Every business needs high-quality data analytics and its visualization. Another important factor to consider is ease of use for the business user. The tool should not require additional costs for training employees at the initial stage. One such solution is Tableau.
Rabota.ru service chose Tableau for multivariate data analysis. We talked with Alena Artemyeva, director of analytics at Rabota.ru, and found out how analytics has changed after the solution implemented by the BI GlowByte team.
Q: How did the need for a BI solution come about?
Alena Artemyeva: At the end of last year, the Rabota.ru service team began to grow rapidly. It was then that the need for high-quality and understandable for all analytics from various departments and company management increased. We realized the need to create a single and convenient space for analytical materials (ad hoc research and regular reports) and began to actively move in this direction.
Q: Based on what criteria was the search for a BI solution carried out and who took part in the evaluation?
AA: The most important criteria for us were the following criteria:
- availability of a stand-alone server for data storage;
- the cost of licenses;
- the presence of a desktop client Windows / iOS;
- mobile client for Android/iOS;
- availability of a web client;
- the ability to integrate into the application / portal;
- the ability to use scripts;
- simplicity / complexity of infrastructure support and the need / no need to search for specialists for this;
- prevalence of BI solutions among users;
- feedback from users of BI solutions.
Q: Who took part in the assessment:
АА: It was a collaboration between the teams of analysts and ML Rabota.ru.
Q: What functional area does the solution belong to?
AA: Since we were faced with the task of building a simple and understandable analytical reporting system for the entire company, the set of functional areas to which the solution belongs is quite wide. These are sales, finance, marketing, product and service.
Q: What problem(s) did you solve?
AA: Tableau helped us solve several key tasks:
- Increase the speed of data processing.
- Move away from the "manual" creation and updating of reporting.
- Increase data transparency.
- Increase data availability for all key employees.
- Get the ability to quickly respond to changes and make data-driven decisions.
- Get the opportunity to analyze the product in more detail and look for growth points.
Q: What was before Tableau? What technologies were used?
AA: Previously, we, like many companies, actively used Google Sheets and Excel, as well as our own developments, to visualize key indicators. But gradually we realized that this format does not suit us. Primarily due to slow data processing speed, but also due to limited visualization capabilities, security issues, the need for constant manual processing of large amounts of data and waste of employees' time, a high probability of error, and problems with reporting sharing (the last most relevant for reports in Excel). It is also impossible to process large data arrays in them.
Q: How was the implementation of the solution?
AA: We started by rolling out the server part ourselves and started making reports, combining data from data marts with prepared PostgreSQL data. A few months later, the server was transferred to support in the infrastructure.
Q: Which departments were the first to join the project, was it difficult?
AA: The vast majority of reports are prepared from the very beginning by employees of the analytics department, subsequently the finance department joined the use of Tableau.
There were no critical difficulties, since when preparing dashboards, the task is decomposed into three main stages: researching the database and creating a methodology for calculating indicators, preparing a report layout and agreeing it with the customer, creating and automating data marts, and creating dashboard visualization based on storefronts. We use Tableau in the third step.
Q: Who was involved in the implementation team?
AA: Basically it was the ML team.
Q: Was staff training required?
AA: No, our team was satisfied with publicly available materials, including marathon data from Tableau and information in Tableau user communities. There was no need to additionally train any of the employees due to the simplicity of the platform and the previous experience of the employees. Now the team of analysts has made significant progress in mastering Tableau, which is facilitated by both interesting tasks from the business and active communication within the team on the features and capabilities of Tableau found in the process of solving problems.
Q: What is the difficulty of mastering?
AA: Everything was relatively easy for us, and the platform was intuitive for everyone.
Q: How quickly did you get the first result?
AA: Within a few days after the implementation, taking into account the fact that it took some time to “polish” the visualization in accordance with the wishes of the customers.
Q: What are the results of the project already?
AA: We have already implemented more than 130 reports in various areas and have increased the speed of data preparation by several times. This turned out to be important for the specialists of our PR department as well, since now we can quickly respond to most relevant media requests, publish extensive research on the labor market in general and in individual industries, and also prepare situational analytics.
Q: How do you plan to develop the system? What departments will be involved in the project?
AA: We plan to further develop the reporting system in all key areas. Reports will continue to be implemented by specialists from the analytics and finance departments, but we are ready to involve colleagues from other departments if they want to use Tableau for their own purposes.
Source: habr.com