Google is always updating Data Studio’s features to improve user experience (UX). This time they have introduced new page and report navigation features. This enhancement is a major milestone in the development of the product, as visual storytelling has become even more powerful. In this article, I will take you through a step-by-step guide on how to use the improved page and report navigation features.
Also, if you want to refresh your Data Studio design skills, you can take a look at my other articles on some nifty features, including:
Now, let’s get started!
You can add pages to a report to organize related charts, avoid information overload and improve the report performance. The steps are pretty simple.
If your report has a single page, you can click on Add page directly from the toolbar.
If your report already has multiple pages
Last but not least, the easiest and most convenient way to add a new page is by pressing “CTRL+M” on your keyboard. This will add a new page regardless of how many pages your report already has.
The Manage Pages pane not only helps you to add new pages but also to structure your report. For example, you can add expandable dividers, sections, and headers. You can rename a page, duplicate, hide in view mode, change icons or delete it using this pane. Another important feature within the Manage Pages pane is the divider. You can put this to separate your pages and sections to make your structure look neat.
The maximum level of content you can add to a hierarchy is three. This is a major change from what you could do in the earlier versions of Google Data Studio. This is an example of the structure:
You can also add icons to a section or page. They will appear when you view the report, similar to the example presented below.
Note that Icons can only be added to top-level content. Any page within a section cannot have an icon.
You can navigate between pages in 3 ways:
You also have the option to modify each item in the navigation pane.
Every new page is named an “untitled page” by default. Additionally, a new Section or header is named “untitled section” and Header,” respectively. Click rename and choose a better name.
You can create a copy of the current page instantaneously by selecting “Duplicate.” However, it’s not possible to duplicate the whole section.
You can copy a page from one report to another together with all its components. This will automatically add all the data sources in the current report to the target report. However, it will not apply to previous theme and style settings.
Remove a page, section, or header from the report by selecting “Delete.”
You can undo this action by pressing ctrl+z or Edit>undo. This will not work if you have signed out and back in data studio or reloaded the page. To mitigate this, you can restore the report to a previous point using version history.
Note that once you delete a section, it will delete all the pages within it as well.
You can hide a section or a page to prevent viewers from seeing it. This is a useful feature, especially if you have information that you wish only the editors to see. Once you hide a section or page:
You can unhide a section or a page by clicking: the three vertical dots > Show in view mode.
Select the item you want to move and click move to the top, bottom, up, or down.
You can drag items to change their order in the manage pages pane. This is a quick alternative to the move option.
You can customize the navigation type for your report viewers.
The pages will show up as a collapsible drawer at the left.
The pages will appear at the top as tabbed links.
The pages will show up as a drop-down menu on the upper left.
Navigation will not be displayed.
All in all, this new update aims to help users improve report performance, UX and make Google Data Studio a more flexible product. In my opinion, the new page and report navigation feature is a huge advancement, which puts the control in the report builders’ hands.
As such, they can now manage multipage reports by adding text headers, grouping pages into sections, and adding personality and style with Icons. The update is automatic and rolled out globally, so you don’t have to take any actions to enable it.
If you want to learn how to build powerful data visualizations and unlock insights that can help you drive business results for your clients or employers, take a look at my full course on Udemy.
I've used Zapier for years to automate small tasks and create the lead generation system…
When I started creating custom GPTs for various tasks, one of the areas that I…
Over the past few months, I've had the opportunity to dive into Canva Magic Studio,…
In my nano tips series on ChatGPT so far, I've covered Data Storytelling and Visualization,…
It has been a while since my last post, but I finally managed to wrap-up…
Although cliché, the phrase "a picture is worth a thousand words" has never been more…
View Comments
This is amazing! I am trying to follow with this formula by grouping certain pages on my website. I have a landing page with 10 locations that are on it that I would like to track who clicks and views the page. How can I do this with Google Data Studio?
Hey Rebecca, great to hear! If you want to group certain pages and create a dimension check out this article that I have, it shows you how to use a CASE statement. Hope that helps :)
Can we create a user flow report in data studio which will tell the entry point of the user on landing page and from there how many pages they have visited and from which page they exit
Thank you this article! I do have one question...I am trying to delete sections that contain pages that I no longer need by following your instructions but it does not allow me to delete sections that contain pages. Do you have a work-around for this so I don't have to delete every page one by one? Thank you for all of your help!