Don’t Take NULL for an Answer – Make Tableau’s ‘getWorkbook()’ and ‘getActiveSheet()’ Functions Behave Correctly
NULL errors have cropped up twice in recent development projects utilizing Tableau’s JavaScript API. In one instance, getWorkbook() returned this error: SCRIPT5007: Unable to get value of the property ‘get__workbook’: object is null or undefined In another instance, getActiveSheet() returned this error: Uncaught Error: Internal error. Please contact Tableau support with the following information: Unknown […]
Tableau Essentials – The Sidebar
Today we continue exploring Tableau’s interface. We will focus on the functionality and features of the Sidebar, commonly known as the Data Window among Tableau users. The Sidebar The Sidebar is located on the left-hand side of the Tableau worksheet (depicted in Figure 1 below), just beneath the drop-down menu options and the Toolbar. Figure […]
10 Ways to Drive End-User Adoption of Tableau – Part 1
I often see Tableau developers fall into the “Field of Dreams” fallacy. With the perfect formula or the bar chart just right, they’ll have the perfect dashboard that everyone will want to use. We’re tempted to think, “build it and they will come.” That’s not really the case. The formula should be perfect, and the […]
The Future of Business Intelligence – 5 Things to Consider
Last week, I did a little ranting about data cubes and explained why I like Vertica. This week, I’m going to discuss the near future of business information systems and share some thoughts that you should consider before investing your time and capital. Data Sources Will Multiply I’ve personally counted over 190 commercially-available data and […]
Tableau Essentials – The Toolbar
The Toolbar Below is a screenshot of the Tableau worksheet interface connected to a generic Excel datasource (Orders). We will focus exclusively on the row of buttons just below the menu drop-downs at the top of the page – the Toolbar. Tableau often has multiple ways of completing a single task – drop-down menus, right-click […]
3 Reasons Why I Prefer HP Vertica
Since I did a little bashing of cube technology the other day, I suppose that I should explain why I also said that I prefer HP Vertica. Vertica Scales Using Tableau with Vertica is like peanut butter and jelly. They just go together. Why? When you are probing a sizable and granular data set, you […]
Webinar: Metric Insights & InterWorks – Push Intelligence for Tableau
InterWorks and Metric Insights recently put on an educational webinar about utilizing “Push Intelligence” for Tableau. The webinar was so well received that we decided to share for those of you who missed it. Steve Mock of Metric Insights and InterWorks’ own, Charlie Sanders shared several best practices pointers for those wanting to leverage Push […]
3 Reasons You Should Kill Your Data Cubes
A few weeks ago, I finished a speech at Netflix and got into a long discussion with a business information manager from a major technology company. This fellow asked me the best way to get value from Tableau with his data cubes. I told him to get rid of the data cubes and buy a […]
How I Went from Literature Nerd to InterWorks Operations Manager
My journey has taken me all over the country across a variety of different locations, fields, disciplines and positions. I haven’t always been in BI Operations, and the road that took me here has been an interesting one. My story is part of our ongoing “How I Went from _____ to InterWorks Consultant” blog series. […]
30 Seconds from SAS to TDE with Alteryx 9.0
Alteryx 9.0 was released back in April of this year and with it came a whole host of new features and tools. It’s party time in the datasource. There is a range of improvements from top to bottom, including the integration of Revolution Analytics Revo Scale R or the heat plot color map. It was […]