Tableau Year 3 - Tableau Collaboration Grows an OSU Community

Welcome to the third part of the Three Years of Tableau blog series. In March, our second installment shared highlights of how Tableau was instrumental in implementing Workday at Ohio State, a huge effort and business transformation not seen by the university in decades. In part three of the series, we’ll learn more about how the increased use of Tableau and the collaboration it affords has led to an actual Tableau community at Ohio State.

Let’s start things off with a common story (hopefully a common one) that exemplifies the power of collaboration in a simple way. Imagine you’re sitting around a table with friends or family, just about to enjoy a great meal, when someone asks, “Hey, who was that actor in that movie who was also in that one TV series?” Suddenly, with a whoosh, all the smartphones are out in plain view. Within seconds, as a community, you all know the answer regardless of each person’s comfort with technology. Undoubtedly, someone will then respond with, "Wow! What did people do before smartphones?"

In a similar fashion, before sophisticated data and reporting tools like Tableau were available, the ability to obtain real-time reliable data at Ohio State was limited to only a few people, and often depended on who you knew as well as how much time you had to find the necessary analytical expertise.

One of the benefits realized by adopting Tableau at Ohio State is community. Through the existence of the Tableau User Group (TUG) meetings and Iron Viz competitions at the university, the Tableau community has come to represent a living learning framework that continues to grow. Three years ago, there were 15 Tableau power users across the university. Tableau report creators had to refresh and upload data manually. There was no easy way to share insights. Subscriptions or saved views in Tableau were non-existent. In contrast, see how far we’ve come by checking out the Tableau usage data gathered during the January 2022 survey period.

January 2022 Ohio State Tableau Usage Data

• 324 Tableau creators; all with the ability to connect to data sources and create dashboards
• 60+ Tableau Server project leaders – a 510% increase within a few years!
• Nearly 100 Ohio State Tableau User Group (TUG) members
• 16,000 unique Tableau users
• 11,700 created and saved views**
• 85% satisfied or very satisfied survey scores with Tableau overall and 82% satisfied or very satisfied survey scores with Tableau Server deployment
• 88% of responding Tableau creators have transitioned to using Tableau as their preferred tool for building reports
• 2.1 million events have occurred on Tableau Server. The university community is interacting with data by creating and saving views, emailing interesting facts to others, and leveraging enterprise data to make decisions.

**Views allow a user to enter static or dynamic criteria and save the option. In turn, they can regularly access the report or share with others. Views show the user is regularly interacting with the data.

As you’ve been reading this post, and hopefully the others in the three-year look back at Tableau series, you might be thinking, Tableau sounds great, but I’m not sure my unit’s data needs rise to the level of needing a trained Tableau user. If your work requires the recurring sharing of data to varied audiences, like the ones mentioned in the opening example who need to understand information at-a-glance, check out the testimonials that follow. If you see your college or unit in these stories, then Tableau can probably help you.

If you have additional questions about the Tableau service, please contact Jimmy Anthony and Maureen Henry.

You can join the Tableau User Group (TUG) through MS Teams to become a member of the community and stay apprised of all things Tableau.