Built with Bulien Pulse. All figures shown are synthetic sample data. Open full screen →
Move between the tabs on the left, then use the charts as filters. Selecting a department or a grade filters the rest of the page around it.
Interested in having a go yourself? Download a trial here.
Alteryx is very good at preparing data and not designed to present it. Most teams solve that by exporting to Excel, or by pushing into Power BI and managing a second platform, a second set of licences and a second refresh to keep in step.
Pulse removes that step. It sits at the end of the workflow you already have, so the dashboard is an output of the same run that produced the numbers. Rerun the workflow, get an updated dashboard. There is nothing to publish and nothing to keep in sync, because the file is generated from the data at the moment the workflow runs.
If the workflow underneath needs work as well as the reporting on top, that is our Alteryx consultancy work.
The dashboard is the file. No database connection, no hosting, no server to keep running. Email it, put it on SharePoint, or open it from a memory stick on a machine with no internet.
Tabs, filters, cross-filtering, sortable tables, charts and maps. Clicking one chart filters the rest. The interaction is built into the file rather than fetched from anywhere.
Nothing is uploaded to a third party service and nothing calls out to an external API when the file is opened. For teams with sensitive data or restrictive networks, that removes most of the usual objections.
Colours, logo and typography are set per dashboard, so it looks like it came from your organisation rather than from a tool. The example above uses a custom palette rather than a Bulien one.
Pulse takes the data coming out of your Alteryx workflow. There is no export, no second modelling layer and no rebuild when the data changes. Rerun the workflow and the dashboard is regenerated with it.
Run it on Server or Scheduler alongside your existing jobs, and the dashboard lands wherever the workflow puts it.
Pulse is not a replacement for Power BI or Tableau. If you have a licenced BI platform, governed models and everyone who needs access already has a seat, keep using it.
Pulse is useful where that arrangement breaks down. Reporting that has to reach people outside the organisation, or outside the licence pool. Boards, committees, funders, auditors and suppliers who need to explore the numbers once, properly, without an account being created for them. Environments where the network will not allow a BI tool to reach the data. Analysis that needs to be handed over as a finished artefact and still be readable in two years.
It also works well as a first step. A dashboard that someone can open and click through makes a much better conversation than a specification document, and it takes a fraction of the time of a platform rollout.
Do we need Alteryx to use Pulse?
Yes, to build the dashboards. No, to read them. Whoever opens the file needs nothing beyond a browser.
Which Alteryx licences does it need?
Alteryx Designer.
Server can be used for Scheduling.
How is this different from an Alteryx rendered report?
Reporting tools produce static output. Pulse produces a file anyone can open, and the charts are still interactive once they do.
Does it replace Power BI?
Not where you have governed models and everyone already has a seat. It is useful where the reporting has to reach people outside that licence pool, or where the numbers are already being produced in Alteryx and pushing them into a BI platform is more work than the reporting is worth.
Does anyone need a licence to open a Pulse dashboard?
No. It opens in any modern browser. There is no viewer licence, plugin or account.
Is the data sent anywhere when the file is opened?
No. The data is inside the file and the charts render locally. The one exception is the map, which loads background map tiles from OpenStreetMap. If a dashboard has no map, opening it needs no internet at all.
How big are the files?
It depends on the data behind them. The payroll example above is around 12MB, and compresses to about 2MB in transit.
Can it handle large datasets?
Yes.
We have been building multiple workflows with large datasets. The larger the dataset, the longer it takes to refresh the dataset, but the front-end remains responsive.
Is it secure enough for sensitive data?
The file has no access control of its own, so it is protected by wherever you put it in the same way a spreadsheet or PDF is. For sensitive reporting, that usually means a controlled location rather than an open link.
Can we build these ourselves, or does Bulien build them?
Yes. A licence gives you access to build.
We can help you develop, but the tool is easy enough to start using that you will likely not need us.
What data do you need to get started?
An extract of the data and a sense of what the reporting needs to answer. We can work from a file you already produce.