- Seamless integration of data sources improves ease of use for customers
- The flexibility of Tableau keeps business agile and adaptable to customers needs
- Highly customisable interface allows customers to self-service effectively
Tivian is a leader in Employee Experience with over 20 years of expertise working with Europe’s largest companies. The company is powered not only by technology, but by the belief that employee experience matters and since its founding in 2007 has demonstrated that businesses get better when they listen, learn and leverage insight to improve.
For the past 7 years Tivian has incorporated Tableau and evolved from presenting raw data outputs to self-service embedded analytics into an integral part of the overall solution as reporting demand rapidly grew. Tableau Embedded Analytics help Tivian to create a seamless process which allows their customers to self-service their own analytical needs.
Data integration allows for a highly customisable interface
As a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company, Tivian faces the challenge of staying ahead of the curve when it comes to the functionality and services they offer. “We are constantly evolving our enterprise platform, for example bringing in AI and Machine Learning to transform our offering, ” says David Kellas, Global Head of Consultancy for Tivian. With ever growing volumes of data and increasingly complex methods of analysis it is crucial to remain performant, easy to use, and competitive.
Tivian brought in Tableau to do just that, utilising embedded analytics to integrate with their platform called DiscoverXI. Tableau Server provides a conduit to ferry data from customer projects into their database, generating all necessary user privileges on the Tableau Server and standardising Tivian’s datasource generation–placing a ready made datasource on the Tableau Server.
David admits that initially this was a more manual process with a heavier emphasis on coding a page to embed the dashboard within, thus requiring expert knowledge. However, with Tableau added to the equation this has now evolved into a highly customisable drag and drop style interface where customers can easily build and customise their own portal with very little coding knowledge, and allows them to serve up their dashboard results to their user base.
The seamless integration of Tableau allows us to benefit from the fast innovation Tableau can offer which we as a relatively small company would not be able to provide.
David KellasGlobal Head of Consultancy, Tivian
"This is a clear advantage and avoids having to manually export data to other solutions, it also makes it easier for us to validate results, make changes, resynchronise our data and importantly maintain security for our clients due to the level of control this provides us."
Improving customer experience through Embedded Analytics
Being a company that emphasises and empowers other organisations to provide the best experience possible for their customers, it is equally as important for Tivian to provide the highest level of service for its own customers—David expressed how implementing Tableau’s embedded analytics allowed Tivian to brand solutions to suit any customer, whilst making the experience seamless for their end users.
More often than not Tivian’s Business Intelligence (BI) team are called in to develop the more bespoke data solutions for their customers - the type of solution often varies from project to project. “We have situations for example in retail where poor end customer experiences may be due to employee issues that can be resolved by correlating to the key issues. Improve employee experience, improve customer experience, drive sales”, remarks David.
There are instances where Tivian will combine multiple customer projects to construct benchmark data sources, allowing customers to then feed these back into future projects hence growing their footprint over time and always improving the quality of the data.
They have also developed comprehensive Leadership solutions for organisations to gain insight across their business into how their leaders are performing, with data coming from multiple groups. “This insight helps to inform necessary actions that improve the experience across the board for all employees”, explains David. The feedback received from customers about Tivian’s embedded solution has been positive.
Overall our customers who are in demand of very customised dashboard solutions love the integration of Tableau. We can create any kind of dashboard fast and our customers appreciate that we do not limit them in regards to design and analytical features.
David KellasGlobal Head of Consultancy, Tivian
The drive to a self-service solution
One of the benefits of Tableau's embedded solution was how quickly Tivian were able to deploy it. “The first iteration was done relatively quickly with a Tableau implementation partner and Tivian’s development team so that the first customers were able to use embedded Tableau dashboards within a quarter”, highlights David.
Implementing Tableau Server has allowed customers who are already aware of Tableau to get up to speed with Tivian’s DiscoverXI solution much quicker and become self-sufficient – which naturally helps Tivian retain their customers. “Thanks to our level of in-house experience and Tableau knowledge, we are often able to translate complex customer requirements into a bespoke and useful solution – this puts us in high regard as we are not fixed to prescribing a single method or output. Our flexibility keeps us sticky,” explains David.
Purchasing an embedded solution meant that Tivian were able to deploy immediately, versus building an in-house solution. “There is no point reinventing the wheel when you can add best in class facilities that are also recognised across the industry,” David says. “This enables certain customers to become more independent with their data reporting on our platform as they are using solutions they may already be familiar with.”
Tivian are optimistic about what the future holds with Tableau – “we are hoping to create more sophisticated use cases beyond descriptive statistics, using forecast models and new AI / ML services being added recently”, says David. New self-service options like metrics, data explanation and ask data are being explored and could be a great addition for companies who want to benefit from Tivian experience management solutions and want to allow their in-house Tableau users to utilise Tivian’s integrated solution in self-service.
And in terms of advice he’d provide to other data-minded businesses; “See how you can provide a seamless data and user experience for your users,” says David, “ This will increase the acceptance of a data driven culture.”
Topics: Tableau: The industry standard for consulting analytics