Hi Stephen,

Instead of using python to join your sources, you could try Datawatch Monarch.

With Monarch, you can access databases, flat files, logs, even reports and PDFs, and combine your data into a single data set and then output into a spreadsheet as you mentioned, or even into a TDE.

Here are some links to explain how Datawatch Monarch works with Tableau:

http://www.datawatch.com/resource-center/videos/datawatch-monarch-for-tableau/

http://www.datawatch.com/resource-center/literature/top-10-tips-prepare-data-tableau/ 

You can try out Monarch for free here: http://www.datawatch.com/gated/monarch-free-offer/

Regards,

Marianna

Hi Marianna,

I just saw the intro video of datawatch monarch. I am part of the central BI team for a fortune 50 product company and work extensively on tableau. We do face this issue where our stakeholders want to enter the data into excel and we need to connect it to our Tableau reports and have an instant refresh in our server.I have been tasked with getting a compatible solution for our BI guys and looking out to market for anything which can help me with the task.

I wanted to understand a few points

1. Is it possible to have a live connection between an excel file and our Tableau server reports suing datawatch without impacting the performance?

2. What is the # users it can handle at any given point of time without it crashing?

Any help will be highly appreciated.

Thanks,

Subhratim

Hi Subhratim,

Monarch would indeed be very useful for handling Excel spreadsheets with direct input from users.

You could then perform data prep operations, like maybe filter out duplicates, format entries, and get statistics on the data itself - such as unique values, null values (in case these should be filtered out), and so on - stuff you might want to look into when data comes from manual entry.

You could also join data from the spreadsheet with other data sources as well.

And starting with a few releases ago (our latest is Monarch 13.5), you can even export directly to Tableau Server (no longer just to a TDE file).

It would be best if your use case is explored in a little more detail though.

Would you like to provide your email address for a more in depth discussion?

Thanks!

Marianna

Hi Marianna,

I got in touch with one of your sales guy from Singapore I believe. He is helping me with the data questions that I have. Thanks a lot for your reply and the insight that I was looking for. Have a good day.

Thanks,

Subhratim

Hi Subhrartim,

Glad to hear that, hope you gain more clarity on putting Datawatch and Tableau together.

Regards,

Marianna