Google LLC is enabling users of its Data Studio visualization tool to fetch data more easily from a range of sources.

Data Studio is a free data analytics tool for developers that can be used to create informative reports and dashboards with visualizations that are easy to read and share. Google’s latest update to the platform is a feature called Community Connectors, which allows users to pull data from additional sources such as popular social media sites, human resources and financial systems, and data stores such as Google BigQuery and Cloud SQL.

Google said the idea is to make it easier for organizations to pull data from all of their important sources, so they can better understand their business and make better decisions, Minhaz Kazi, a Google developer advocate, explained in a blog post Tuesday. Developers can create Community Connectors using Google’s Apps Script JavaScript language, and then either use these themselves or share them with customers.

“For example, if you are providing a web-based service to your customers, you can create a Community Connector with a template dashboard to fetch data,” Kazi said. “With a minimal development investment, you can rely on Data Studio as a free and powerful dashboarding and analysis solution for your customers.”

Kazi added that developers can publish and promote their Community Connectors via Google’s gallery, or even choose to make money from them.

Along with the update, Google has provided a guide for developers to help them learn how to build Community Connectors. The guide also comes with a number of open-source examples of Community Connectors to give developers a feel for how they work.

Data Studio already offered several prebuilt connectors for linking data from its Adwords and Cloud Storage platforms. The service takes care of all the data structuring, authentication and access rights so users can get to work right away, Google said. The tool also allows for raw data to be transformed into formats that can be used in reports and dashboards.

Image: Google