Data Studio Block

my click selection on airtable controls the datastudio filter
The datastudio report access is inside the user table, with an email and pubkey. The fields are locked

Inspiration

My background is advertising and analytics. I've been working on a Saas product to help advertisers to manage ad campaigns. I built this block to bring data studio report in Airtable and make it very intuitive to see report data. Instead of switching back and forth, you control the report right from your selection on Airtable. It is based on the block-url-preview by airtable

What it does

The block brings your DataStudio report to Airtable. You select table and records on Airtable to control the DataStudio report. It's incredibly intuitive When the user selects a table, the block gets the DataStudio report page. When the user selects a record, the block filter the corresponding data.

How I built it

There are two parts

The Google Data Studio report. ( datastudio.google.com probably the best free tool to create data dashboard )
The custom block

How the block works :

it detect my selection on Airtable, either Table or Fields or Record.
it passes the selected value to the report request URL.
it loads the data studio report URL in an iframe.

Challenges I ran into

Secure data, so the user cannot access other accounts data. Solved by adding a key field on Airtable and filtering the report based on that.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

The block is not very complicated in itself, but I believe it's quite ingenious to combine DataStudio and Airtable this way. It was a game-changer for me ( saved me so much time building a full app ). the reporting become incredibly intuitive which made my team and client very happy

What I learned

It was the first time I dig the Airtable block SDK. Being able to bring a nodejs app inside airtable is killer features. It announces great things! I'm about to shut down my vuejs app to rely only on this block. Also, after building this block I launched two other services for airtable. ( It's doesn't rely on custom blocks so I couldn't include it here )