Usable Analytics for the Right Price!
Updated October 19, 2018
Usable Analytics for the Right Price!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Tableau Server
Tableau Server is the backbone for emergency preparedness analytics for the Louisiana State Department of Health. As the lead agency for public health and medical services during an emergency, we collect a large amount of near real-time information from over 1,500 healthcare facilities. This data includes operational statuses, power statuses, fuel usage and needs, and census/bed availability. Tableau takes this data stream and transforms it into user-friendly visualizations for staff both in the field and in the State Emergency Operations Center. On a day-to-day basis, Tableau provides tools and interactive maps to our state trauma network so that they can determine the most appropriate facility for high risk patient routing.
Pros
- Summarize complex data in an easy to understand format.
- Very fast idea/need to realization timelines.
- Ability for end users to interact with data sets, giving them filters, groupings and other tools to get the data they need.
Cons
- Tableau's mapping capabilities are "almost there". We would love to have Tableau able to function as our sole GIS product. Each version of Tableau brings us closer to that goal.
- We would like to have the ability to schedule data transfers. The new Data Prep tool is step in that direction.
- We still have need to produce lists of summarized data. Making this process a little more straightforward would be nice.
- We believe that our deployment of Tableau Server has had a large positive ROI for emergency preparedness. While not formally calculated, we have done comparisons with other leading analytics vendors, and there is no competition - Tableau Server is clearly the value leader.
- The major contributor to our positive ROI has primarily been the time to deployment and the time to adoption for critical visualizations and dashboards.
Tableau Server Feature Ratings
Using Tableau Server
20 - Staff represent emergency preparedness functions across the state of Louisiana. There are 9 principle regional coordinators that use several critical dashboards to monitor the status of Tier 1 hospital resources. These include bed availability by bed type, bed holds, and emergency department wait times and critical service availability (trauma surgeons, orthopedic trauma teams, neurosurgical trauma teams, etc.). This information is based on near real-time data input by facilities as changes occur.
1 - As a small shop, we only have two staff (non-technical) to manage the various emergency preparedness applications, including Tableau. To gain maximum use of Tableau, we contract with a vendor to provide support as needed on an hourly basis. The services provided include maintaining the connections to data sources, maintaining existing visualizations and dashboards, and creating new content as requested.
- Easy access to critical resource dashboards in one environment. Tableau combines data from multiple applications into one dashboard to monitor resource utilization in user-defined areas and user-selected hospitals.
- Dashboards that allow staff to interact with certain data sets, using the powerful visualization tools in Tableau.
- Data-driven maps that allow trauma network managers to identify appropriate hospitals based on the trauma location and service status within user-defined areas.
- Data maps include hospital status details in a pop-up when hovering over the map point.
- We have been able to extend the functionality of the mapping capabilities of Tableau beyond what is normally available. Using data-based calculations, we have been able to provide end-user interactive capabilities to specify location areas and hospital resources.
- We are able to use Tableau for data listings that enable us to manage compliance with other vendor usage limitations.
- We are able to use Tableau to identify duplicates in databases. This allows staff to keep databases current and error-free.
- We would like to expand the use of Tableau's mapping functionality.
- We would like to extend the use of the Tableau mobile app by our regional coordinators.
- We are working at automating and pushing visualization updates to other applications.
Evaluating Tableau Server and Competitors
- Price
- Product Usability
- Analyst Reports
This is difficult. Cost was important, but value was the predominate factor. Cost effectiveness and functionality combine to create the value for us. In addition, the ability to quickly deploy new visualizations based on user requests is phenomenal. As indicated earlier, if the current version of Tableau doesn't include some desired/needed functionality, it will be there in future releases in short order.
We wouldn't change a thing. Now that we know more about the potential competitors, the more Tableau server stands out. As indicated earlier, it has consistently demonstrated high value to our developers and end-users.
Tableau Server Implementation
- Third-party professional services
We used a small IT consulting group, the Myrick Group, to handle implementation and server management. We continue to use this contractor for hourly services to maintain the Tableau server instance and create visualizations/dashboards as we need them.
Change management was a small part of the implementation and was well-handled - Better user education before implementation would have possibly increased the value of the initial deployment. We could have fielded critical dashboards earlier with more input from the field.
- User acceptance. This was really an issue of providing training and showing how regional coordinators managing hospital resources could use Tableau.
- There were no other significant issues. The implementation went smoothly and timely.
Tableau Server Support
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Immediate help available Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response | None |
No - Tableau server in our environment is so easy to use, we have not required premium support capability. We consistently get positive, timely results from our current support agreement. Unmentioned is the value of our Tableau account manager. Even as a small customer, we get frequent calls/visits from our account manager which gives us the opportunity to request new features and explain needs. The results are often a targeted support engagement with a Tableau engineer that gives us what we need.
We had an issue with a particular mapping capability. We wanted to be able to map hospitals state-wide, provide a pop-up of service status upon hovering over the map point, and allow the end-user to specify the location of a trauma and use a slider function to define hospitals located within a radius in miles of hospitals. Tableau support was able to provide a solution, and this dashboard is a key resource used by our state-wide trauma network to provide routing suggestions to EMS agencies.
Using Tableau Server
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar | None |
- Dragging and dropping data variables to quickly and easily create visualizations
- Tableau's "Show Me" function that suggests visualization types based on the data source.
- Easily mapping data that doesn't have latitude/longitude in the data set. Tableau can use county and/or zip code to quickly provide a map of the data.
- The mapping function in Tableau continues to improve, but it can't accommodate the use of layers as data filters just yet.
- Tableau is not really meant for the generation of lists from data. We've found ways to do it, but it takes someone with technical skills.
Yes - Beautifully! My favorite example is our coordinator in one of most heavily-populated metro areas. This particular area has high hospital resource utilization and a relatively small number of hospitals for the population. This coordinator is not technically skilled and was cutting and pasting information from one of our web-based applications into a Word document. She was using this to assist in patient routing during large festivals (Mardi Gras) and as such, had to refresh the document frequently throughout the day. We were able to give her all of the data she had been using plus more in one single Tableau dashboard that she could access from her phone. This not only drastically improved the quality of her information, it also drastically reduced the time creating it manually and solved a bandwith problem she experienced in a mobile EOC command trailer.
Comments
Please log in to join the conversation