Tableau: Can you describe how you are using data at SC Campaign?
Jordan Slice, Research and Evaluation Associate, SC Campaign: Tableau's definitely given us the ability to use our data in real time and use it to make decisions much faster.
Our organization partners with other organizations in the community to implement teen pregnancy prevention programs and educate community members and organizations to prevent teen pregnancy.
We monitor knowledge of different contraceptive methods with teens as they come in the clinics that we partner with. We ask them certain questions about how aware they are different methods. And so we're able to use that data to sort of get a baseline of, you know, ‘How aware are these teens of these long-acting reversible contraceptive methods—which we call in our field LARC.’
Tableau: What were you doing with your data prior to finding Tableau?
Jordan: We had forced Excel to build these dashboards. And we had maxed out our capacity with what Excel could do.
We've been able to import our data into Tableau and build much prettier dashboards where we're able to interact with the data. Where before it was static and we just had to print them and use them as handouts, which wasn't as fun and didn't let us really dig into the data and see the patterns.
Sample visualization of teen birth rates across South Carolina, by county
Tableau: What is the benefit of visualizing this sort of data in Tableau?
Jordan: The benefit to being able to track those patterns using Tableau and being able to filter contraceptive methods by age and race using Tableau has allowed us to really validate what these teens know and be able to move these sexually active teens onto more reliable methods.
We've had a lot of opportunities to present the data in Tableau with grants, especially with the clinic data. We definitely have a heightened sense of engagement with the data at our organization.
Tableau: What sort of effects are you seeing from the move to Tableau?
It's not me going back to my desk and having to root through and try to answer different questions. I'm able to do that right then so that we can continue to make decisions and speed up the impact on our communities.
Jordan: Tableau's really sped up the understanding of our data with our internal team. We've had a lot of ‘ah-hah’ moments and meetings with the staff and we're presenting these like we really haven't had before.
I'll stand presenting in front of the staff and interact with the data with them and they'll ask me different filters and show them different ways to look at it. And we can do that in a meeting and all make a decision together.
It's not me going back to my desk and having to root through and try to answer different questions. I'm able to do that right then so that we can continue to make decisions and speed up the impact on our communities and being able to lower the impact of teen pregnancy in South Carolina.
It has really engaged a lot of our team members at a higher level with the data.