Self-Service Analytics Overall Process

Developers who would like to be part of UCSF Tableau Program initially need to submit a "New Department Questionnaire" to determine how the department needs align with the product offering and to provide most appropriate level of support. Once the Developer submits the form, Tableau Program Team will review and setup an Onboarding Meeting to go over the Overall Process

Tableau Developer Training is a prerequisite to apply for Enterprise Tableau Developer License. This training is mandatory for the users who does not have any prior experience or knowledge on Tableau Desktop and Dashboard development.

Developers who already have knowledge on Tableau Desktop and experience on developing dashboards can register for Tableau Skills Assessment test instead of completing the entire training. Tableau Skills Assessment includes a set of questions that needs to be answered by the Developer to obtain Enterprise Tableau Developer License.

A Tableau Developer serves as a technical resource for specific departments or functional areas. Developers work within their respective areas to develop and modify reports and dashboards, provide connections to new and existing data sources, prepare data for use in Tableau, develop extracts, publish data sources and workbooks, develop custom scripts, coordinate releases of data and workbooks, as well as perform complex technical tasks such as integration with R. The Developer is the department or group’s point of contact for IT for coordination, approvals, migration of data and workbooks between environments, as well as sign-offs prior to migration of objects to the production environment. In some cases, the Developer may also assume Interactor role responsibilities. The role of a Tableau Developer in the Tableau Program is to Design, Develop,Publish,Test and Troubleshoot Dashboards and Data Sources. Developer also acts as the primary point of contact from their department to communicate and co-ordinate with different stakeholders including Functional Users, Tableau Admin Team, Database Administrators, and Data Governance Team etc

Tableau Interactors serve as primary support for reporting needs within their own department or functional area. They are typically familiar with the business requirements associated with requests to create (or modify) new dashboards. Interactors perform their work using Tableau Server on the QA Site, which includes tasks such as developing new dashboards or modifying existing dashboards, adding or removing fields from existing views, as well as developing new calculations or metrics. Interactors can only connect the data sources that are already publsihed by the Developer on the Tableau Server. They cannot connect to new data sources or publish any new data sources to the Tableau Server. Interactors work with the Developer to test reports and dashboards in the Quality Assurance (QA) environment. They are also responsible for identifying new requirements or changes to existing reports/dashboards and, also helping resolve any issues. Interactors may escalate complex issues to their assigned Developer.

Tableau Viewers are the ultimate consumers of reports and dashboards that have been created by either a Developer or an Interactor. Viewers can only access specific dashboards relevant to their job function or department. They cannot develop or publish new dashboards, though they can request them from their assigned Developer. A Viewer’s typical interaction with Tableau is limited to navigating to and viewing a dashboard. Such a user may also perform subsequent tasks such as making field selections for time periods, performing drilldowns, re-formatting a report display, or sharing reports with other authorized users.

Tableau Developer License is required to connect to the Data sources and develop Workbooks using "Tableau Desktop" application, which is hosted on Enterprise Tableau platform. In odrer to obtain Developer license, user must complete "Tableau Developer Training" or "Tableau Developer Skills Assessment" and submit a "Tableau License and Access Request Form (LARF)"

Tableau Desktop application is hosted on Citrix environment, which is only accessible to authorized Tableau Developers. Tableau Desktop is used to connect to data sources and develop dashboards. Please note that, Interactors and Viewers are restricted to access Tableau Desktop.

Tableau Server is a web-based application, which is used to share Dashboards and Data Sources* with Interactors and Viewers. Tableau Server has '3' different sites: Tableau Development Site, Tableau QA Site and Tableau Production Site.

Please note that, Tableau Development Site is only accessible to authorized "Tableau Developers". Tableau QA and Production Sites are accessible to authorized Interactors and Viewers.    

Tableau Developers are allowed to connect with variety of data sources, which are supported by Tableau Desktop application. If your data is in the form of files like .CSV, .XLS, .JSON etc then, you first need to copy those files to Citrix environment and then connect using Tableau Desktop. If your data is in the form of databases like Oracle, SQL Server, DB2 etc then, make sure you are authorized to access the data before connecting from Tableau Desktop. In this section, we are going to show how to to connect Tableau Desktop with .CSV, .XLS, Oracle, and SQL Server.   

Tableau Developers are responsible to develop Dashboards and Data Sources (Live or Extract) in Tableau Desktop. It is very important to follow certain guidelines and best practices to develop meaningful dashboards with improved performance.

Tableau Developer is responsible to publish Workbooks and Data Sources (Live or Extract) from Tableau Desktop to Tableau Server (Tableau Development Site and Tableau QA Site). 

As a first step, Workbooks and Data Sources must be Published to Tableau Development Site to perform "Unit Testing" to make sure everything is functioning as expected. Later, they must be published to Tableau QA Site so that they can be shared with Interactors and Viewers across your department or UCSF.

Once the Dashboards and Data Sources are published to Tableau QA Site, Tableau Developer is responsible to request access for Interactors and Viewers. Please note that, granting access to users is administered and controlled by Tableau Admin team. Tableau Developers are not authorized to grant permissons on the Tableau Server.

Tableau Developers are encouraged to prepare Metadata documentation for their Dashboards and Data Sources which will help users to understand the definitions of dimensions and metrics that are being used.

Developers can prepare this documentation a PDF format and save it in a shared location from there users can access (or) This documentation can also be done within the Tableau Dashboard in a seperate worksheet.   

Once the User Acceptance Testing is completed on Tableau QA Site and all the Dimensions and Measures are reviewed by Data Governance team, Tableau Developer can submit a Tableau Production Deployment Form to promote Dashboards and Data Sources to Tableau Production Site. The purpose of deploying Dashboards and Data Sources to Production environment is to share them with Larger audience across the department or at UCSF. 

Once the Dashboards and Data Sources are published to Tableau Production Site, Tableau Developer is responsible to request access for Viewers. Please note that, Interactor access is not allowed by default in Tableau Production Site unless there is a proper justification. 

Granting access to Viewers is administered and controlled by Tableau Admin team. Tableau Developers are not allowed to grant permissons on the Tableau Server.