There is not such thing as a perfect tool…tableau makes some great visualizations…but it stinks at creating tabular reports (like excel) Power BI on the other hand has the ability to produce paginated reports.
One of the cool things about being around as much as I have been is that I have gotten to work with a lot of different tools at a lot of different organizations. I helped organizations migrate from stand alone Crystal Reports to an Crystal Enterprise (yeah, that’s old)…I have led the charge from single purpose reports to multi-purpose WEBI docs…led the charge to move from to Power BI and Paginated reports.
I have worked with a lot of great people who love the challenge and embraced the new ideas and new ways of working. I have also worked with a lot of folks who have been using the older tools for so long, the folks struggled to get started on the new tools.
These folks, the ones who struggled to get started with the new tools often asked questions like , “When should we use this tool” or “Do we have to completely stop using the existing tools?” Additionally, managers or leaders often worry about the “re-learning” that has to happen as a company switches from one tool to another.
There is going to be work…there is effort….but like any improvement process, if we do it right…its going to be awesome. I’m sure you might ask the big question…how do we know what tool to use? This is perhaps the easiest answer in the world….
It Depends
Just kidding…its not easy, but it does depend. Not everything is going to be a cool sexy Tableau visualization…but not everything should be a standard issue spreadsheet, either. We need to consider what our users need and where our users skills sets are? Also, the creator must consider what the consumer really needs.
If you use my report request form you can see that I ask several questions including “what is the required function of this report” and “how will this report be used?”. These questions will inform your decision on which tool to use.
Do we need a one time thing?
Will the consumer need this monthly? Perhaps you should choose a tool that can schedule the report
Will the consumer use the data as descriptive or prescriptive reporting?
Is the consumer simply looking at the data and making a decision? Or, are they going to use this data to inform another step in the process?
What is the consumers skill set?
Are they a spreadsheet wizard or are they a novice?
I know…I may have teased that you could know which tool to use…but there isn’t a perfect tool…you need to understand what the consumer needs and weigh that against what you have…for example, were I am working now, we have BOBJ and Tableau…so…that means I use WEBI for any spreadsheet work that needs to be run on a schedule, and tableau for any visual reporting…no matter how simple.