How to Prepare Your Data and Team for a Smooth Tableau to Looker Migration

Migrating from Tableau to Looker is not just a tool switch—it’s a strategic shift in how your organization handles analytics, data governance, and decision-making. The biggest challenge isn’t the migration itself, but preparing your data and team to ensure the move is seamless.

So, how can you prepare both your data foundation and your people for success? Let’s break it down.

First Things First: Why Preparation Matters

Before diving into the “how,” it’s worth asking why preparation is so critical.

• Data readiness ensures you don’t run into broken dashboards, mismatched KPIs, or inconsistent reporting post-migration.
• Team readiness ensures your analysts and business users can quickly adapt to Looker’s modeling language (LookML) and self-service capabilities.
• Strategic readiness ensures the migration aligns with long-term goals like governance, scalability, and ROI.

Without preparation, you risk adoption challenges, reporting delays, and wasted investment.

Step 1: Audit and Clean Your Data

The foundation of a smooth migration is clean, well-structured data. Tableau allows flexibility in connecting to multiple data sources, but Looker relies heavily on centralized modeling. That’s why a data audit is the first step.

Key actions for data readiness:

• Identify all Tableau data sources (SQL, Excel, APIs, etc.).
• Remove duplicate or unused data sources.
• Standardize metrics and KPIs across departments.
• Ensure your warehouse (BigQuery, Snowflake, Redshift, etc.) is optimized for Looker.

✅ Pro tip: Looker works best with a modern cloud data warehouse. If you’re still on legacy infrastructure, consider an upgrade before migration.

Step 2: Map Dashboards and Reports

Not every Tableau dashboard needs to be migrated “as is.” In fact, this is the perfect time to declutter.

How to approach dashboard mapping:

• Inventory existing Tableau dashboards.
• Classify them as critical, useful but not essential, or redundant.
• Consolidate overlapping reports into streamlined Looker dashboards.
• Define ownership for each dashboard to avoid duplication.

Category	Example in Tableau	Migration Decision in Looker
Critical	Revenue performance report	Rebuild in Looker with LookML models
Useful	Monthly team activity view	Combine into broader KPI dashboard
Redundant	Old campaign performance	Retire, not needed post-migration

This way, your migration effort is optimized, and your team starts fresh with leaner, more effective dashboards.

Step 3: Upskill Your Team on LookML

The biggest shift when moving from Tableau to Looker is the data modeling layer. Tableau users are accustomed to drag-and-drop exploration, while Looker relies on LookML for defining dimensions, measures, and joins.

How to prepare your team:

• Train analysts in LookML basics before migration.
• Provide “sandbox projects” for hands-on practice.
• Conduct workshops to show business users how to explore Looker dashboards.
• Assign Looker champions across departments to accelerate adoption.

Think of it this way: Looker empowers teams to be more self-service, but only if they are trained to leverage it properly.

Step 4: Redefine Governance and Access

One of Looker’s strongest suits is governance. Unlike Tableau, which often leads to dashboard sprawl, Looker centralizes logic in a single modeling layer. To make the most of this, governance planning should happen before migration.

Checklist for governance readiness:

• Define roles and permissions (analysts vs. viewers vs. admins).
• Centralize definitions of key metrics (e.g., “customer churn rate”).
• Set up version control for LookML to ensure collaboration.
• Establish guidelines for dashboard naming and organization.

This step ensures your new Looker environment stays scalable and consistent as adoption grows.

Step 5: Pilot Before Full Migration

Jumping straight into a full migration can overwhelm your team. Instead, start with a pilot project.

Pilot strategy:

• Choose one department (e.g., Sales or Marketing).
• Rebuild their most critical dashboards in Looker.
• Collect feedback, refine workflows, and resolve gaps.
• Scale migration to other teams once the pilot succeeds.

This phased approach builds confidence and reduces migration risks.

Where Squareshift Makes the Difference

Preparing your data and team for a smooth migration can be overwhelming—but you don’t have to do it alone. Squareshift specializes in making Tableau-to-Looker transitions effortless.

Here’s how Squareshift helps:

• Comprehensive Data Audit: Identifying and cleaning redundant or conflicting data sources before migration.
• Smart Dashboard Mapping: Prioritizing critical dashboards while eliminating noise.
• Expert LookML Training: Equipping your analysts and business users to adopt Looker quickly.
• Governance Framework Setup: Ensuring scalable, consistent analytics post-migration.
• End-to-End Migration Services: Covering everything from planning to execution with minimal disruption.

Explore The Ultimate Guide to Tableau to Looker Migration to dive deeper into best practices.

Learn more about our Tableau to Looker Migration Services and how we can simplify the process for your business.

Final Thoughts

Preparing your data and team for a Tableau-to-Looker migration is about more than technical steps—it’s about setting up your organization for long-term analytics success.

By cleaning up your data, prioritizing dashboards, training your team, and building governance, you can ensure the migration doesn’t just transfer tools but transforms how you use data for decision-making.

With the right partner like Squareshift, your migration journey will be smoother, faster, and more impactful.