Introduction
Our client, a Fortune 50 life sciences and healthcare conglomerate, wanted to make its data more accessible and easier to comment on. They approached HCLTech to help their sales team comment directly in Tableau, so dashboards could become an interactive collaboration hub.
The Challenge
Inefficient, difficult-to-manage data review and collaboration
Already a Tableau customer, our client recognized the benefits of data visualization, but was challenged by finding an effective way to communicate insights and gather feedback. The client’s sales teams used traditional methods of sharing insights, such as PowerPoint slides and email to present, view and discuss sales results. The process was difficult to manage, unreliable and inefficient. Important information was often buried in email chains or multiple versions of long slide decks.
The Objective
Creating interactive dashboards
The client implemented a pilot program to transform dashboards from merely a way to view data into a hub of actionable collaboration. The size of the Tableau environment added a level of complexity to the solution; any solution would need to support enterprise requirements.
The Solution
Implemented dashboard commentary tool
The team charged with running the pilot chose HCLTech’s Elements for Tableau tool. This extension transformed Tableau dashboards into interactive hubs for collaboration, discussion and decision-making. The benefits of the extension were wide-ranging:
- Additional context from annotating complex aggregated and raw data along with its dimensions
- Complete history of comments for audit or backup purposes
- Only one external database required to record comments — your data never leaves your premises
- Integration with enterprise authentication systems (SAML or SSPI Single Sign-On) using Company Directory and user groups to set permission levels – admin, commenter or viewer — for individual workbooks
- Commenting done via modal window — similar to a pop-up window within the browser — saving dashboard space
- Admin UI allowed configuration of commentary modal window size as well as individual configuration of comment fields, field name, comment type, character limits and character appearance
- Four different ways to comment: text box, radio button, checkbox and dropdown item selection
- Worked in locked-down environments where creating tables on the fly in test and production environments was not an option
The Impact
Increased feedback from sales teams on data
Our client enabled its sales team to comment directly on the dashboard, eliminating the need for lengthy PowerPoint presentations or hard-to-find e-mail chains to share data insights. Over a single quarter, the entire sales team adopted the tool, and the use of legacy sharing methods – PowerPoint, screenshots or e-mail – was reduced by 95%.
