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Tableau Part 1 - Getting Started

By Andrew M posted Jan 13, 2017 12:30 PM

  

There's been a lot of hype for using Tableau with CA PPM, but not much written about how to actually get started.

By the end of this tutorial you will have a simple project dashboard pulling data directly from CA PPM.

 

Before we go any further if you haven't already seen it, check out the recent community webcast from Altrice

CA PPM NY/NJ Quarterly Web Share -Tableau Integration with CA PPM 14.2 

 

What is Tableau?

Tableau is a Business Intelligence (BI) tool which is super easy to use for both admin and user. It enables you to build beautiful dashboards and reports, from a variety of data sources and share them effortlessly.

It's an alternative to jaspersoft and sadly this isn't included in your licence agreement for CA PPM so you need to purchase separately

 

Here's an example of what you can do

Example 1: Record Breaking Coasters | Tableau Public 

Example 2: Earth quake story

 

What do I need?

There are two main components

  • Tableau server - Where end users can view dashboards/reports,and edit existing
  • Tableau desktop - a poweruser tool to build datasources and dashboards, then uploaded to the server to view

 

Ok, so how do I get Clarity data into tableau?

We have a number of different strategies we can use to get data into the tool and how to shape it before.

In the example below i'll show step by step how to get data from an on-premise instance directly. If you are on-demand, since the database isn't accessible we'd have to approach a different way i.e. webservices from a query

http://www.tableau.com/learn/tutorials/on-demand/getting-started 

 

Example - a very simple on-premise project dashboard - time to build 5 minutes

 

Pre-requisites:

  • Set up a read only user (i.e. tableau_user) in your database
  • Have tableau server set up with a site and the correct permissions
    • if you don't have the server then you can still build but not share it "online"
  • Install tableau desktop
    • trial can be used for this example

 

Click new and open a workbook

Select datasource tab at the bottom

Build the datasource - in this case a microsoft SQL server

  • We can now build the datasource by:
    • adding the tables and joining together
    • custom SQL
    • Use a view/dwh pre-complied with the data in the format you need
  • let's start with a simple example of adding inv_investments to the datasource
  • Drag it over.  Notice the connection is Live (we'll visit extraction strategy later)
  • add a filter so only project data returns
  • Now go to the workbook

  • Let's build a simple chart of number of projects by goal
    • drag goal into the rows
    • drag number of records measure into the grid
  • Should end up with something like this:
  • Click the Horizontal Bars in "Show me"
  • We'll end up with something like this
  • We'll add one more, so add a new workbook and have some fun (I built a simple gantt in a few mins)
  • Now place these onto a dashboard 
  • save the workbook and publish it to your server
  • You'll now see the dashboard in the server and can share it with stakeholders

 

Conclusion

The tool is incredibly powerful and there's so much more we can do than i've shown.

We can even integrate inside Clarity, automate user creation/groups.

 

  • How does your organisation use it?
  • What are you looking for that is missing in jaspersoft?

 

Hope you found this interesting and educational

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