CHALLENGE:

The Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon took a leap of faith when considering a massive overhaul of its data evaluation process, driven by their then finance head Ted Curran. With the ultimate goal of creating a central data warehouse from multiple source systems and clarifying data for the end user (the dean of the Tepper School of Business), implementing a new business intelligence solution would potentially be a colossal undertaking. After examining several business intelligence solution options, the school chose to go with Tableau Software.

SOLUTION:

InterWorks business intelligence consultant Eric Shiarla stepped in to evaluate CMU’s specific needs. Server requirements were quickly analyzed, and a strategy for onsite consultation was developed. Eric met with ten units within the department to discuss the goals of data exploration, how to obtain the data and how to prototype customized dashboards. The primary focus was to provide consistency across the school and easy access from anywhere in the world. The project gained momentum quickly, and in order to maintain momentum and give the Tepper School of Business rapid results, InterWorks implemented a modified single-day workshop to train school faculty and staff.

RESULTS:

Shortly after training, faculty and staff were churning out their own reports and exploring the capabilities of Tableau on their own. InterWorks’ training and consulting approach emphasized the capabilities of self-service and user-adoption development with Tableau. The CMU team is now successfully executing their own customized dashboards as a result of hands-on training with InterWorks. Data analysis processes are streamlined to coordinate with an optimized data management system.