Onboarding users to data visualisation tools
By: Kris Curtis
Tags: Tableau, Thoughtspot, Microsoft, Onboarding, Data Visualization

Part of my vision is to create a data ecosystem which enables people within an organisation to access, consume and understand data.

While amazing looking dashboards and a fast, clean and governed database will all play huge roles in achieving this data driven objective, enabling access is an often overlooked element.

Go back to the first day of a new job.

I can remember spending many hours speaking with IT support trying to get the right software installed, new accounts set up, speaking with my colleagues to check what else I needed or how do I access something.

Painful.

When I stepped into my role and managing a variety of data visualisation software tools I put myself back into the shoes of a new starter. I went and spoke to end users and looked to understand these type of issues.

If I could make just one thing easier for them on their first day or first week then for me that is a success.

Tableau Server

Our Tableau server had been implemented years before I started and all the foundations were in place. I wanted to build on this and streamline the access points for new server users — simply by leveraging only active directory configuration.

We had a bit of housekeeping to sort out. Locally created groups where users needed to be added to for access. This was eliminated straight away. I set about requesting IT to set up active directory groups (AD groups) for use to provision access for Tableau Server.

The reasons for this approach were:

I was running Tableau Server solo — an accidental admin so I didn’t have the time to continually add users to groups every day No delays for access. No contact to IT support, access to 90% of business reporting on day 1, or whenever their laptop was available If users did need additional access, they had to contact IT to be added to the relevant group. Again, mainly to help me save time precious time

When a new user joins and they get access, an email is sent (Server welcome pack). This contains an email explaining some of our bespoke company information and security guidelines. Also included is a slide deck giving the user information about some of the features and functions useful on Tableau server. Creating alerts, setting subscriptions up, finding out who the report owner is and downloading as pdf or now as slides.

These slides are also located on our wiki page along with other “how to” articles.

Tableau Desktop

A bit more complex in terms of onboarding, but equally important. My main users of desktop are within our data community and require Tableau to do their day-to-day job. As I’m known as “the Tableau guy” it was a bit of a word of mouth approach. A manager would have a new hire so they would email me about this.

The issue lies with not all managers were as organised as some. So there were times where someone would need a desktop licence for their job almost a week in. Not professional for the manager or me, or the company.

My relentless drive for process kicked in and took over.

An AD group dedicated for the data department gave everyone the permissions for that of a desktop licensed user, even if they didn’t need one. If a manager forgot to include Tableau desktop on the new starter form or didn’t speak to me about this prior to the start they would be reminded of the process (Jira ticketing) in order to obtain a licence for their new starter.

Once we have our ticket, a valid business case and approval to assign (normally approval from me as the Tableau owner) we will assign a key and distribute our desktop welcome pack.