Using Tableau with Workfront

I reviewed Tableau for a couple of weeks, but found it exceedingly complex to setup and work with the relationships between the various data sources/tables that I needed for Workfront (Projects, Users, Tasks, Issues, Hours, etc). PowerBI on the other hand was much more flexible and intuitive in terms of building the data model, and that's what we ended up going with. I currently have it setup to refresh its data directly from Workfront's API (though this is not easy to do this out of the box and requires a bit of work and tips/tricks). Having said that, Tableau has more recently launched a new 'data prep' tool which, whilst I haven't used it, looks like it should have similar functionality to PowerBI in that respect. Without reviewing it all again, I'd say that if your data structure is pretty flat and simple then Tableau is probably slightly prettier, but a bit more expensive. PowerBI is cost effective, and super flexible and being enhanced all the time. I'm glad I chose the latter. Regards, David Cornwell

Correct me if I'm wrong - but I think Tableau has a cost to author but all reports are free for anyone to view. Power BI is the reverse - which is a shame because for example we have portfolio reporting that we would love IT as a whole to be able to view, but wouldn't ever get the sign-off of Power BI Pro for ~200 people... Jamie Hill JLL

Hi Jamie, What team are you with at JLL? LeapPoint has been working with 4 or 5 departments at JLL for the last year or so. I believe that the JLL Transformation Office (TMO) has done an internal Tableau integration with their Workfront instance. I can put you in touch with their system administrator if you'd like? Thanks, Deven Deven Ravel LeapPoint

Hello! I'm following this conversation as well....I use Tableau and Tableau Server product and LOVE it. It's made my job much easier. With a basic data set, it is as easy as they made it seem....drag and drop. I am excited about their new data prep function. Where it get more detailed and cumbersome is merging/blending data in different sources, etc. BUT, I'm still a fan! I have recently been on-boarded to Workfront and am still exploring how to get the data from Workfront into Tableau. We believe it will be using an API method, but again we are in the early stages of exploring and discovering a solution. I look forward to others comments on how they have accomplished a data connection to Tableau. Thanks! Amanda Shotkoski

At my company, we use the API to pull all Workfront data into a central relational database that closely mirrors the Workfront objects' underlying data structure, but also has some helper tables and helper columns to make some of the more complex relationships easier to query. In this way, we pull data from Workfront, as well as other systems, into Tableau to get a unified picture of our work here. Doing things this way gives us a lot of reporting power, but it is difficult to setup at the onset and its difficult to continually update your tables with WF data in a way that's as close to live data as possible and recognizes when an object's been deleted or updated in Workfront without taking a complete snapshot of the data; Some objects are easier than others though. Recently, I've been experimenting with Tableau's Web Data Connector feature. What I like about that is it's as simple as using JavaScript (or server-side code depending on your setup) to build HTML tables. From there, some simple JSON gives their JavaScript package the ability to understand the relationships between different objects and their columns. I haven't gotten further than being able to pull a project with its tasks into tableau, but it shows some promise. James Bender Jackson/JTS

hey @lauram26269131 

My company Daexus released a super-secure Adobe Analytics connector for Tableau - no 3rd party server involved and the connector only runs on your computer. I'm more than happy to set you up or anyone in your company with a free trial account if you're intrested.

Let me know!