Recently, I have finally gotten closer to Einstein Analytics. It’s a nice reunion, as I had used it in the past when it was still ‘Wave’ (Einstein Analytics’ former name), but back then, the product was different; it didn’t have the connectors! For background on this product, I recommend you check out this post: 2019 Update: How Wave Evolved Into Salesforce Einstein Analytics.
One of the things I saw when I revisited Einstein Analytics is ‘Templates’. Templates can accelerate the build of dashboards, data flows, and lenses with just a few clicks, and so, they are something we should all take advantage of! The Salesforce Einstein Analytics team has built these with best-practice KPIs that apply to businesses in many industries, so that you can customize them for your org and get up and running quickly.
The templates do all the legwork needed to optimize, enrich, analyze, and pull in the data required for specific business needs. This automates the process of pulling in data from all the different Salesforce objects, for example, all the data necessary for pipeline trending: Accounts, Opportunities, Products, and Owners.
It’s as simple as creating an ‘App’ and selecting ‘Start from Template’. Follow the wizard steps, as it guides you through the creation of the app, asking questions about how you store data in your Salesforce org and how you’d like to view the data in your app:
Depending on the Template you have created, it will ask you relevant questions to customise it in the fields that are appropriate for what you are trying to achieve.
Pretty cool, huh? Then whilst it gets busy doing all of this, you can go and have a stretch, and in a few minutes it’ll be ready:
Then, from the Analytics home page, you can access your newly created App. Each one has a Home or Overview dashboard, which is linked to many others, a good place to start:
Then, you can drill down, either by filters or by clicking anywhere of interest, and all related components will be automatically updated based on your selection. The Einstein Analytics product is a potent data visualization tool.
My favourite thing about the product overall is how it is integrated with Salesforce. From the App builder, you can drag the ‘Einstein Analytics Dashboard’ component and select the active dashboard you want to display – it couldn’t be easier!
Or from Einstein Analytics, you can post to Chatter:
For me, this is a big bravo for the team behind the scenes! I hope this is the direction for all acquired products to head towards: seamless integration and user experience, at least to the core Salesforce cloud products.
There are tonnes of different ones available to get you started, from industry-specific to a line of business:
Einstein Analytics Templates
Outside of templates, of course, you can extend Einstein Analytics using building blocks, but these templates get you into the product, using it with your data. If you want to learn more about Analytics App Template Development, there is a Trailhead module just for you!
This post first appeared in SalesforceBen
