Unbound Union

UNION is actually SQL(Structured Query Language) operator that is used to combine two or more results of SQL SELECT statements, where you append selected similar columns.

SELECT statement selects a table column(s) by column name. Here is how it looks like:

SELECT column_name(s) FROM table1
UNION
SELECT column_name(s) FROM table2;

But, there is no UNION operator in Looker Studio. Yet there is a type of blending called Full Outer Join that uses almost the same principle. Basically, SQL’s UNION and Looker Studio’s Full Outer Join operators work in similar way.

So, in Looker Studio UNION, or in other words Full Outer Join it’s an operator and a type of data blending where similar tables or any other datasets that have the same columns, appends to each other.

Right table(or any other dataset) will be appended to the bottom of the left one. For the union of two tables we don’t need to have Join key.

Let say we have two tables from different data sources. In each table we have 5 organic search queries. When we joining them with Full Outer operator the all 10 rows with Query dimension will be returned in blended table.

If you find a mistake in this post, have other questions, or want to discuss this topic. Please feel free to leave it in the comments section. I will be happy to discuss this with you.