Integrating Looker Studio with Pipedrive
Is there a way to integrate Looker Studio with Pipedrive?
The short answer is:
Yes, there are several ways to integrate Looker Studio with Pipedrive, but the most common approach without full-blown, often costly, third-party data connectors is to use the Pipedrive API to stage the data in a tool like Google Sheets or BigQuery, which Looker Studio natively connects to.
The long answer is:
Looker Studio does not have a native, built-in connector for Pipedrive, so you must rely on a third-party partner connector or build a custom solution using APIs.
The cheap, effective, and excellent custom solution involves using the Looker Studio API, the Pipedrive REST API/webhooks, and a data-routing tool like Google Tag Manager (GTM) or a server-side container solution like Stape, often coupled with a low-cost data warehouse like Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
The Pipedrive REST API allows you to pull data about Deals, Persons, Activities, and other objects programmatically.
For near real-time updates, you can use Pipedrive’s webhooks, which trigger an immediate notification whenever an event occurs, like a deal stage change.
You can configure these webhooks to send an HTTP request to a server-side endpoint, such as one hosted on Stape or a custom script on GCP, eliminating the need for constant, expensive polling.
On the Google side, you can use Google Tag Manager (Server-side GTM) or a service like Stape to act as an intermediary, receiving the data from the Pipedrive webhook and then forwarding it.
This intermediary server can structure and cleanse the data before it is sent to a final destination like Google Cloud Platform’s BigQuery, which is highly scalable and cost-effective for storage and querying, or even a simple Google Sheet for smaller data volumes.
The Looker Studio API is the final piece; while Looker Studio itself directly connects to BigQuery or Google Sheets, the Looker Studio API can be used for advanced management, such as automating data source configuration or report creation, though for simple data retrieval from BigQuery or Sheets, the native Looker Studio connectors are sufficient.
This API-driven workflow, leveraging Pipedrive’s webhooks and a server-side GTM/Stape setup to push data into BigQuery/GCP, is an excellent and cheap solution because it avoids the high recurring costs of many commercial Looker Studio partner connectors while providing real-time data flow and maximum control over the data transformation and schema.
This is especially advantageous for connecting specific events like deal.updated or deal.won as distinct metrics in Looker Studio, offering granular control that a general connector might not.
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