A field's data type specifies the kind of values the field can contain and determines how that field's data appears in your reports, as well as which operations are allowed for the field and which are not allowed. For example, you can't apply an arithmetic function to a Text type field, or use a Number type field as the date range dimension in a report.
The following table shows the supported field types, along with the kind of data expected as input, and examples of how that data might look in your reports.
| Type | Expected data | Report examples |
|---|---|---|
| Number | A floating point number. | 1,234.56 |
| Percent | A floating point number representing a ratio. | 61.73% |
| Duration | An integer representing a length of time in seconds. This will be formatted into a standard time display (with hours, minutes, and seconds) in reports. | 01:43:19 |
| Currency |
A floating point number representing a monetary value. This will be formatted to include the appropriate currency symbol in reports. Changing the currency type doesn't convert to the new type. It simply applies the specified currency symbol to the metric value.
|
$1,234.56 173.9 € ¥30,093 |
| Text | Zero or more letters, numbers, characters, or symbols. |
A1B2C3 |
| Date & Time |
An actual calendar date, a calendar date with time, or an abstract date or time index. This will be formatted according to the locale. Learn more about dates and times in Looker Studio. |
2020-09-21 2020-09-21 12:35 PM Q4 2020 Week 1 |
| Boolean |
A logical value. If the dataset doesn't provide Boolean values, you can create a Boolean data type field by using a calculated field with a
Learn more about CASE statements. |
true false |
| Geo |
A value representing a geographic region, such as a country name, latitude and longitude, ISO code, or Google Ads criteria ID. Learn more about visualizing geographic data. |
United Kingdom 51.5074,-0.1278 1006886 |
| URL |
An address of a World Wide Web page. |
https://lookerstudio.google.com/ |
| Hyperlink | A clickable link to a URL. Hyperlink fields are created by the HYPERLINK function. | See an example of Hyperlink fields |
| Image | An image. Image fields are created by the IMAGE function. | |
| Image Link | A clickable image. Image Link fields are created by the HYPERLINK function. | See an example of Image Link fields |
To change a field's data type, use the Type drop-down menu in the data source edit page. If the field editing in reports option is enabled for the data source, you can also change a field's data type directly in reports based on this data source.
If the field editing in reports option is enabled for the data source, you can also apply custom value formatting to Number and Date & Time type fields, without sending additional SQL queries to the database.