Enhancing IDEA with Tableau or Power BI

pjbrown

Forums

With 10.3 there has been further enhancements to the graphical reporting with Discover and Visualize.  I used them recently to report to Senior Management which was very well received. I wondered if anyone had used IDEA to integrate with Tableau or Power BI to improve such reporting? If so, what were the benefits?

Brian Element Mon, 10/22/2018 - 19:24

I use Power BI for our dashboarding.  The main reasons is that Power BI and Tableau are dashboarding tools where as IDEA is a data analytics tool with some dashboarding options included.  If you have played with Power BI the options are much greater than what can be done in IDEA and much easier.  IDEA realizes this as they have released ODBC drivers that will allow you to connect Power BI and Tableau directly with an IDEA database.  So the question is, is the IDEA dashboard option enough for your management and what you want to do, if so great, if not you will have to look at other tools.  The other tools come with additional expenses along with a learning curve so it comes down to what your needs are and what you can afford.  Excel also gives additional options in creating visualizations through Power Pivot and Power View that might also be another option.

pjbrown Tue, 10/23/2018 - 04:09

Thank you very much Brian thats made it clear for me. Unfortunately we only have office 2010 so Power Pivot and Power View aren't an option at the moment but there is a free version of Power BI which I need to investigate. Again thanks
 

Brian Element Tue, 10/23/2018 - 04:39

I am currently using the the free (or desktop version).  It does everything but it does not allow you to print (so I use SnagIt) for printing and it does not allow you to share unless you share the file.  We are currently looking at our options to get the premium version (which is $9.99 US a month) but I work for a government entity so these decisions take time lol.  Having the premium version would allow us to share the dashboards in a cloud environment so management wouldn't need a copy of Power BI but could access the dashboard through their web browser.

pjbrown Fri, 10/26/2018 - 10:37

Thanks for this. Maybe something to look at in the future. Working for a LGA myself I feel your pain.