Transform Dashboards

With Elements for Tableau, your team can gain faster and better insights by transforming dashboards from a data-consumer experience into a hub of actionable collaboration. You can eliminate the traditional, inefficient and difficult to manage data review and communication process. Whether it's Tableau Server or Tableau Desktop, you can analyze, discuss and enrich data together, directly in the Tableau experience, rather than resorting to emails or another collaboration tool.

Annotate Data

There are two different ways data annotations can be used on a Tableau dashboard. Most commonly, they are displayed as additional data next to the raw and aggregated data, but they can also replace the original data virtually overwriting it on the dashboard. Either way, data annotations are always stored in a separate auditable database and can be reverted anytime. By default, Elements for Tableau supports connecting to MSSQL, PostgreSQL, Teradata, and MySQL databases, but the generic architecture allows us to extend the system with other types of databases. Using your own database gives you full storage control and ensures that no data — even annotations and comments — leaves your premises.

Comment Anywhere

The complexity of data annotations can be tailored to any use case, from a single note to a sophisticated survey form. Using our handy form builder, administrators can create custom UIs from atomic building blocks — text fields, checkboxes, drop-down lists, etc. — and set defaults, minimum or maximum values, enable autocomplete, set validation criteria and order the elements on the form. For added data accuracy and security, an approval workflow can be integrated into the commenting process that ensures that new comments are reviewed by one or more approvers before they are published to the dashboard.

Tag and Notify Users

Elements for Tableau features a flexible tagging and notification system to ensure that users never miss an important message, update or task. Tags can include individual users or groups, and you can control who can be tagged on a particular dashboard to promote effective workspace separation. Notifications readily support email, Teams and Slack, and their channel and content can be customized for each data point, e.g. with a link to the relevant dashboard. In addition to tags, notifications also support instances where annotations under a data point require approval before going live to automatically notify users when a request is made, approved or rejected.

Manage Access

Elements for Tableau integrates with MS Active Directory and supports SAML, OAuth, Okta and custom authentication methods — including Single Sign-On. This provides easy and quick access to powerful access management tools. System Administrators can assign different levels of permissions to users and groups, precisely controlling who can annotate data, approve a comment or even configure the system. Multitenancy is ensured by workspaces, which encapsulate database configurations, users and annotations, perfectly isolating the work and data of the different departments in the company. Additionally, Elements for Tableau can be configured to record and store a complete audit trail of user activity so you can always see who did what. Thanks to these features, Elements readily meets compliance requirements in the most demanding industries.

Customize It

Every company has specific challenges which require specific solutions. Elements for Tableau is highly customizable to meet the unique needs of your organization. Whether you’d like to integrate a new type of database or authentication method, apply custom branding and localization, add new input methods or even add a completely new feature, our Tableau developers and software engineers will deliver fast effective solutions.

• Annotate complex aggregated and raw data along with its dimensions
• Authenticate users through preferred methods including AD, SAML, OAuth and Okta
• Enterprise-grade access management with full control over user and group permissions
• Multitenant architecture provides isolated workspaces for departments, divisions or teams
• Fully audit-compliant with a complete history of comments and user activity
• A single external database records comments and annotations — your data never leaves your premises
• Commenting via modal windows for efficient user experience
• Easy-to-use form builder with multiple input field types: text box (including rich text), radio button, checkbox, drop-down list, number field, sliders, autocomplete field, etc.
• Secure approval workflow supporting multiple approvers is integrated into the commenting process