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Accelerated & Automation-Driven Managed Services

ennVee provides Oracle application management, business, and technology consulting services. Our services are built around acceleration and automation to help organizations complete projects faster, minimize disruption, get it right the first time, and reduce the cost to deliver tomorrow’s solutions today.

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  • 1733 Park Street Suite 220 Naperville, IL 60563
  • connect@ennvee.com
  • Monday to Friday: 9am to 6pm
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White Paper

Integrating NetSuite and Tableau

  1. Background
  1. ennVee is a professional services firm that provides IT consulting services to customers across North America and Asia. Internally, it utilizes an employee time sheet system built on the NetSuite platform to enter day-today activities and draw transactional reports. ennVee’s internal modernization initiative focused on leveraging the enhanced analytics and reporting capabilities from the various ERP systems being used across the organization.
  1. By building the integration between NetSuite and Tableau, employees would be able to create BI reports and actionable visualizations from time sheet data. Time sheets are an indispensable component of all companies. Whether to ensure the accuracy of the scope of a project, or to enable project managers, project leads, etc. to manage the project and budget, it is essential to take and graphically transpose the time sheet data to build a comparison of project growth.
  1. Solution
  1. Tableau visualization insights are integrated from NetSuite time sheet records and allow users to be on-time and up-to-date by having access to real-time tracking information at the moment of entry. This provides the number of hours that an employee has logged into the time tracking database, and generates a bulk of the activity information required for day-to-day management and periodic review.

    Another significant drivers for building the integration was a lack of visual representations for customized records in NetSuite. Though we were able to build saved searches on child custom records and call the parent record fields using NetSuite, the standard saved searches did not support the required format.

    The integration would enable ennVee employees to visualize and better understand data reflecting real-time changes to NetSuite custom data. Keeping this in mind, mapping of the time sheet records was simplified and more reliable from a management perspective, which provided employees a much more agile approach.

    Exporting time sheet data to Tableau revolutionizes the current management practices by analytically representing all working hours. NetSuite’s dashboards allow time sheet entries to be mapped, while Tableau enables real-time monitoring, reporting, and analysis of overall project performance (resource utilization, profit margins, project budgets versus actual, etc.).

    Additionally, the integration will allow users to export data from NetSuite for instantaneous consumption through Tableau.

    Vibrant cloud analytics are readily available and help demystify tasks for each project team leader.

    Project leads can transform crystal clear insights into milestones and actual work completed, while ensuring that deadlines are aligned to the completion of deliverables. Using NetSuite’s unified system to Tableau also provides real-time monitoring of project profitability, and more knowledge to make decisions that can be objectively measured and impact the bottom line.
  • NetSuite (2017.1) — Access (User ID, Password, Account ID) to establish connecting to NetSuite.
  • Tableau (10.3) — Access to build front-end report information on fields to be displayed.
  • CData ODBC Driver 4.0 — Integration enabler that transposes NetSuite data onto dashboard in Tableau.
  1. Integration Process
  • Installation of the CData ODBC Driver for NetSuite can be configured using the ODBC Data Source Administrator.
  • Once the driver is installed, we will see the CData NetSuite Source data source name listed under the User DSN tab of the ODBC Data Source Administrator.
  • Select a DSN and click the Configure button to set connection properties in the driver configuration window.
  • Once a DSN is configured, the user can utilize it from various tools via an owned machine or other machines within the user's specified domain.
  • The driver leverages NetSuite Web services to provide the user access to time sheet records in the NetSuite account in real time.
  • Configure the ODBC connection in Tableau according to the system information and credentials.
  • Write Oracle SQL statements against the driver, then retrieve and model the data to create an adequate semantic model according to the data and visualization requirements to optimize the data for detailed analysis and filtering capabilities.
  • Calculating the total hours recorded by the time sheet report is simple and allows users to rapidly create required reports with ease.
  1. Features and Benefits
  1. Seamless Business Analysis
    The joint solution allows management swift access to time sheet records to identify KPIs for each employee or project team member, gain insight into overall business performance in Tableau, and optimize efficiencies.

    Visual Analytics
    Agile time tracking amenity with a robust implementation that provides comprehensive insights for business performance across projects, departments, and teams.

    Mobility
    Information can be accessed, entered, and updated any time, from any device and location. As a result, employees are more likely to submit time sheets on-time, which simplifies the time-tracking process by reducing the amount of re-work for the back-office staff.

    Duration Tracking Visualization
    Powerful integration and interactive graphical views that simplify and expedite the working hours reporting process. The end result is increased transparency and ease of identification for any correlations between worked and actual time durations, and the export of critical business data to run trend analyses, regressions, correlations, etc.

    Configurable to satisfy statistical requirements
    Tableau connects to the CData(ODBC Driver) to pull data and provides user-friendly functionalities like drag-anddrop and drop down menus, so users can freely explore worked hours while meeting statistical requirements.

    Unambiguous Administration
    Ensures consistency in system accessibility while meeting requirements, year after year, with time sheet data visualizations to dynamically filter the data, split trends across different categories, or run an in-depth cohort analysis.

    Elastic Project Budgeting
    A fully integrated solution for project management, service time tracking, resource scheduling, project costing, and client billing.

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