Onboarding users to data visualisation tools
Part of my vision is to create a data ecosystem which enables people within an organisation to access, consume and understand data.
While amazing looking dashboards and a fast, clean and governed database will all play huge roles in achieving this data driven objective, enabling access is an often overlooked element.
Go back to the first day of a new job.
I can remember spending many hours speaking with IT support trying to get the right software installed, new accounts set up, speaking with my colleagues to check what else I needed or how do I access something.
Painful.
When I stepped into my role and managing a variety of data visualisation software tools I put myself back into the shoes of a new starter. I went and spoke to end users and looked to understand these type of issues.
If I could make just one thing easier for them on their first day or first week then for me that is a success.
Tableau Server
Our Tableau server had been implemented years before I started and all the foundations were in place. I wanted to build on this and streamline the access points for new server users — simply by leveraging only active directory configuration.
We had a bit of housekeeping to sort out. Locally created groups where users needed to be added to for access. This was eliminated straight away. I set about requesting IT to set up active directory groups (AD groups) for use to provision access for Tableau Server.
The reasons for this approach were:
- I was running Tableau Server solo — an accidental admin so I didn’t have the time to continually add users to groups every day
- No delays for access. No contact to IT support, access to 90% of business reporting on day 1, or whenever their laptop was available
- If users did need additional access, they had to contact IT to be added to the relevant group. Again, mainly to help me save time precious time
When a new user joins and they get access, an email is sent (Server welcome pack). This contains an email explaining some of our bespoke company information and security guidelines. Also included is a slide deck giving the user information about some of the features and functions useful on Tableau server. Creating alerts, setting subscriptions up, finding out who the report owner is and downloading as pdf or now as slides.
These slides are also located on our wiki page along with other “how to” articles.
Tableau Desktop
A bit more complex in terms of onboarding, but equally important. My main users of desktop are within our data community and require Tableau to do their day-to-day job. As I’m known as “the Tableau guy” it was a bit of a word of mouth approach. A manager would have a new hire so they would email me about this.
The issue lies with not all managers were as organised as some. So there were times where someone would need a desktop licence for their job almost a week in. Not professional for the manager or me, or the company.
My relentless drive for process kicked in and took over.
An AD group dedicated for the data department gave everyone the permissions for that of a desktop licensed user, even if they didn’t need one. If a manager forgot to include Tableau desktop on the new starter form or didn’t speak to me about this prior to the start they would be reminded of the process (Jira ticketing) in order to obtain a licence for their new starter.
Once we have our ticket, a valid business case and approval to assign (normally approval from me as the Tableau owner) we will assign a key and distribute our desktop welcome pack.
If a users is assigned a desktop licence from outside of the data department, as part of the process of assigning a key, the user is also added to another AD group which grants publishing permission.
Our desktop welcome pack is an email with instructions how to assign the licence key and download and install the current supported version of Tableau (based on server version). Setting up automated software install and upgrade is project I am looking to kick off.
Again we have a slide deck included in this email which covers a lot of the “must known” information. Connecting to data and our recommended or useful data sources. Useful links out to the community and our dedicated slack channel.
We arrange a monthly face-to-face session for all new desktop users or if users are abroad a video conference. This is where we re emphasise our ways of working. How to publish in the correct site and projects. Including descriptions and tags on published content. This session is more about setting out the guidelines we have for desktop users who are responsible for their content they publish on the server.
For people with past experience this just helps outline the way we do things and who they can contact for any support or issues.
For new people to Tableau this is just the basics. It can allow them to get started but also leads them to my primary COE training programme (DataChefs).
ThoughtSpot
There is a difference in onboarding when you have a historic system already in place. You have to deal with conversations like “but that's the way we’ve always done it”. When a new software is deployed its a blank slate. It throws up some different challenges to overcome, like — what if this doesn’t work or no one wants to use it.
Again, I set out to create a system with minimal barriers to access. This meant using our IT active directory to manage users who are permitted access.
With ThoughtSpot I was able to go for a much more streamlined access approach, mainly due to no users had any past history in access or usage. No one would complain if I fundamentally changed the way the tool was access.
Our IT team really helped on this process and working with ThoughtSpot support we decided on a single sign on (SSO) integration. Users find an icon on their application portal (MyApps) and click on the app.
Boom — they are in. Literally two clicks for access. One to go to the application portal page and the second click takes the user into the application.
Sitting alongside this is a one pager document which explains how to choose a data source, some of the terminology (search, answers and pinboards) and a high level description about the main data source we are publishing.
As always we have our slack channel included for user queries and support.
So, thats a high level view of how I onboard users to our visualisation tools. Obviously there is a whole lot more going on behind the scenes with sync jobs and scripts running to drop users in specific security groups. But at the end of the day — users do not need to know about this. The only things they should care about is
- getting access quickly and easily
- have some basic instructions of how to use the tool
- details about who to contact or where they can go to get additional help
As always, feel free to reach out if you have any questions around this. I’m also keen to hear from others to improve my process in any way.
