I've recently been asked if we can integrate Apptio CT & Cloudability with Tableau via API. My initial reaction is: Why would you want to do that? To me, it would make more sense to integrate with the SSO if the concern is multiple logons for users.

The response: Tableau is the Corporate standard.

I have limited exposure to Tableau. So I'm reaching out to this great group of folks

Do you integrate with Tableau?

What are the benefits over getting your data reporting directly from Apptio?

If you've avoided this request, Why? How did you implement Apptio as an alternative?

@Stephanie Geltrude, a lot of companies want that flexibility to export the tabular data from Apptio into Tableau for better visualization purposes. So I can understand why your stakeholders are requesting the same.

Yes, we do integrate with Tableau by using the API to export the tabular data to SQL tables/views for Tableau to consume.

I believe the benefits are the ease of exporting the data via Poweshell (which can be automated) for the Tableau gurus to do whatever they can to 'fancy' the reports.

Having said that, we are now in the process of using the OOTB reports from Apptio and make Tableau reports as 'supplemental' reports because we want people to be in one central location to read the reports (which is your first point).

@Tony Wong The argument in favor is that Leadership consumes *some* of their reporting from Tableau and that group has an interest in moving the needle such that all Management reporting will be available for consumption in a single location. This makes complete sense to me.

On the other hand, we have a group that has worked to operationalize Apptio as a self service analytics tool. The vision is to move away from a legacy model of giving the Leadership team a snapshot to giving them the snapshot plus the ability to dive in and discover their operational drivers.

I'm sure it will come down to how much change the Leadership team can bear...I'd like to say that if we stand up an API to Tableau and provide the snapshot, that the LT will expect their directs to take the dive into Apptio for the details. That assumes that the Tableau users are only the LTs and not the directs as well. I'd want to avoid a situation where the directs expect to find the breadth of reporting available in Cloudability in Tableau.

@Stephanie Geltrude, I totally agree with you. I am all for single tool and self serve if possible. It's not efficiency to run APIs and other additional processes to give a different view of the picture.

We are in the process of "de-emphasize" the Tableau reports and encourage users to the Apptio portal we created.

@Stephanie Geltrude @Tony Wong Definitely interested in hearing more about how folks are doing this and, if possible, seeing some views that were produced (redacted, of course).

@Jenny Franklin, hope you can see the sample script. It's a bit small. Basically we use the API from Apptio and put it in a PowerShell script to extract all the relevant months data

.\ApptioLoad-Scheduled_BOT_VL3.ps1 -run 54,55 -startdate "01/01/2018" -periods 24 -project "Service Costing" -nosafety

My apologies for not completing the post. Here are the tabular tables from Apptio and the final product in Tableau.

Thanks so much,@Tony Wong!!

@Stephanie Geltrude, thought of you when I learned of the 90 days of free Tableau training   

eLearning: Tableau Web-Based Training 

Hi @Stephanie Geltrude,

I realize this is post is a few months old now...

Here's what I'll say about Tableau integration.  In my previous work, the main platform for reporting is Tableau.  In our multi-layer reporting strategy, Tableau sits in the middle and caters to a large number of audience from senior leaders in the Business all the way to the IT application owners and product managers.   We found that people like using the Tableau dashboards for quick insights, then go to Apptio reports for detailed analysis.  Regarding how we integrate Apptio in to Tableau, I had set up a script to pull the tables or reports in via those tables' API URL.  We automated the process through shell scripts and SSIS just so we can land them in to our SQL server and make it easier to use those tables as datasources for Tableau.   I'd be happy to walk you through the set up, if you haven't implemented it, yet.

@Jenny Franklin - that 90 days of free Tableau training was awesome.   I asked my colleagues to take advantage of it when I saw it.  

Be safe, everyone!

Oly