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Creative agency Reporting automation Multi-department

Data automation and dashboard implementation

Creative and digital agency in the Middle East drowning in manually-updated Excel reports. Replaced the lot with automated dashboards.

40h

manual work saved per month per department

15+

manual reports eliminated

1

unified data warehouse

The client

A prominent player in creative and digital solutions in the Middle East. Offers a comprehensive suite of services across digital transformation, branding, and marketing.

The problem

The company relied on Excel reports manually updated by various individuals across departments. This led to challenges in report management, data accessibility, and inconsistencies in KPI definitions. Decision-making was hindered. Goal: use data automation to eliminate dependency on Excel.

Architecture

flowchart LR XL["Excel reports
(manually updated)"] -->|Replaced| W SS["Source tools
(operational, HR,
sales, finance)"] -->|Fivetran + GCF/Python| W W[("BigQuery
warehouse")] W --> SQL["SQL data
layer"] SQL --> T["Tableau
dashboards"] T --> O["Operational"] T --> H["HR / Utilisation"] T --> F["Finance / Sales"] style XL fill:#f4c8a8,stroke:#1a1a2e style SS fill:#f0e8db,stroke:#1a1a2e style W fill:#d8c8ed,stroke:#1a1a2e style SQL fill:#b6e0c2,stroke:#1a1a2e style T fill:#7551c3,stroke:#1a1a2e,color:#fff style O fill:#b6e0c2,stroke:#1a1a2e style H fill:#b6e0c2,stroke:#1a1a2e style F fill:#b6e0c2,stroke:#1a1a2e

What I did

  • 01.Collaborated with stakeholders to select the most suitable warehousing, ELT, and visualisation tools.
  • 02.Analysed the data structures and schemas of each source system; built a comprehensive data mapping plan.
  • 03.Implemented BigQuery and Fivetran as the core integration and processing tools.
  • 04.Configured connections between source systems and Fivetran to automate ELT.
  • 05.Developed custom solutions in Google Cloud Functions and Python to integrate tools not supported by Fivetran.
  • 06.Built SQL queries to create the underlying data layer.
  • 07.Conducted workshops with stakeholders to define dashboard requirements.
  • 08.Designed interactive Tableau dashboards with drill-down, multiple aggregation levels, and user-friendly interfaces covering operational, HR, utilisation, sales, accounting, and financial metrics.

InteractiveSee it run

Monday morning: by hand vs. automated

By hand · Excel

one weekly report

0m

    Automated · pipeline

    same report

    0s

       

      Outcome breakdown

      Each metric, against the baseline it replaced

      Tools used

      BigQuery Fivetran Tableau Google Cloud Functions Python SQL

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