Chart becomes blank when using competency breakdown

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Issue: Chart becomes blank when using competency breakdown

I am experiencing an issue in Looker Studio where certain charts are not displaying any data, even though the underlying data source contains valid records and the same configuration works for other grades/academic years.

Data Source

The affected charts use the following data source:

fin_05_assessment_grade_competency

The data source contains fields including:

  • academic_year

  • assessment_type

  • grade

  • school_name

  • competency

  • total_correct_answers

  • #_students_assessed

  • #_questions

The source has valid Grade 6 records. For example, Grade 6 Endline contains records such as:

  • Grade: 6

  • Assessment Type: Endline

  • Competency: Geometry

  • School: Ghps Thaluru

  • Students Assessed: 48

  • Questions: 4

  • Total Correct Answers: 122

Therefore, the underlying data is available and contains valid values.

Chart Configuration

The affected Grade 6 chart uses:

  • Dimension: school_name

  • Breakdown dimension: competency

  • Metric: BL Average / EL Average

  • Filter: grade = 6

  • Data source: fin_05_assessment_grade_competency

The Grade 6 filter has been verified and is configured as:

Include → grade → Equal to (=) → 6

What I observed

I tested the issue systematically:

  1. A table using the same data source displays Grade 6 data correctly.

  2. A simple chart using school_name and Record Count also displays Grade 6 data.

  3. When competency is added as the breakdown dimension, the chart becomes completely blank.

  4. The issue occurs for both Grade 6 Baseline and Grade 6 Endline charts.

  5. Similar charts for Grade 7 and Grade 8 work correctly.

  6. I also tested the calculated metrics (BL Average and EL Average) and confirmed that the issue is not simply caused by the metric, because the chart can become blank even when using Record Count.

  7. The Grade 6 filter itself has been checked and is valid.

  8. The dashboard contains multiple academic years. Interestingly, when I select 2025–26 from the page-level Academic Year filter, both the original chart and the temporary test chart immediately display the expected data.

  9. However, the dashboard is intentionally designed to support 2–3 academic years, so restricting the dashboard permanently to 2025–26 is not a valid solution.

  10. I have also tried recreating the chart from scratch, but the same issue occurs when competency is added as the breakdown dimension.

Expected behaviour

The chart should display Grade 6 competency-level data while allowing the dashboard to contain and filter across multiple academic years.

For example:

school_name → competency → BL Average/EL Average

should display the corresponding competency values for Grade 6 based on the selected academic year(s).

Actual behaviour

When multiple academic years are available/selected, adding competency as the breakdown dimension causes the Grade 6 chart to become completely blank, despite valid Grade 6 records being present in the underlying data.

Selecting a specific academic year such as 2025–26 makes the chart work immediately.

Request

Could you please investigate whether this is a Looker Studio charting, filtering, aggregation, or breakdown-dimension issue when:

  • Multiple academic years exist in the data source

  • grade is used as a filter

  • school_name is used as the primary dimension

  • competency is used as a breakdown dimension

I would particularly like to understand why the chart can display Grade 6 records without the competency breakdown but becomes blank when competency is added, and why selecting a single academic year resolves the issue.

Please let me know if there is a known limitation, recommended configuration, or workaround that allows the dashboard to continue supporting multiple academic years without hardcoding a single academic year into the charts.

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