Question from Reddit user:
Hi, I work in a marketing agency, and we work for many clients who have migrated to GA4.
When we create custom reports for our clients, we noticed that we can only share the report for them to view.
They cannot change the date ranges of a report I created for the organization.
Has anyone else faced this issue as well?
Is there a workaround to make sure multiple people can change the date range in a custom report?
Please let me know!
Thank you!
Answer from Nabil:
The short answer is:
This is a limitation built into the GA4 Explore section, as the sharing function grants view-only access to a static copy of the Exploration report, preventing other users from making changes like adjusting the date range or applying new filters.
There is no simple workaround within the GA4 interface to allow multiple users to edit a single Exploration.
The most effective, long-term solution to ensure all your clients and colleagues can fully interact with and customize a report, including changing the date range dynamically, is to move your data visualization out of GA4 and into an external business intelligence tool like Looker Studio, which is specifically designed for collaborative, interactive reporting.
The long answer is:
What you are encountering is a frequent pain point when using the GA4 Explore feature for client reporting.
The reports in Explore are fundamentally designed as a user-specific workspace.
When you share an Exploration, you are essentially providing a snapshot or a fixed template.
The “viewer” role is restricted to looking at the data as you last saved it; they cannot manipulate the date range, apply new segments, or modify the dimensions and metrics.
To overcome this systemic limitation, you need to pivot your reporting strategy from using GA4 as the final visualization layer to using it only as the data source.
The superior solution for agency-client reporting is to leverage the combination of the Google Analytics Data API and Looker Studio.
First, you use the Google Analytics Data API to create a programmatic, stable connection to your clients’ raw GA4 data.
This API access is crucial for pulling large, unsampled datasets that are often necessary for agency work.
Second, you connect this data to Looker Studio.
Looker Studio is a free, powerful tool that allows you to build custom, interactive dashboards.
When a report is built in Looker Studio, the entire dashboard is dynamic.
You can easily add a Date Range control element directly onto the report canvas, which will then allow any user with access to the Looker Studio report to independently change the dates, apply filters, or manipulate controls without affecting the original data source or any other user’s view.
This solves your problem completely.
While the full Google Analytics Data API plus Looker Studio API combination provides the most robust solution for advanced use cases like data warehousing and white-labeling, simply using the standard GA4 connector in Looker Studio is often sufficient.
Furthermore, for agencies dealing with highly granular or complex data that needs to be enriched before reporting, a setup involving Google Tag Manager and a server environment like Stape or Google Cloud Platform can be used upstream to ensure the highest quality, most descriptive data is being sent to GA4 in the first place, ensuring the reports you build in Looker Studio are based on perfect data.
This external reporting environment gives you the flexibility and control that the native GA4 UI lacks.
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