Scheduling report delivery in Looker Studio

What is scheduled report delivery in Looker Studio?

Scheduled report delivery is one of the most effective ways to keep stakeholders informed without manually exporting or sharing dashboards. Instead of sending PDFs every week or reminding clients to check Looker Studio, you can automate report delivery directly to their inbox.

Whether you’re running weekly marketing reports, monthly client updates, or leadership summaries, Looker Studio’s scheduling feature helps you deliver the right insights at the right time.

This guide walks you through:

• scheduling automatic report delivery by email
• choosing the right format and frequency
• managing recipients and permissions
• understanding limits, errors, and common issues

Prerequisites

Before scheduling a report delivery, make sure:

• You have the right access

You need at least Editor access to schedule deliveries. Viewers cannot create or modify schedules.

• The report is finalized

Scheduled reports send a snapshot of the report at delivery time, including filters, date ranges, and layout.

• Recipients have appropriate permissions

Recipients don’t need Edit access, but they must be allowed to receive report emails. Data source permissions still apply.

Why use scheduled report delivery?

While Looker Studio is designed for live dashboards, scheduled delivery becomes essential when teams need to:

• Share insights without requiring stakeholders to log in
• Ensure reports are sent consistently and on time
• Reduce manual reporting work
• Keep non-technical users informed

In practice, scheduled reports are commonly used to send weekly performance summaries to clients, monthly executive dashboards to leadership teams, or recurring internal updates for marketing, sales, or finance teams.

How to schedule a report delivery in Looker Studio (Email)

Scheduled delivery sends your report automatically by email, usually as a PDF or a link to the live report.

Use case

Use scheduled delivery when:

• Clients expect a weekly or monthly report without reminders
• Leadership wants a recurring performance snapshot
• Teams need consistent updates aligned with reporting cycles

Steps

1. Open your Looker Studio report.
2. In the upper right corner, click the arrow next to the Share icon.
3. Select Schedule email delivery.

     4. Configure:

1. Recipients (email addresses or groups)
2. Pages
3. Frequency (daily, weekly, monthly, or custom)
4. Time and time zone

 You also can manage filters used in your report by selecting the filters tab (right from settings).

      5. Review the preview.

      6. Click Save.

Once enabled, Looker Studio will automatically send the report based on your schedule, without further action.

Managing and updating scheduled deliveries in Looker Studio

Scheduled deliveries are not set-and-forget forever. Business needs change, and your schedules should too.

You can:

• Edit recipients
• Change frequency or delivery time
• Update the pages
• Pause or delete a schedule entirely

To manage an existing schedule:

1. Open the report.
2. In the upper right corner, click the arrow next to the Share icon.
3. Select Schedule email delivery.
4. Edit or remove the existing schedule.

Any change applies to future deliveries only.

Controlling & limiting scheduled access

Not every report should be automatically sent to everyone.

Report owners can control access by:

• Limiting who has Editor access (only editors can schedule deliveries)
• Managing report sharing permissions
• Restricting access to sensitive data sources

Errors & limits

Scheduled report delivery is powerful, but it has limitations:

• Scheduled emails are snapshots

They reflect the report state at send time, not live updates after delivery.

• Large or complex reports may render slowly

Very long pages or heavy tables can affect PDF quality or delay sending.

• Permissions still apply

If recipients don’t have access to the underlying data source, delivery may fail or show partial data.

• No row-level customization per recipient

You can’t send different filtered versions of the same schedule to different users without duplicating the report.

Troubleshooting

Here are the most common scheduling issues and how to fix them:

• ‍Schedule email delivery option not available

You likely don’t have Editor access. Ask the report owner to upgrade your permissions.

• ‍Email sent, but PDF is empty or incorrect

Check filters, date ranges, and controls before scheduling. Export from View mode to validate the layout.

• ‍Recipients didn’t receive the email

Confirm email addresses and check spam folders. Also verify that recipients still have access to the report.

• ‍Report sent at the wrong time

Recheck the time zone setting in the schedule configuration.

Conclusion

Scheduled report delivery turns Looker Studio dashboards into a reliable reporting system. Instead of manually exporting and sending updates, you can automate recurring reports and ensure stakeholders receive insights consistently and on time.

Use scheduled delivery for recurring updates and executive summaries, keep live dashboards for exploration, and revisit your schedules regularly as reporting needs evolve. When used correctly, scheduling helps you move from manual reporting to a scalable, low-effort reporting workflow that fits modern analytics teams.