Okay, so Tableau is technically something that one person can use effectively to support their work.
But most of the time, to get actual value for the time/money commitment, it probably won’t be just a single person. See there are different roles to play when building something useful in Tableau. Chances are, if you already have a solid team, many of these roles will be easy and quick to fill with people who may not have ever heard of Tableau.
The person who finds/cleans the data.
Cleaning data is a pain, but it’s necessary. The person cleaning the data doesn’t really need to know anything about Tableau. They just need to know how to structure date.
The person who connects the data.
Most of the developers in the research/evaluation world that I know are not going to be too phased by data connections in Tableau. Most of the time it’s just uploading Excel or TXT files.
But with all sorts of data connections, and a lots of user documentation, a good in-house developer should have no problem connecting data sources to analyze in Tableau without really having to understand anything about Tableau.
The person who develops the dashboards.
Okay, so this person has to know about Tableau. But at this point, all the data is cleaned and connected. They just need to be able to explore the data and come up with useful visuals.
This person is less likely to be a developer and more likely to be an analyst.
The person who uses the dashboards the other person develops.
The person who is going to use the dashboard definitely doesn’t have to be the one who created the dashboard. It’s useful for exploratory data analysis, but even there it’s not critical.
If the dashboard developer has created a good environment for exploration, this person just needs to know how to click around the tool and find the information they need.
The person who takes the dashboards, or the visuals from the dashboards, and shares it with others.
This also might be a different person, a web developer or social media manager. They need to know how to share what’s in Tableau on the channels they support.
By now, just about any web developer will have absolutely no trouble embedding tableau dashboards on the web.
Build a team!
Then trust your team. Hiring, then subsequently overloading, one or two internal “Complete Tableau Experts” is probably not the best path to getting the most value from your Tableau license.
Leave a Reply