Tableau Reviews

It helps me deliver a tool to my clients that can be easily customized according to their business needs. Also, it provides great insights and analytics on huge volumes of data coming from disparate sources, which has helped my clients and managers make sound business decisions.

The most valuable features of the product are:

• Most importantly, flexibility
• Visual features
• Filters
• Actions
• Parameters
• Interactive dashboard building

It helped my organization by winning more client work, as clients love interactive visualization.

Tableau has also helped our managers make better decisions and, more so, quick decisions. With Tableau's quick querying and ad-hoc visualization features, many important processes have been automated and thus Tableau has provided a quick turnaround time for product/project delivery.

Example: My company's auditors historically audited financial statements and transactions from the customer's ERP system via sampling methodology, which did not encompass the entire transactional data and thus did not provide 100% assurance to our clients. With Tableau's advanced data analytics features, we were able to build a tool that is tailor-made to the auditor's needs and thus provides 100% assurance over the entire data set.

The most important feature that Tableau must introduce is to provide 'reference hints' for every dimension and measure. For example: When working with numerous dimensions and measures, it's difficult to debug and back track to determine whether a certain dimension was used in a visualization, tool tip, filter, parameter, or action. It would be great to debug and back track already developed Tableau dashboards.

I’d also like to see the following features introduced or improved:

• Auto-Save or Backup feature. There have been quite a few instances when Tableau crashed after substantial dashboard development and I had to start over from the scratch because the work was not saved. The best workaround for this is to be diligent and create manual backups and save as work is progressing.
• Performance with 32-bit computers. There have been numerous instances when Tableau threw an out-of-memory error when working on a 32-bit system.
• Performance in general. Tableau works best with light data sets. Although extract optimization is a good way to improve performance, it can be better.
• I feel the user interface for adding actions is complicated. It can be made simple and intuitive.

I have used it for two years.

I like the online community.

I have previously used Excel and SSRS. Tableau provides more flexibility than these tools and is very intuitive to learn.

Initial setup was very simple.

It is best suited for in-house development, as it provides on-demand customization.

A bit costly, but worth investing.

It totally depends on the requirement of the client/user. One should research the following tools before investing - Spotfire, Tableau, SSRS, Excel, SAS, SAP Lumira, etc.

• Ability to read multiple data sources
• Beautiful visualizations#
• Easy to learn and use

Tableau does an excellent job upgrading the software with each release. One thing we have been waiting for is the ability to import an ArcGIS Shapefile into a custom map. There is a workaround using a third-party utility but it is unstable.

I have used it for more than three years.

I have not encountered any deployment, stability or scalability issues.

Installation was a cakewalk. Over the last three years, there have been at least eight upgrades and three major releases; all upgraded without incident. Our Tableau Server has been running continuously for over three years. We have had two separate up scales; both were successful.

I rate the level of customer service and technical support 10/10. I’ve been working with vendors for over 25 years. No one else comes close.

While we use several BI tools, this was the first visualizations platform we purchased.

Initial setup was very straightforward.

We implemented it ourselves. It was very easy.

Pricing/licensing comes in two methods; named users and core licensing. We started with named user accounts, buying only what we needed when we needed it. As demand for the platform grew, we upscaled to core licensing. That approach was practical for us.

Prior to purchase, we did evaluate several other vendors. We choose Tableau based on Gartner research, deployments at peer institutions and finally, price.

Start now, start small and grow. This isn’t like your traditional BI platform, where you have to spend years designing the infrastructure before the first report comes out.

The properties of each chart: It is helpful because in the world of analytics, not everyone is a developer; there are business analysts and directors as well, who want to play around and find quick solutions. If that requires coding or other settings, it would be more difficult or they don't even think of playing around. For developers, also, it’s easy to build reports as compared to coding.

Tableau gave us better visuals with more settings that help us find a better solution in the analysis world.

Performance improvement: Handling a huge amount of data and loading reports in a minimal time frame.

I used it for about two years, but very little in the past 12 months.

We moved to Tibco Spotfire because of performance issues in Tableau.

Technical support was 7/10.

We previously used SSRS and other analytics tools. We moved to Tableau because of its visual effects and because it was easy to develop with it.

My admin team handled the configuration.

We implemented it in-house, with a little help from vendor support.

Tableau is a good and growing tool in the business analytics world. It’s good to have it, but always compare and find out whether this tool meets your requirements.

It's easy to start using to deliver off-the-shelf visualizations. It makes it easy to share dashboards with a team. It's a comprehensive solution that can scale from desktop (analyst, developer) to server (large end-user audience) with small or no changes.

In my experience, its greatest achievement has been opening stakeholders' minds. It pioneered the self-serve trend (which may have social roots) where people "own" their data and IT is a service provider to ensure visualization content is based on robust data. Connecting to a massive number of sources (that can be blended in Tableau) has also contributed to this achievement.

It came at a cost. Developers end-up, many times, scratching their left ear with the right hand, in order to make visualizations more powerful, effective or appealing than off-the-shelf ones. The next challenge for Tableau will be combining ease of use for basic-to-mid level complexity design (self-serve, "power users") with flexibility and repeatable development in a corporate environment (professional designers), avoiding "hat tricks" or "cookbook" style.

Also, when building corporate dashboards, it may be challenging to gain the type of control needed without having to resort into some forum tricks or Zen-Master's advice. Workbook, connection versioning, and governance would be great for mid-to-large size organizations. Server-wise, having options to trigger alarms to an Administrator under certain conditions would also be an asset.

I've been using both Tableau Desktop and Server for four years.

No problems at all. Very robust and well documented (both Desktop and Server versions)

No problems, at least with the data sources I have used Tableau so far - MSSQL 2008 & 2012, Teradata RDBMS 14.x, and MSAS Cubes.

Tableau can scale to massive datasets without problems (I used a few, approximately one billion-row tables), provided a DBA is part of the team to fine-tune tables and views. The proprietary columnar database engine is very fast and robust.

It's great.

It's great, although forums are usually the first resource to get answers from.

I have helped customers migrate from MS Pro-Clarity and Oracle Hyperion.

Tableau is not a demanding platform in pre-set environments before rolling-out as long as tech specs are met. However, certain design decisions need to be made in advance to ensure good performance and smooth scalability on a Server deployment (e.g. permissions, standards, etc.).

I act as an implementation consultant.

Go through the exercise of planning short and mid-term to understand what the best licensing model is e.g. per Core vs. Named Seats, number of Designers, etc.

Understand your organization's profile. Do you have or want/need to develop power-users or will you use traditional IT developed dashboards in an intranet/internet? Although Tableau can fit both scenarios, the first option would be the most benefited one when compared to other solutions. Look into redefining the relationship between business stakeholders and IT, since the former will demand more consumable information for analysis instead of packaged reports.

Tableau is easy to use.

Tableau has so many functions, so sometimes it's hard to find the right solution quickly. I have to search multiple menu bars to find the right command.

I started working with Tableau two years ago.

In some projects, Tableau isn't stable. Sometimes it calls automatically.

Tableau is scalable. Right now, 200 to 300 people at my company use it.

Their web-based tech support is okay.

Setting up Tableau is easy.

Tableau's price should be lower so more people can access this application.

I rate Tableau eight out of 10.

I had a case in the dairy industry, and they had about 200 sales agents on the field. They needed some daily reports as well as some dashboards with the standard presentation of their goals and targets. So we prepared some dashboards and Kafka presentations of data collected daily and presented them to the field sales team. We drafted up some information for them about how to proceed with their daily targets. Tableau could visualize the salespeople's progress toward the targets. For example, it can use different colors to signify if the sales team is over or under its target. They can use this graphic to find what they need in their final reports. So if they are under a monthly benchmark, they can break down the graphic presentation, do final reports on a daily level, and find information on each day in the month.

Tableau's visualization features let you present information insights quickly and practically. So it's something which I prefer with Tableau. In terms of reporting, I have to point out the sheer quality and function of the Tableau server, but the first impression is that it's a great visualization tool.

If you mainly need a tool for BI reporting, it's not the best option. Tableau needs better abilities to generate simple reports, integrate, create databases, and work with data lakes. 

I can't recall ever having an issue with Tableau's stability. And also, I'm not sure how often our clients have had to update software or install patches, but I think it's pretty stable. I would consider it moderately to highly stable.

We've used local technical consultants and support in Serbia, so it was pretty good. I can't remember having any problem solving issues during the implementation. And later, during the exportation of this tool, support solved all our issues and incidents in a reasonable time.

Tableau also has a broad user community that's helpful and powerful. When you're using Tableau, you get a knowledge base with a lot of interesting and valuable information. So it's not hard to find some solution that's already prepared for simple presentations, like templates for visualizing reports in a novel way. 

I've used two editions of Tableau. The free edition was very easy to use and set up. The enterprise requires a desktop and the Tableau server, and it's not too complicated. However, it's necessary to have experience and some documentation. So setting up the enterprise version isn't easy for someone who has no experience, but it isn't too complicated overall, either. We had the support of a local company here in Serbia who rebuilt it. They are consultants who specialize in Tableau databases and everything necessary to implement this tool. So I can't remember any problems with the setup. It was relatively easy. They also had to set up the desktops, the Tableau server, and a couple of professional licenses to prepare basic reporting and visualization segments. Lastly, they just have to set up the end-user with everything they need to read the reports and see presentation and visualization.

Tableau's prices are relatively high for our market. I am from Serbia, so many companies in this market don't have the ability to pay for expensive software. My clients are quite satisfied with a lot of Tableau's qualities except for the prices.

I rate Tableau eight out of 10. I would recommend it for companies that have a specific need for a solution with strong visualization capabilities. 

I'm not using it on a daily basis. I've gone through the training and I've got my associate certification.

The solution is very easy to use and simple to understand. They make it very easy to navigate around it and to learn the product. 

The solution is very easy to set up.

The pricing is good.

The stability seems to be very reliable. 

Personally, I have not extensively used it, and therefore it's hard to think of areas that might need improvement as I haven't fully experienced every aspect of the product. 

I'd like to see more advanced forms of charting, if possible. 

There should be more widgets that would help less trained individuals create charts with less difficulty.

Tableau probably does not have advanced big data analysis features. It's not in the same category. It doesn't have those features to the same degree as R. You do this recreational; kind of modeling and analytics. It does have some predictive items, however, it's very simple. You can't customize much.

The solution seems to be very stable. I wouldn't say that we have used it in a big data kind of way. We don't have big data; we're not really able to test Tableau to the limits.

Most of the companies that we work with that use it are medium-sized enterprises and is typically public companies or government organizations. 

I can't really evaluate support services from Tableau. Our client agencies use them directly, and therefore they are the ones dealing with support. I don't have much experience on the support side.

Some of our clients also work with Microsoft BI. I'd personally worked with Talend, SAP HANA, and Power BI. I personally prefer Tableau due to its ease of use. With SAP HANA, I don't really have easy access to it. However, with Talend, if I wanted to, I could easily go to its website and download a copy of it.

The initial setup of the product is not difficult. It's very easy and quite straightforward. A company shouldn't have any troubles handling an implementation. 

It's my understanding that the pricing of this solution is quite reasonable and very competitive. That said, I haven't really done an in-depth comparison against competitors.

We are consultants and not exactly customers of the product itself. We run projects. We give policy guidance.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

If a company is looking for a way to create charts quickly, and communicate with charts, Tableau is definitely an easy place to start. Of course, users will need some training to understand how to create certain visualizations in Tableau. Other than that, Tableau is quite easy to set up. It's easy to connect to your data sources. Once you have connected to the data sources, you easily create the charts. There's a lot of options, a lot of charts that you can create. However, for the more advanced features, you definitely need some experience.