Shared folder structure in Looker | navigation for business users

[biggie]

Hi everyone,

I hope you’re all doing well. I’m reaching out to seek advice on an issue we’re facing with our Looker folder structure and access rights management.

We currently organize user groups and folders in ‘Shared folders’ by team/squad and have an open Looker instance. This approach worked well when we were a smaller company, but as we’ve grown and have more cross-team projects, this structure is becoming less effective. We’re encountering problems with content duplication, reduced usage of shared folders, and difficulties navigating to company-wide dashboards.

To address this, I’m considering maintaining the team/squad-based folder structure but adding cross-team and company-wide folders accessible to everyone for storing project-specific data assets that should be available to a wider audience. I’m curious to know how other companies have tackled similar challenges.

How have you structured your Looker folders to improve navigation and manage access rights effectively? Any insights or experiences you can share would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance for your help!

Maciej

[sharifahSY]

Hi Maciej,

First of all, it's great to hear that your team is growing and Looker is playing a key role in the growth!

There are some key points to remember in the user management : 

• Remember to audit your user list regularly. Inactive users should be flagged and if truly inactive, accounts should be disabled or deleted.
• Permissions and access should always be granted at a group level where possible. 
• Restrict permissions in shared spaces - we recommend limited edit capabilities on production content.

Make sure to use User Activity and Content Activity to monitor usage across your organisation. 

Here are the two best practice documentation that I can share right now, but feel free to ask more specific questions in the community

• Manage users with groups
• How to secure your folders

[biggie]

Hey @sharifahSY, thanks for your reply.
While we know the theoretical aspects of user management, we still struggle with establishing the most effective folder structure. We're specifically looking for insights from real use-cases rather than the theory provided in Looker's documentation.

[evelyn_s]

Hi Maciej - I recommend reading https://cloud.google.com/looker/docs/access-levels#configuring_an_open_system_with_restrictions.

A Closed System could also be an option, but it's probably worth trying the Open System with Restrictions first.