Asana is an online Work Management platform that can be accessed over web or mobile apps. It helps teams organize, track and manage their tasks effectively. Asana comes with reporting features that allow organizations to track key metrics related to project execution. That said, organizations that use specialized Reporting and Visualization software aggregating all reporting may find the default reporting features lacking. This post is about how to get data from Asana to Tableau – one of the popular Reporting and Visualization tools.
Before getting started with the Asana Tableau integration, let’s discuss both the robust platforms in brief.
Table of Contents
Prerequisites
To work your way around the Asana Tableau integration, you’d need:
- Access to an Asana account.
- Access to Tableau Desktop or Tableau Online.
What is Asana?
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Asana is a completely Cloud-based Project Management platform that enables organizations to manage any kind of work. It is an alternative to traditional Project Management tools like Jira and tries to do better with an intuitive user interface. It provides Kanban boards, timeline views, calendar views, and even automated workflow building features.
Asana can help visualize project progress in terms of strategic goals. Asana also provides the ability to view the status from the team’s perspective rather than the project’s perspective by providing visibility to workload metrics. Asana’s reporting section provides dashboards about the key metrics and actionable insights about your team’s state of work.
What is Tableau?
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Tableau is a Data Visualization software that can be accessed based on installation or online. Tableau comes with great connector support and can connect to virtually any Data Source with its built-in connectors. If the built-in connector support proves inadequate, there are numerous community-powered connectors available. It is an integrated platform that can interact with CRMs like Salesforce. Tableau also comes with AI/ML capabilities. Data governance, management, and collaboration features are also built-in.
Tableau dashboards can be live, that is the data displayed can be updated in real-time as and when the underlying Data Source has changed. It can also query the data and keep it in memory for further processing. The data extracts that are used to show dashboards can be automatically scheduled as well. Another feature worth mentioning is the support for security integrations like active directory, Kerberos, etc, and its ability to enforce row-level security. This makes Tableau a favorite in enterprises with a deep focus on data governance. Tableau has a unique feature called Ask Data that lets users ask questions in natural language about data. The Ask Data can even return responses in the form of visualization.
Now that we are clear about what makes Tableau special, it is logical to assume that organizations would love to have all their data from third-party services to be connected to Tableau. That will give them the ability to do a much deeper analysis in a systematic way compared to the reporting features provided by the applications themselves.
Asana is an online Work Management platform that can be accessed over web or mobile apps. However, instead of being limited by Asana’s built-in reporting dashboard, one can take advantage of the comprehensive visualizations and analysis features of Tableau for their business. Integration of data from Asana to Tableau could solve some of the biggest data problems for businesses. In this article, we have described two methods to achieve this:
Using Hevo Data for Asana Tableau Integration
Hevo Data, an Automated Data Pipeline, provides you with a hassle-free solution to set up the Asana Tableau connection within minutes with an easy-to-use no-code interface. Hevo is fully managed and completely automates the process of not only loading data from multiple sources but also enriching the data and transforming it into an analysis-ready form without having to write a single line of code.
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Using a Community Connector for Asana Tableau Integration
This method would be somewhat tedious to implement. With a number of limitations such as no mechanism for incremental upload, no means of transformation while ingesting data, no official technical support, etc, the community connector can give you a hard time transferring data from Asana to Tableau. Also, this connector is only available for business and enterprise customers of Asana.
Need for Connecting Asana to Tableau
While Asana provides all the basic reporting features, organizations might want to connect data from Asana to a full-fledged Reporting & Visualization tool like Tableau for the below-mentioned reasons.
- Asana’s reporting is mainly based on predefined KPIs and metrics. Tableau will allow a seasonal Data Analyst with domain knowledge to create customized KPIs that may make more sense for the organization.
- Bringing all data to Tabluea, helps organizations combine Asana data with other sources of data. For example, an organization’s employee performance data or availability data may be kept in other places. Tableau will allow Analysts to combine both these data and deeper richer insights.
- Tableau specializes in visualizations while Asana specializes in work management. Combining them helps organizations to get the best of both worlds.
Asana Tableau Integration: 2 Easy Methods
You can set up the Asana Tableau integration in 2 different ways.
Using a Community Connector for Asana Tableau Integration
While Tableau has built-in connectors for many applications, it does not provide an official one for Asana. Here is where the community support for Tableau and its large user base comes to the rescue. There is a community-supported connection that is available in the Tableau store to connect Asana to Tableau. Before you start, please note that this connector is only available for business and enterprise customers of Asana. Let’s understand the steps involved in using this connector.
- Head to the “Connect” menu on your Tableau Desktop application and click on “Web Connector“.
Image Source: www.asana.com
- Use the below URL for the web connector and wait till the page loads.
https://tableau-wdc.integrations.asana.plus:443/
- The web page will ask you to enter your Asana credentials.
Image Source: www.asana.com
- Once logged in, authorize Tableau to use your Asana instance.
Image Source: www.asana.com
- After authorization is complete, you need to add the link for your Asana portfolio so that Tableau can fetch data.
Image Source: www.asana.com
- Click “Connect” and your data sync should start immediately. Please note that it might take a few minutes for your data sync to get completed.
That completes the instructions on how to establish an Asana Tableau integration.
Limitations
As evident, it was very easy to establish an Asana Tableau connection via the community connector and it just took a few clicks. But the fact of the matter is this connector comes with a number of limitations that can prove a bottleneck for organizations.
- The connector is meant only to be used with Tableau Desktop. So the connector will not be of use to a Tableau Online user.
- The connector is not an officially supported one and is community-based. In case you run into trouble, you might have to wait till someone from the community takes mercy on your predicament.
- The connector loads data at once and there are no mechanisms for incremental upload or transformation while ingesting data. This can be a blocker in typical enterprise requirements.
Using Hevo Data for Asana Tableau Integration
Hevo helps you directly transfer data from various sources to Tableau, Databases, other Business Intelligence tools, Data Warehouses, or a destination of your choice in a completely hassle-free & automated manner. Hevo is fully managed and completely automates the process of not only loading data from your desired source but also enriching the data and transforming it into an analysis-ready form without having to write a single line of code. Its fault-tolerant architecture ensures that the data is handled in a secure, consistent manner with zero data loss.
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The following steps can be implemented to integrate Asana Tableau using Hevo:
- Configure Source: Connect Hevo Data with Asana by providing a unique name for your Pipeline, along with other details about your Data Source.
Image Source: docs.hevodata.com
- Integrate Data: Establish a connection to Tableau by providing information about your Tableau Database and its credentials such as Database Name, Username, and Password, along with information about Port Number associated with your Tableau Database.
You can easily perform Asana Tableau integration using Hevo by following the steps outlined above!
Here are more reasons to try Hevo:
- Fully Managed: It requires no management and maintenance as Hevo is a fully automated platform.
- Data Transformation: It provides a simple interface to perfect, modify, and enrich the data you want to transfer.
- Real-Time: Hevo offers real-time data migration. So, your data is always ready for analysis.
- Schema Management: Hevo can automatically detect the schema of the incoming data and map it to the destination schema.
- Scalable Infrastructure: Hevo has in-built integrations for 100’s sources that can help you scale your data infrastructure as required.
- Live Monitoring: Advanced monitoring gives you a one-stop view to watch all the activities that occur within Data Pipelines.
- Live Support: Hevo team is available round the clock to extend exceptional support to its customers through chat, email, and support calls.
Conclusion
This article helped you set up a connection from Asana to Tableau. This helps one to take advantage of the comprehensive visualizations and analysis features of Tableau to understand the project progress rather than being limited by Asana’s built-in reporting dashboard.
However, the community connector comes with a number of limitations and if you are looking for a fuss-free integration of Asana Tableau, it may be worth checking out Hevo: A No-code completely managed ETL tool that can connect a variety of data sources and destinations.
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Hevo Data with its strong integration with 100+ Sources & BI tools allows you to not only export data from multiple sources (such as Asana) & load data to the destinations (such as Tableau), but also transform & enrich your data, & make it analysis-ready so that you can focus only on your key business needs and perform insightful analysis.
Give Hevo Data a try and sign up for a 14-day free trial today. Hevo offers plans & pricing for different use cases and business needs, check them out!
Share your experience of setting up an Asana Tableau integration in the comments section below.
With around a decade of experience, Sarad has designed and developed fundamental components of Hevo. His expertise lies in building lean solutions for various software problems, mentoring fellow engineers and exploring new technologies.