Collaborative BI with Tableau’s Data Visualisation Capabilities

Key Takeaways: 

1. Today, business users are looking for a platform that enables seamless data visualisation capabilities. They want to make sense of data using interactive and intuitive dashboards, charts and graphs.  

2. Tableau is a next-generation data visualisation platform used by Merit data engineers to integrate data from multiple sources, with world-class data management and data governance capabilities. 

3. The future of BI revolves around ease of collaboration and visual storytelling. Tableau is at the front and center of the potential for collaborative BI.   

Verizon, the telecommunications company, was able to implement a culture of excellence by using multiple Tableau dashboards for managing and optimising its day-to-day customer service operations. With easy connectivity to its multiple data sources and cutting-edge analytics, it was able to anticipate and quickly address customer needs across various touchpoints such as web apps, call centers, and other digital channels. 

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the demand on Verizon’s networks went up with more than 800 million calls per day in April 2020 alone. This was double the number of calls compared to the usual volumes seen in April of previous years. Call durations were longer, there was an increase in text messages, and the usage of the Verizon network for gaming increased manifold.  

To meet this increase in demand, its five-year digital transformation roadmap was compressed to six months. Verizon incorporated data from the Tableau COVID-19 Data Hub by adapting their dashboards to it and were able to draw insights in near-real-time. By integrating with this external data source, the company was able to plan its service offerings better and upgrade relevant parts of the network using intelligence from their data.  

Wide-Range of Capabilities offered by Tableau 

Tableau is a data visualisation tool that presents data in a variety of formats such as charts, plots, and graphs.  

With Tableau, data analysts, such as those in our core team at Merit, can work with both structured and unstructured data sets. This includes text documents, PDF files, Excel spreadsheets, etc. It is also possible to input data into Tableau from the output generated from R or Python-powered code.  

One of the biggest advantages of Tableau is that you can import and export an extremely high volume of data. By performing basic ETL, Tableau can transform data quickly into any desired visualisation format using the automated data reshaper tool.  

The tool is ideal for business users, who’re looking to reduce their reliance on IT teams. There is no need for coding skills for preparing and analysing data in Tableau.  

Tableau ensures data and user security, even row-level security, through authentication and permission systems and also enables the integration of other security protocols such as Active Directory and Kerberos. Its ‘Ask Data’ feature makes searching for data very simple and intuitive. Tableau can read natural language and presents relevant answers quickly.  

Tableau Suite Data Visualisation Use Cases 

The Tableau Suite is made up of five products essential for data exploration. This includes tools used by Merit’s data engineers as well as developers, business and data analysts and end-users. The products include: 

Tableau Desktop: This is specifically used to generate designs such as charts, graphs, and reports to present data and build a custom dashboard for a specific set of users. 

Tableau Public: A user-friendly, cost-effective sharing tool, Tableau Public saves the report to Tableau Server and allows unlimited access to users. This is especially useful for sharing knowledge publicly.  

Tableau Server: Tableau Server enables sharing of visualisation, dashboards, and worksheets generated on Tableau Desktop across the organisation. It is also a very secure tool for swift and effectual sharing of data within an organisation 

Tableau Online: Unlimited data can be published to Tableau Online, which has an online sharing tool that allows data to be saved on the servers. It can support data from a variety of web applications such as Google Analytics, e-retailers, etc.  

Tableau Reader: Users can read worksheets and visualisations created on Tableau Desktop or Tableau Public. Editing permission is restricted with Tableau Reader.  

A key part of the BI stack 

Tableau visualisations can provide tangible business outcomes while paving the way for a transformational data analytics roadmap. Some of the common use cases include: 

• Sales and revenue forecasting 

• Improved customer service  
• Compliance insights 
• Identifying business risks and implementing mitigation strategies 
• Capacity planning based on demand forecasting 
• Governance and security challenges 

Tableau is used by organisations across sectors including government, retail, financial services, banks, healthcare, and manufacturing.  

Merit Group’s expertise in BI and data visualisation  

At Merit Group, we work with some of the world’s leading B2B intelligence companies including Wilmington, Dow Jones, Glenigan, and Haymarket. Our data and engineering teams work closely with our clients to build data products and business intelligence tools that directly impact business growth by helping our clients to identify high-growth opportunities. 

Our specific services include high-volume data collection, data transformation using AI and ML, web watching, BI, and customized application development. 

We’re experts in Cloud BI, helping companies streamline and migrate to a truly next-generation BI stack. We also help companies gear up for visual storytelling and collaborative BI using tools like Tableau.  

Merit’s team brings to the table extensive knowledge in the building real-time data streaming and data processing applications. Our data engineering team brings to fore specific expertise in a wide range of data tools including Airflow, Kafka, Python, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Apache Spark, Snowflake, Tableau, Redshift, Athena, Looker, and BigQuery. 

Merit’s data engineers can help you with faster time-to-insights using Tableau, which is ideal for data exploration.  

Get in touch with our data and business intelligence teams for strategic guidance on building the right data ecosystem, custom designed for your business. We’ll also help you choose the right data cloud platform based on your volume and/or types of data to be processed. 

If you’d like to learn more about our service offerings or speak to a data visualisation or Tableau expert, please contact us here: https://www.meritdata-tech.com/contact-us