Enabling collaborative, self-service analytics with Tableau and Salesforce
By: Andrew Herman
Tags: Tableau, Salesforce, Data Visualization, Embedded, AWS

When I joined Slalom in June 2018, the first project I worked on was a Tableau implementation for a company named Elsevier. Elsevier is a global information analytics business that helps institutions and professionals advance healthcare, open science, and improve performance for the benefit of humanity.

Elsevier wanted to empower their global sales teams with timely insights to make better data-driven decisions every day. The Tableau implementation project focused on designing a solution that would integrate data from multiple systems, and serve it up through Tableau visualizations, embedded in Salesforce.

Working on this project stands out as a highlight of my time at Slalom, due its multi-faceted nature and the revolutionary impact. Elsevier were on a path to becoming a more data-driven organisation when Slalom became involved and this project accelerated the trajectory towards their vision.

Background

When Elsevier approached Slalom, they were in the middle of a Salesforce implementation. They quickly realized that there was a gap in their ability to provide their sales teams with actionable insight and ultimately realize their vision;

“to put good quality data and great analytics at the heart of all decision making”.

The sales teams were reliant on manually intensive, non-scale-able processes for reporting. Elsevier did not have a single, consolidated view of key sales metrics due to the data being in various source systems. Furthermore, there was no single source of truth when it came to sales reporting and separate areas of the business reported performance using different metrics.

Improving data visualization and self-service reporting capabilities were key factors in realizing Elsevier’s vision. As a result, Elsevier selected Tableau as their data visualization tool and asked Slalom to build a solution that would provide insight into key sales metrics across the business.

Project Overview

The project scope was broad as we focused on delivering the self-service solution to end users, as well as up-skilling the previously inexperienced teams in Tableau. We worked closely with Elsevier’s Sales and IT teams to understand their business requirements and then architecture solutions to deliver these to end users.

Some of the key project objectives were:

· Encourage and enable teams to work in a more collaborative nature,

· Combine data from various source systems (including Salesforce) into a single datamart,

· Up-skill members of the Elsevier team in Tableau and data visualization,

· Embed insights into the day to day working life at Elsevier.

Collaborative Working

One of the key challenges we faced early in the project was the siloed nature of our stakeholders who were spread across three different business units in three separate continents. Each of these business units had their own methodology for tracking and reporting sales metrics, meaning there was no standardized company-wide approach.

We worked closely with the different business units to develop a set of uniformed reporting requirements and metrics. We organised daily stand-ups, weekly show and tells and regular requirement gathering sessions. These enabled the business units to become more aligned and provided opportunities to share best practices and insights.

Through these sessions, we were able to agree a conformed set of sales metrics that would be used for sales reporting throughout Elsevier. These metrics would form the basis of the datamart and Tableau dashboards that we would design and build.

Data Mart Design and Build

The data required for the sales reporting resided in several source systems, including Salesforce, Siebel and an Oracle data warehouse. To ensure all of this data could be analysed and presented within Tableau, we designed and implemented a data mart. The data mart incorporated tools including Talend, Redshift and S3 to pull data from various source systems, into a single data model (see figure 1).

Figure 1. Data Architecture Overview

We created an extract of this data source and published it on Tableau Server where it was refreshed daily. This allowed users to connect to this centralized data source and create their own reports and analytics using Tableau’s web authoring capabilities.

We also designed and built six core Tableau dashboards based on the requirements gathered from the business units. These dashboards provided oversight of Sales Performance, the Opportunity Pipeline, Salesforce Activities and Forecasting.

Upskilling the Team

The Elsevier Sales Team had limited previous exposure to Tableau. Therefore, a key part of the project was to upskill both end users (who would be consuming the dashboards) and power users (who would become responsible for maintaining the dashboards). We used a combination of training, personalized handover sessions and a group hackathon to achieve this.

These sessions ensured that upon completion of the project, Elsevier would be equipped with a workforce that could manage and enhance the dashboards we had developed. Since the first phase of the project many of the training participants have applied their skills to develop their own, standalone Tableau dashboards to respond to other business requirements.

When I check back in with the team it’s fantastic to see how far they have progressed in their Tableau journey over the past several months.

Self-Service Analytics, Delivered

We were keen to bring analytics closer to the end users so we embedded the Tableau dashboards within Salesforce. This created a seamless, user-friendly experience.

For the first time, Elsevier could obtain a single view of all their key sales metrics, allowing leaders to make quicker, more intelligent decisions. Over 1,200 members of staff from Elsevier could access the Tableau dashboards we built, by connecting to them directly from within Salesforce. The team are now using the dashboards to review Sales performance, prioritize workload and make faster, more-informed decisions.

Since the completion of this project, Slalom have worked alongside Elsevier to successfully adopt Tableau into several other areas of their business, including finance and marketing.

It has been great to see how the Tableau-Salesforce project has acted as a springboard for further success stories at Elsevier. I can’t wait to see more clients realize the benefits of bringing together these two powerful technologies.