Inspiration

We were inspired by the everyday struggles of retail and supply chain managers: Some stores run out of essential products (stockouts) while others face overstock and waste. Customers get disappointed, and businesses lose revenue. Decision making often depends on guesswork rather than reliable data. We wanted to solve this by creating a smart, data-driven dashboard that makes inventory management simple, predictive, and actionable.

How We Built It

Data Collection & Integration We created sample datasets (POS sales, inventory, shipments, product details). Data was unified inside Salesforce Data Cloud to create a single source of truth. Forecasting Engine We used Tableau Next predictive capabilities to generate short-term demand forecasts. Forecasting formula: Reorder Quantity=max(0,Forecast Demand−Current Stock+Safety Stock) Reorder Quantity=max(0,Forecast Demand−Current Stock+Safety Stock) Visualization in Tableau Next Built dashboards for executives and store managers. Features: KPI tiles, store heatmaps, what-if scenario simulator, and SKU drilldowns. Action & Automation Connected Tableau insights with Salesforce Flows and Slack. Example: if stockout risk is detected, a draft purchase order or alert is automatically triggered.

What We Learned

How to connect Tableau Next with Salesforce Data Cloud and use unified data models. Building predictive analytics workflows that go beyond visualization to agentic actions. The importance of designing dashboards not just for insights, but also for usability and quick decision-making. Team collaboration under time pressure, from dataset prep to demo video scripting.

Challenges We Faced

Data unification: merging different datasets into a consistent format. Forecast accuracy: balancing between simple models (fast to build) and advanced models (more accurate). Time constraints: building dashboards, setting up automations, and preparing a clear demo in a limited window. Integration complexity: ensuring Tableau Next insights could seamlessly trigger Salesforce actions.

Outcome

The final solution is a Smart Inventory & Demand Analytics Dashboard that: Predicts demand, Prevents stockouts, Reduces waste, and Turns insights into real business actions in just one click.

Built With

• custom-data-tables-apis-&-integrations:-salesforce-rest-api
• languages:-sql
• matplotlib-(for-initial-analysis)
• numpy
• python-(for-data-preprocessing-&-forecasting)-platforms:-salesforce
• slack
• tableau-next-api-tools-&-libraries:-pandas
• tableau-next-cloud-services:-salesforce-data-cloud-databases:-salesforce-standard-objects
• tableau-prep-automation-&-alerts:-salesforce-flows