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Automating Daily Sales and Coil Count Reporting with Tableau Prep and Google Drive

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Overview

Our client, a steel distributor, started every working day by building its sales and coil reports by hand in Excel. The routine took between thirty and forty five minutes, it had to be repeated each morning, and because the business kept a separate file for each month, there was no single place to look at performance over time. NeenOpal delivered two Tableau Cloud dashboards, one covering daily sales and one covering coil counts, together with a Tableau Prep workflow connected to the client's Google Drive data for an automated daily refresh. Daily reporting now takes about ten minutes instead of roughly thirty seven, a reduction of 73 percent that returns around ten hours to the team every month, and every month of history sits in one view rather than in a file of its own.

73%
Less Time on Daily Reporting
10 hrs
Saved Every Month

Customer Challenges

The client had the numbers it needed each day, but getting to them was a manual routine that repeated every morning and left no usable history behind.

  • Daily Reports Were Built by Hand in Excel

    Each day's sales and coil figures were assembled manually in Excel before anyone could act on them. The work was repetitive and entirely dependent on a person sitting down to do it, which meant the reporting was only as timely, and as accurate, as that morning's effort allowed.

  • Thirty to Forty Five Minutes Disappeared Every Day

    Building the daily reports took between thirty and forty five minutes, around thirty seven minutes on average. Spread across a working month that came to roughly ten hours spent assembling figures rather than acting on them, and none of that effort carried forward, because the same work was required again the next morning.

  • A Separate File for Every Month Broke Continuity

    The business kept each month’s reporting in its own file. Looking at how performance had moved across months meant opening several files and reconciling them by hand, so trend analysis carried a cost that discouraged anyone from doing it regularly.

Solutions

NeenOpal built two Tableau Cloud dashboards over the client's existing Google Drive data, with a Tableau Prep workflow keeping both refreshed automatically each day.

  1. Daily Sales Dashboard in Tableau Cloud

    The team built a daily sales dashboard covering sales, gross profit, shipped weight and margin, each measured against plan. Putting the commercial and the physical measures side by side meant a user could see not only what had been sold, but what had moved and what it earned, without assembling any of it by hand.

  2. Coil Count Dashboard by Work Center

    A second Tableau dashboard covered coil counts, showing pending coils and days per work center. That gave the operational side of the business the same immediate visibility the sales view provided, with the detail broken down to the work center where action could actually be taken.

  3. Every Month Brought Into a Single View

    Rather than carrying forward the file per month arrangement, the team consolidated the history so that both dashboards hold every month in one place. Comparing one period against another became a filter selection instead of an exercise in opening and reconciling separate workbooks.

  4. Red, Amber and Green Against Target

    Every figure on the dashboards was coloured red, amber or green against its target. That turned the daily review from an act of reading numbers into an act of scanning for exceptions, so attention went to the measures that had moved away from plan rather than being spread evenly across all of them.

  5. Automated Daily Refresh with Tableau Prep and Google Drive

    The team connected Tableau Prep to the client's Google Drive data to prepare and refresh it on a daily automated cycle. The client continues to maintain its source data exactly as before, and the dashboards update from it without the manual preparation step that previously sat in between.

Services

  • Tableau Cloud
  • Tableau Prep
  • Google Drive

Benefits

  • Daily Reporting Cut by Nearly Three Quarters

    The daily routine fell from around thirty seven minutes to about ten, a reduction of 73 percent. The task that used to open the working day now takes a fraction of it, and the time saved goes back into acting on the numbers rather than producing them.

  • Around Ten Hours Returned Every Month

    Measured across a full month, the change returns roughly ten hours to the team. That is time recovered on a recurring basis rather than a one off saving, and it compounds for as long as the dashboards stay in use.

  • Month on Month Comparison Without Opening a File

    Holding every month in a single view removed the reconciliation work that monthly files had required. Trend questions that previously meant assembling several workbooks became something a user could answer directly in the dashboard.

  • Exceptions Visible at a Glance

    Colouring every measure red, amber or green against its target meant the dashboards surfaced what needed attention rather than leaving users to work it out. Sales, gross profit, shipped weight, margin and pending coils could all be reviewed quickly, with anything off plan standing out immediately.

  • Reporting That Maintains Itself

    The Tableau Prep workflow refreshes the dashboards daily from Google Drive without intervention. The reporting stays current as a matter of course, which removes both the manual effort and the risk that a busy morning leaves the business working from yesterday’s figures.

Conclusion

By automating daily reporting and consolidating historical data in Tableau Cloud, NeenOpal helped the business move away from spreadsheet-based reporting to a more consistent, accessible reporting process. The team now spends less time preparing reports and has a clearer view of sales, profitability and coil performance across work centers. This also establishes a foundation for more informed operational decisions as the business grows.

FAQ

Common questions about automating daily reporting with Tableau Cloud and Tableau Prep

How does an automated daily refresh work when the data sits in Google Drive?

The client maintains its source data in Google Drive exactly as it did before. The Tableau Prep workflow connects to that data, prepares it, and refreshes the daily sales and coil count dashboards automatically, so business users open current figures without anyone assembling a report first. Because no migration was required, the dashboards began delivering value against the client's existing way of working.

Why consolidate monthly files into a single dashboard view?

A file for each month records the data but makes comparison expensive, because any question spanning more than one month requires opening and reconciling several workbooks. Bringing every month into one Tableau Cloud view turns that into a filter selection, which is what makes trend analysis something a business actually does regularly rather than something it avoids.

What is Tableau Prep and what was it used for this project?

Tableau Prep is Tableau's data preparation tool, used to clean, combine and shape data before it reaches a dashboard. It suited this engagement because the source data lived in Google Drive files rather than in a database, and Tableau Prep provided a repeatable way to prepare that data and refresh the Tableau Cloud dashboards on a daily automated cycle, removing the manual step that had been costing around thirty seven minutes every morning.

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