How Tableau structures Excel sheets

“I will throw Excel out of the window!” a manager once exclaimed during a consulting visit. Intrigued, I asked why. He vented about his team’s reporting process:

“It takes them days every month. It’s riddled with errors. Nothing is delivered consistently. Comparing data with previous periods is almost impossible. And the issues just keep piling up. How am I supposed to manage my company like this?”

When I asked him about the Business Intelligence (BI) solution they used, the response was telling.

Let’s assume that this scenario resonates with many. Excel is an incredibly user-friendly and versatile tool, accessible to nearly every end user in an organization. With the right data, it enables users to easily visualize, calculate, compare, drill down, pivot, and more. However, the key lies in those critical words: “the right set of data.”

The issue isn’t whether an end user can (learn to) use Excel—even though advanced use often requires complex formulas, functions, or even VBA coding. The real issue is that end users are not IT specialists. They lack the expertise to consistently retrieve the right data, with the correct definitions, from multiple source systems.

As a BI consultant, I’ve learned that one essential paradigm is “one version of the truth.” This means everyone in the organization looks at the same, unambiguous data definitions and extracts information in a consistent way to make accurate conclusions and decisions.

A sales manager at a client company once showed me his process for compiling monthly figures from JD Edwards. He selected order type SO in a specific application, exported the data to Excel, and then created pivot tables and graphs to report to management.

What he didn’t realize was that over time, additional order types like CO, S1, SE, and SD had been added to the system. When the company implemented a BI tool, his reported revenue figures suddenly jumped.

This was a fortunate error for him, but it highlights how easily incorrect figures can lead to poor decisions. This simple example demonstrates just how quickly and subtly things can go wrong.

One of my first BI demos was for a client who wanted to move away from Excel due to these very issues. At the end of the demo, someone asked, “Can the data be exported to Excel?” The manager’s reaction—a sharp look at the questioner—spoke volumes.

While serious BI tools allow exporting to Excel, this feature is often disabled by default for good reason.