |
| Days | Days |
Next two quarters from this quarter:
| Start Date | End Date |
| Today | Today |
| Minus | Plus |
| 0 | 2 |
| Quarters | Quarters |
Visualize dates in charts
Any chart in Looker Studio can display date dimensions. However, the time series and area chart are optimized to display date-based information. For these charts, you’ll provide two types of dimensions:
- A Dimension (also called a time dimension) that specifies how you want to aggregate the data according to the data type that you select
- A Breakdown Dimension that specifies how you want to measure the data over time
For example, if you use a time dimension that has a type of date, your chart shows aggregated data by year, month, and day. If you choose a time dimension with a type of Year Month, your data is aggregated by those units (year and month). In addition, the time series and area charts automatically sort by date, while other charts allow sorting by any dimension or metric.
Comparison date range
Some charts can compare the current date range to another range in the past. For example, in a time series, the comparison data appears as a line of a different color from the current data. In a table, the comparison data is shown as the delta from the current data, with an increase or decrease indicator.
Set up a comparison date range
To set up a comparison date range, follow these steps:
- Select a time series, a table, an area chart, or a scorecard.
- On the right, in the properties panel, select the SETUP tab.
- Scroll down to the Default Date Range section.
- Under Comparison date range, choose the comparison period.
- Click APPLY.
Examples
Previous period / previous year
Assume today's date is January 1, 2019, and the currently selected period for the chart is Last 7 days:
| Comparison period | Current dates | Comparison dates |
| Previous period | December 25, 2018 to December 31, 2018 | December 18, 2018 to December 24, 2018 |
| Previous year | December 25, 2018 to December 31, 2018 | December 25, 2017 to December 31, 2017 |
|
Fixed June 1st, 2018 to June 7, 2018 |
December 25, 2018 to December 31, 2018 | June 1, 2018 to June 7, 2018 |
Now, assume today's date is January 2, 2019:
| Comparison period | Current dates | Comparison dates |
| Previous period | December 26, 2018 to January 1, 2019 | December 19, 2018 to December 25, 2018 |
| Previous year | December 26, 2018 to January 1, 2019 | December 26, 2017 to January 1, 2018 |
|
Fixed June 1st, 2018 to June 7, 2018 |
December 26, 2018 to January 1, 2019 | June 1, 2018 to June 7, 2018 |
Advanced date comparison
Compare the last 30 days from yesterday to the 30 days prior to that, aligned by day of the week (for example, compare Monday to Monday):
| Current date range | Comparison date range | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Last 30 days (excluding today) |
|
Compare year to date to two years ago:
| Current date range | Comparison date range | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| This year (excluding today) |
|