Leverage Data with Tableau and NetSuite
For over 20 years, SaaS titans Salesforce and NetSuite have pioneered the “cloud-first” mid-market software category, aggressively broadening their footprint by dominating the CRM and ERP marketplace.
With both software systems generating a combined $70B in revenues in 2022 alone, it’s no surprise that they’ve managed to build a robust partner ecosystem with their own marketplaces.
Resulting in thousands of solution providers solidifying their presence in the ever-expanding business cloud landscape.
As mid-market customers deepen their capabilities in ERP and CRM, the natural next step for these companies is to transform their operational systems into strategic solutions.
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How?
By integrating next-level analytics and business intelligence (BI) into their enterprise architecture.
With this growing demand for better analytics, it was no surprise when Salesforce acquired Tableau Software in 2019 to stake their claim in the Cloud BI market.
As a leading data visualization solution, Tableau delivers powerful analytics aimed at analysts, executives, IT and business users.
Naturally, NetSuite ERP and Tableau have common interests in providing businesses with end-to-end visibility on business activities.
But, can they leverage each other’s excellence to gain an upper hand in data analytics?
Let’s take a look.
Does NetSuite Integrate to Tableau?
Due to NetSuite’s architecture, there is no direct integration to Tableau. That being said, there are multiple options to connect your data to Tableau. The best path will depend on your specific use case.
For a fee, NetSuite offers an ODBC connector allowing businesses to directly access data.
The ODBC technology employed is an Open Database Connectivity API that standardizes the exchange of data between multiple applications.
Although data source connectivity is possible, there are limitations in the access, volume, and performance of the data sets you can extract from NetSuite to feed your Tableau solution.
It is important to evaluate the volume and type of data you require for reporting prior to taking this route.
Even though NetSuite has multiple means in accessing its data via Saved Searches and Workbook data sets, customers do not have direct access to NetSuite Tables.
As a result, transforming the data schema into actionable insights in Tableau will require technical know-how and a solid understanding of NetSuite’s data structure.
If an organization needs a comprehensive view of their data in a structured manner with the ability to consistently consume and blend multiple data sources, a business intelligence and data warehouse strategy should be considered.
Can Tableau be used as a Data Warehouse for NetSuite?
There is a misconception with many business users that a business intelligence tool like Tableau can simply connect to NetSuite and users will be able to generate reports from large volumes of data residing in Tableau.
Although Tableau has its own data preparation builder to ensure the data sources are efficiently cleansed and ready for consumption, businesses need to connect to a database or a data warehouse to access the voluminous data sets typically available from NetSuite.
The good news is, Tableau has many native connectors to popular data warehouses such as Google BigQuery, Snowflake, and Amazon Redshift designed to structure your data for Tableau dashboards.
Beyond the typical performance and speed which it provides, a data warehouse is necessary when working with large transaction volumes that need to be structured into a usable data model to effectively build out the analytics and dashboards in Tableau.
In layman terms, NetSuite will give you the “car kit” but you still need to build out the vehicle to get from point A to B.
A data warehouse with an optimized data model designed for NetSuite will empower users to get the most out of their Tableau dashboards without the need to build and drive the vehicle at the same time.
Business Intelligence for NetSuite
Predictive analytic tools can help NetSuite users identify trends, analyze data, and store large datasets. Business Intelligence for NetSuite, Powered by GURUS is a turnkey BI tool that can easily integrate data with a powerful data warehouse tailored to their needs.
The BI and Data Warehouse solution for NetSuite will allow for:
- A single source of truth for all data sources within a single repository, whether it’s from NetSuite or external sources.
- Easier access to a BigQuery data warehouse that is optimized for business-centric analytics.
- Standard and custom tables, records, and fields are supplied as raw data and views, reducing setup costs.
- Connectivity to popular data visualization tools such as Google Looker Studio, Tableau software, and Microsoft Power BI.
- Ability to process large amounts of data quickly and efficiently.
- Powerful data exploration and discovery capabilities for strategic business intelligence.
- Enhanced control over data with no effect on the production environment.
- Access to the BI solution via an embedded dashboard inside NetSuite.
From custom and scripted reports to integrations and popular BI software, GURUS delivers unprecedented expertise on the NetSuite platform.
Helping customers for over 18 years, GURUS Solutions has delivered many reporting solutions to businesses dependent on NetSuite.
Book a Free Demo or learn more about our Business Intelligence solution for NetSuite by visiting our Product Page.
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