All automated client-facing Looker Studio reports must be reviewed internally at least 4 days before the client receives them. This rule exists to catch stale data, misconfigured date ranges, or broken automations before they reach the client.
This process was established after a significant failure: a client ([1]) had been receiving the same automated Looker Studio report for approximately two years — locked to a fixed date range from January 2022 rather than a rolling "last 30 days" window. The client had not flagged it, and the team had not caught it.
Any automated report sent to a client must also be sent to an internal team member 4 days prior to the client delivery date.
This gives the responsible account manager or team member time to:
Melissa is responsible for briefing account managers on this requirement. See [2] for the original discussion.
Automated reports create a false sense of coverage — the system is "working," so no one checks. But automation only reflects what it was configured to do. If the configuration is wrong, the client receives bad data indefinitely, and the team has no visibility into what the client is seeing.
As Mark noted in the meeting:
"It's really dangerous to have a report automatically go to a client that you haven't looked at. The client's going to call you up and go, 'hey, what the hell is this?' and you're going to go, 'I don't know.'"