How to Use Calculated Fields in Google Data Studio

Calculating fields in data studio

Google’s Data Studio has become the first choice for many when it comes to generating eye-catching visuals from any data resource. The comprehensive tool allows professionals, students, academicians, and others to convey packed data to audiences in the form of automatically generated comprehensible graphics.

Data Studio can deliver the best and customizable graphics from tables and paragraphs of information with just a few clicks. They offer several sets of pre-designed dashboards that one can customize as they want, presenting metrics and dimensions in data sources illustratively. One of the most important tools Google Data Studio provides in this respect is that of Calculated Fields.

What are Calculated Fields?

Calculated fields allow the user to club data together and create new or custom metrics or dimensions in Google Data Studio from existing data sources. You can easily use Calculated Fields for functions like performing calculations, generating categories, or altering your data with calculated fields.

How to Create Calculated Fields in Data Studio

Creating Calculated Fields in Google Data Studio is easy if one follows the below-mentioned steps:

Step 1 – Log in to your Google Data Studio account

Step 2 – Open Resource > Manage Added Data Sources

Open Resource in Google Data Studio

Step 3 – Click on Edit under Actions for the particular data source you want to create Calculated fields for

Calculated Fields

Step 4 – Click on Add A Field

Add a field

Step 5 – Add a custom name to your field to be able to refer to it easily when using it in your reports later. Using a special character, such as an asterisk, in naming your custom field will not just push the field on the top of the ‘Available Fields’ list but also make it easier to differentiate between custom fields and default dimensions/metrics in your data source.

Helpful Ways to Use Calculated Fields in Data Studio

Calculated fields are an effective way to address content and questions by using data resources in the most optimum manner, including creating new custom metrics and dimensions. There are several ways to use Calculated Fields in Data Studio well.

Calculated Fields Options

Creating New Metrics

By simply adding the formula of your metric into the calculated field, you can generate Calculated Fields for a host of functions, such as merging goals and extracting conversion rates from funnel stages.

Tracking Progress to Goals

Calculated fields can be used to create virtual scorecards to help you maintain a record of your progress over time.

Combining Dimensions

The CONCAT function can be useful in creating merged dimensions, such as consolidating hostname and landing page path to make your URLs clickable and so on.

Removing Trailing Slashes

Websites sometimes have a mix of trailing and non-trailing slashes on URLs which often cause your data to split in reporting. Calculated fields can help fix this issue with ease by preventing either trailing or non-trailing slashes in your URL, thus preventing content duplication. For more accurate consolidation, such as removing the trailing slash from pages that end with one, using REGEX_REPLACE can work the trick.

Maintaining a Consistent Case in URLs

Just like removing trailing slashes from URL strings, one can use Calculated fields to maintain the same alphabet case throughout the URL using a simple formula.

Grouping Content

With Calculated fields, you can easily and quickly group landing pages based on URLs or subfolders or other criteria. This proves especially useful when you are working on merging different content to compare them later.

Categorizing Searches

With calculated fields, you can quickly regroup searches based on search terms, keywords and so on into branded vs unbranded searches from Google Search Console or other tracking tools.

Final Words

Google Data Studio is the present and future of easier and more meaningful content creation using data sources for generating interesting presentations, articles, research and more. Calculated fields can help make this task easier, with the many utilities they are poised to bring to the table.