Looker Studio is a great way to turn data into dashboards that are easy for teams and clients to understand. But when a dashboard contains business, customer, marketing, or financial information, one question usually comes up:
How do you make sure only the right people can access your Looker Studio report?
1. Start With the Right Access Level
One of the simplest ways to improve report security is to give users only the access they actually need.
Looker Studio allows you to provide different levels of access, including Viewer and Editor.
If someone only needs to review a dashboard, Viewer access is generally enough. Editor access should be reserved for people who need to make changes to the report.
For example:
- Viewer: Clients, executives, or stakeholders who only need to view the dashboard
- Editor: Analysts or team members responsible for maintaining the report
- Owner: The person or organization responsible for managing the report
Keeping editing permissions limited reduces the chance of accidental changes to charts, filters, data sources, or report settings.
2. Be Selective When Sharing Reports
When sharing a report, consider who actually needs access.
For business or client reporting, sharing the report with specific people or groups is generally better than making it available to anyone with the link.
Before sharing a report, ask:
- Who needs to see this report?
- Is everyone with access still supposed to have it?
- Does anyone need Editor access?
- Is the report being shared outside the intended organization?
A report containing confidential business information should not be broadly accessible simply because it is easier to share that way.
3. Use Advanced Sharing Settings
Looker Studio also provides additional sharing controls that can help you manage what users can do with a report.
Depending on your requirements, you can restrict actions such as:
- Editors changing access and adding new users
- Viewers downloading or printing report content
- Viewers making copies
- Viewers creating alerts
- Certain Gemini capabilities for viewers
These settings don’t need to be enabled for every report.
For example, if a client needs to download information from the dashboard for their monthly reporting, disabling downloads may not make sense.
On the other hand, if a report contains highly confidential information, restricting downloading, printing, or copying may provide an additional layer of protection.
The key is to choose these settings based on how the report is being used and how sensitive the information is.
4. Keep Control of Report Sharing
If several people have Editor access, consider whether they should also be able to change the report’s sharing permissions.
For important client or business reports, limiting the ability to change access can help the report owner maintain control over who can see the information.
This becomes especially important when reports are shared with external users or larger teams.
5. Review Access Regularly
Report security doesn’t end when you first share the dashboard.
People change roles, projects end, and teams change. Someone who needed access six months ago may no longer need it today.
It’s a good idea to periodically review important reports and remove access that is no longer required.
A simple review can include:
- Checking the list of users
- Removing former employees or contractors
- Reviewing Editor permissions
- Checking whether external users still need access
- Confirming that sharing settings are still appropriate
6. Keep Test and Production Reports Separate
If you use Looker Studio for development and testing, be careful about sharing a test report that is connected to production data.
It’s useful to clearly distinguish between:
Test / Development reports
Used for testing new charts, calculations, filters, or data sources.
Production reports
Used by clients, management, or other business stakeholders.
Keeping these environments separate can help prevent accidental changes or unintended exposure of production information.
7. Make Security Part of Your Reporting Process
Security shouldn’t be something you think about only after a report has been created.
A simple process can help:
Build the report → identify the audience → choose the access level → review the data source → configure sharing → test access → review periodically.
This takes very little additional effort, but it can make a significant difference when your reports contain important business information.
Final Thoughts
Looker Studio is designed to make data easy to share, but that doesn’t mean every report should be shared in the same way. The right approach depends on the type of data, the audience, and what users need to do with the report.
By controlling access, limiting editing permissions, understanding your data-source credentials, using the available sharing controls, and reviewing access regularly, you can make your Looker Studio reporting environment much more secure.
Good dashboard security is ultimately about giving the right people the right information — with the right level of access.