Configuring and editing visualizations in the new Explore experience

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Note: This page is part of the new Explore experience preview feature series.

This page guides you through the visualization components of the new Explore experience and describes how to edit and configure visualizations in the new Explore experience. Read the following sections to learn about these concepts:

• Required roles
• Accessing the new Explore experience
• Visualization limitations in the new Explore experience
• Changing the visualization type
• Navigating visualization settings in the Style tab
• Related resources

Required roles

To view and interact with Explores and visualizations, you must have the User Looker role or another role that contains the explore permission.

Accessing the new Explore experience

To access the new Explore experience, the New Looker Explore Experience preview feature must be enabled for your instance. If you are not a Looker admin, ask an admin to enable the feature.

From an Explore page, click Try the new Explore to turn on the new Explore experience for all Explores that you interact with. To switch back to the classic experience, click Switch to classic Explore.

Visualization limitations in the new Explore experience

Although there are many charts listed in the All chart types menu, the new Explore experience supports only the following visualization types:

• Bar charts
• Column charts
• Line charts
• Single value charts
• Table charts

If you select an unsupported chart type, the visualization will render the Explore data, but there will be no configuration options available in the Style tab.

Tip: If you would like to edit or configure an unsupported visualization type, you must switch to the classic Explore experience to access the chart settings. The configuration will carry over when you switch back to the new Explore experience.

Changing the visualization type

Visualizations are displayed in the Visualization pane in the new Explore experience. When you open an Explore, you can make changes to the query and make changes to the visualization that appears.

To change the visualization type in the new Explore experience, follow these steps:

1. Click the Change chart button to open the All chart types menu.
2. Choose a chart type from the menu. Alternatively, you can click Auto visualize to let Looker choose the best chart option for displaying the results.

The new chart type will display in the Visualization pane.

Note: When a query is running, the visualization pane displays the three phases of the query in the Explore query tracker.

Navigating visualization settings in the Style tab

Once you have chosen a visualization type, you can use the Style tab in the Configure panel to edit or configure the chart settings.

In the Style tab, the configuration options are organized into expandable sections that have the same names as the tabs in the classic Explore experience. Each section in the new Explore experience also includes the same configuration options as the classic Explore experience.

To view the options in each section, click the section name. To collapse the section, click the section name again.

Style options for bar charts, column charts, and line charts

For bar charts, column charts, and line charts, the sections include the following:

• Plot: Options to control the overall layout, spacing, and organization of a chart.
• Series: Options to manage color schemes, field naming conventions, and granular per-series customizations.
• Values: Options to customize the appearance, formatting, and behavior of data labels within a chart.
• X: Options to configure the horizontal axis, including its scale, labels, and interactive features.

• Y: Options to configure the vertical axes for precise control over scaling, labeling, and analytical overlay.

  Important: The new Explore experience supports configuring only one Y axis. Switch to the classic Explore experience to configure multiple Y axes. The configuration will carry over when you switch back to the new Explore experience.

Learn more about bar chart configuration options, column chart configuration options, and line chart configuration options.

Style options for single value charts

For single value charts, the sections include the following:

• Style: Options to customize the appearance of the primary value and its title.
• Comparison: Options to incorporate a second data field for providing context or performance metrics relative to the primary value.
• Formatting: Options to apply conditional formatting to color-code a visualization based on specific data values.

Learn more about single value chart configuration options.

Style options for table charts

For table charts, the sections include the following:

• Plot: Options to customize the layout and theme of a chart.
• Series: Options to customize the layout and formatting of individual columns.
• Formatting: Options to customize the visual style and apply data-driven coloring to the chart.

Learn more about table chart configuration options.

Related resources

Now that you know how to edit and configure visualizations in the new Explore experience, you might want to learn how to do the following:

• Learn how to view and interact with Explores in the new Explore experience.
• Learn how to create or edit Explores in the new Explore experience.
• Learn about creating visualizations and graphs.
• Learn about selecting an effective data visualization.
• Learn about using color collections.
• Learn how to create custom tooltips.
• Learn how to save Explore queries as Looks.
• Learn how to add Explore queries to dashboards.
• Learn how to share data with other users.