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I've seen this same story at every job ive ever had or contracted for. Fortune 100's down to mom and pops. I think metabase/redash/etc is a great fit for the

I've seen this same story at every job ive ever had or contracted for. Fortune 100's down to mom and pops. I think metabase/redash/etc is a great fit for the development of reports and the kinds of things that dont need to be anything more than a sql query. IME fast turnaround can be huge for lots of businesses. I agree with all of your points. A lot of the problem is organizational and political and historical - but the right tool can make a big difference.

the_angry_angel 9y ago
Any tips on prying people away from Excel, and into something like metabase/Tableau/whatever? That seems to be one of the biggest hurdles I think I'm going to have to figure out, rather than the technical side.
- netcraft 9y ago
  a decade ago I would have had a lot of ideas for you but as time goes on the more I have learned to embrace excel. Theres two directions you could be coming from though - if its a problem of the users producing data and storing it in excel instead of your database thats more of an application problem. But if its a matter of excel being where your users want to look at and work with the data - I say embrace that. Use your metabase/tableau/redash to provide them with that data and let them get it out in excel and do whatever they want. Give them a little time and then let them show you what theyre doing with it. IME about half the time theyre actually doing things with it that you cant really help them with unless you spent a ton of time. The other half you can take what theyre doing and either apply those changes into the query itself, saving them time and sharing that work with others - or teach them a better/easier/faster way of achieving whatever it is theyre after. I use it as a long-tail way of gathering requirements a lot of times - let me give you all the data you might need for this and you figure out how it can be useful for you.

the_angry_angel 9y ago

Any tips on prying people away from Excel, and into something like metabase/Tableau/whatever? That seems to be one of the biggest hurdles I think I'm going to have to figure out, rather than the technical side.

netcraft 9y ago
a decade ago I would have had a lot of ideas for you but as time goes on the more I have learned to embrace excel. Theres two directions you could be coming from though - if its a problem of the users producing data and storing it in excel instead of your database thats more of an application problem. But if its a matter of excel being where your users want to look at and work with the data - I say embrace that. Use your metabase/tableau/redash to provide them with that data and let them get it out in excel and do whatever they want. Give them a little time and then let them show you what theyre doing with it. IME about half the time theyre actually doing things with it that you cant really help them with unless you spent a ton of time. The other half you can take what theyre doing and either apply those changes into the query itself, saving them time and sharing that work with others - or teach them a better/easier/faster way of achieving whatever it is theyre after. I use it as a long-tail way of gathering requirements a lot of times - let me give you all the data you might need for this and you figure out how it can be useful for you.