A scorecard is the most-read component on any report and the least-designed. It’s usually the first thing on the page, it’s what gets screenshotted into a Slack message, and it’s typically left on defaults — a number, floating, with no idea what it’s for.
That a bare number needs a subject, a period and a comparison is settled in the design principles guide, so I won’t re-argue it. This is about the tile itself: every option it carries, the two comparison types almost nobody uses, and the four things it can’t do.
Everything a Data Studio scorecard can carry
Worth going through in the order you’d set them, because two of the six decide what the others can be.
Here is what a row of them looks like when nobody does — four tiles straight off the defaults, on a real report.
Everything that’s wrong with that row is a default somebody didn’t change. The titles name the metric and nothing else. The comparison is previous period on all four, so a reader can’t tell which of them has a target and which doesn’t. There’s no sparkline, so four red arrows look like four equally bad stories when one of them might be the tail of a seasonal dip. And the units are unstated.
The four comparison types, and why three go unused
Data Studio offers four comparison types, and the writing on this subject covers one of them.
Previous period is the default and the one everybody uses. Month on month, or against the equivalent period last year for anything seasonal. Fine, and rarely the most useful.
Value compares against a number you type in. This is how you put a target on a scorecard, and it’s the single most underused setting in Data Studio. “42 qualified leads, 84% of target” says something that “42, up 37%” does not — growth against a bad month is not the same as progress against a goal.
Metric compares against another metric in the same data. Conversions against sessions, qualified leads against total leads, spend against budget. It turns a count into a rate without a calculated field.
None is legitimate in exactly one case: when the number is a stock figure with no meaningful prior — total active accounts today, say — and the comparison would be noise. Everywhere else it’s the default nobody changed.
The constraint: one comparison at a time. You cannot show both month-on-month and against-target on one tile. If you need both, that’s two tiles — which is usually the right answer anyway, because it’s two different questions.
Sparkline or progress bar: never both
A scorecard can carry a small trend line, or a progress bar, and these are mutually exclusive. Choosing between them is really choosing what the number is for.
A sparkline answers “is this going anywhere”. It gives the number a shape, which is often more informative than the comparison percentage — a metric up 4% on a steady climb is a different story from one up 4% after falling for three months.
A progress bar answers “are we going to make it”. It needs a target, which means a Value comparison, and it’s the right choice on anything with a period goal attached.
If you can’t decide, it’s a sign the tile doesn’t have a clear job. A scorecard on an executive summary page almost always wants progress; one on a detail page almost always wants the sparkline.
Building a target scorecard, step by step
Since the Value comparison is the setting almost nobody uses, here it is concretely. Say the client’s monthly target is 50 qualified leads.
- Add a chart → Scorecard, and set the metric to your qualified-leads field.
- In Setup, find Comparison date range and change it from Previous period to Value. A number field appears.
- Type 50. The tile now reads as a percentage of target rather than a percentage of last month.
- In Style, turn on Show comparison and set the comparison display to Percentage if it isn’t already.
- Still in Style, tick Progress bar. It uses the Value comparison as its 100%.
- Set the title to “Qualified leads vs 50 target, this month”. The target belongs in the title as well as in the setting, because the setting is invisible to the reader.
Two caveats. The target is a typed constant, so it does not change when the month does — a quarterly-varying target means editing the tile each quarter, or using a Metric comparison against a target column in the data instead. And if the client’s target is a stretch goal nobody expects to hit, a permanently red 62% tile is worse than no tile; agree what the number means before you put it on the front page.
Making the number readable at a glance
Three formatting decisions that do more than any styling.
Compact numbers. 19.9K rather than 19,901. A scorecard is read at a glance and the last three digits are never the point. The only exception is a small count — 42 leads should stay 42.
Decimal precision to zero for anything above a few hundred. Two decimal places on a revenue figure is four extra characters carrying nothing.
Say the unit in the title, not next to the number. “Revenue (£)” in the title beats “£19.9K” competing with the figure for attention.
One trap worth knowing if you’re conditionally formatting these: the rules compare the underlying value, not the displayed one. A tile showing “2.0%” that’s really 0.0195 will not match a rule for “greater than 2%”. It’s a five-minute confusion that costs an hour if you don’t know it.
The scorecard title is the part that’s actually broken
Most scorecard titles name the metric — “Sessions”, “Revenue”, “Conversions” — which is the one thing the number already implies.
A scorecard has no subtitle field, so the title carries everything: what it is, whose it is, and over what period. “Qualified leads, this month” does more work than “Leads” and costs nothing. On a report that gets forwarded, it’s the difference between a number somebody can quote and a number they have to come back and ask about.
Where the period is already obvious from a visible date control, drop it from the title. Where the report will be exported to PDF and read six months later, keep it.
Designing a row of scorecards
Scorecards almost never appear alone, and a row has its own rules.
Three or four, not eight. A row of eight is a table with extra steps, and nothing in it is emphasised. If eight numbers genuinely matter, one of them matters most — make that one bigger, or move the rest to a detail page.
Same comparison type across the row. Mixing month-on-month with against-target in one row asks the reader to check each tile’s basis, which nobody does. They’ll assume all four share whatever the first one uses.
Align and distribute. Hand-placed scorecards are the most visible misalignment on any report, because the eye reads a row as a unit. Align then distribute takes four seconds.
Consistent colour meaning. If green means good on the first tile, it means good on all of them — including the one where the metric is cost, and down is good. That tile needs its positive and negative colours swapped, which is a chart-level override, not a theme change. The report-wide pair is set once in the theme, and the colour guide shows where.
Where a row of scorecards earns its place
Three arrangements that do different jobs, so the row isn’t just decoration at the top of a page.
The four-metric summary row. Top of the first content page, one metric per funnel stage — sessions, leads, qualified leads, revenue. Same comparison basis across all four, and the reader gets the shape of the month in one glance. This is the default arrangement and it’s fine.
The one-big-three-small row. When one number is the report’s headline and the other three are context, make the headline tile twice the width and give it the sparkline. The other three stay small and carry the comparison only. This is the arrangement most reports should use and almost none do.
The target row. Every tile on a Value comparison against its own target, every tile with a progress bar. Right for a page whose question is “are we going to make it”, and completely wrong next to previous-period tiles — which is why this belongs on its own page or its own band rather than mixed into the summary row.
What a Data Studio scorecard can’t do
Stated plainly, because each of these sends people looking for a setting that isn’t there.
No subtitle. Title only. Anything else goes in a text box beside it, which won’t move with the tile.
No second comparison. One at a time.
No sparkline and progress together.
Conditional formatting reaches the value, not the label. You can turn the number red; you cannot turn the title red. And there’s a ceiling of twenty rules per component, which is far more than any sensible scorecard needs but worth knowing if you’re building something elaborate.
A scorecard checklist before a report goes out
- Title names the subject and the period, not just the metric
- A comparison is set — and it’s the right type, not just the default
- Target-bearing metrics use a Value comparison, not previous period
- Compact numbers on, decimals off above a few hundred
- Sparkline or progress chosen deliberately, not left off
- Three or four per row, with one emphasised if they’re not equal
- Same comparison basis across a row
- Cost-type metrics have their positive and negative colours swapped
- Aligned and distributed, not placed by eye
Frequently asked questions
How do I add a target to a Data Studio scorecard?
Set the comparison type to Value and type the target in. That gives you “84% of target” rather than “up 37% on last month”, and it’s what a progress bar needs. It’s the most underused setting on the component.
Can a scorecard show a sparkline and a progress bar?
No, they’re mutually exclusive. Choose by what the tile is for: a sparkline answers “is this going anywhere”, a progress bar answers “are we going to make it”. Summary pages usually want progress; detail pages usually want the sparkline.
Why isn’t my conditional formatting rule firing on a scorecard?
Most likely it’s comparing the underlying value rather than the displayed one. A tile showing 2.0% may hold 0.0195, which won’t match a rule written for “greater than 2”. Check what the field actually stores before changing the rule.
Where to go next on report components
- How to build an executive summary page in Data Studio
- Dashboard design principles for readable reports
- Data Studio chart types, and how to choose one
- Data Studio layout and grid: building aligned reports
- How to choose a dashboard colour palette in Data Studio
- Metrics that tell a story, and the ones that do not