Tableau Drives Campus Data Analytics at Purdue

With a 140 year history, Purdue University has grown from a faculty of 6 to a faculty and staff of 18,872. Gaining insight into the university's nearly 400 academic programs was a challenge that Ian Pytlarz, Research Analyst at Purdue University, embraced with his passion for data.

Ian developed an easy-to-use query tool for busy university leadership using Tableau version 8.2. Getting the underlying data extracted and integrated into a cohesive data set was his first challenge. There was data buried in many different data sources and formats with about 200,000 rows of data and 50 columns of data involved.

The second challenge was partitioning and structuring Tableau’s dashboard filters to provide an intuitive and interactive data analytics experience. "Now that I've added this interactivity, I’ve gotten nothing but positive feedback," Ian said.

When Provost Debasish Dutta joined the school on July 1st, Ian's analytical tools were available as a road map for him to discover the unique strengths and challenges at Purdue. Their data was accessible like never before. "Originally this data was locked down, and now all faculty members can use it," Ian said.

Check out interactive examples of Purdue's Tableau-driven dashboards. Or, click to see the dashboard Ian demoed at the 2014 Tableau Conference!