Tableau Reviews

• Very easy and fast to build dashboards, compared to many other BI tools
• Has connectivity options to various data sources
• Good community support and very useful free training videos

Clients are pleased with the beautiful and interactive dashboards. They are also happy with the noticeable shortening in time to production.

If it had a semantic layer, it would be great. I know Tableau is not meant for data modeling but the data warehouse is not always perfect. Without a semantic layer, we need to reach out to the ETL team for even small data model changes.

Also, a semantic layer would have allowed for building 'subject areas' by grouping tables and defining joins. This would then allow users with appropriate permissions to build ad-hoc reports without having to worry about table joins.

I have used it for 1.5 years.

We did not have any issues with deployment, stability and scalability. We deployed Tableau Server in the AWS cloud.

We have contacted customer support few times and the support team always came back with solutions / work-arounds promptly. So, customer service and technical support is good.

We evaluated a few other solutions, but we chose Tableau because of the speed with which we can build reports, the simple deployment (cloud), easy scalability and the cost factor.

Initial setup was straightforward and in fact very simple.

An in-house team implemented it, but we went for AWS cloud-based deployment, which was not complex.

Try the trial versions and explore all of the features before going in; it is very useful. Also, the training videos on their website are good.

The most valuable features of this product are:

• Easy-to-create dashboard
• Friendly user interface
• ShowMe
• Database connections

Users can generate reports by themselves, while IT people can focus on the database management.

It significantly reduced the time to prepare reports, from three days to three hours.

Add ETL function; add 3D graphics; add a keep-only filter because it is difficult to revert to the original data format; add more ShowMe options; include AI function.

I have used this solution for two years.

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

I rate the level of customer service and technical support 9/10.

We evaluated Microsoft Excel and IBM Cognos: they are more time consuming, less efficient for generating reports, and more expensive.

Initial setup is straightforward, consisting of simple procedures for database connections and desktop setup.

An in-house team implemented it using self-learning materials.

Desktop Pro is US$ 1,999 each.

Define the main purpose of using Tableau, and in which aspects.

• The ability to connect to different sources of data like SQL, Excel, etc. makes Tableau a very smart tool for data visualization.
• The way it incorporates user-level data with geographic mapping really helps in building strategy at the top-most level.
• Sharing dashboards among the team is extremely hassle free and also the data being up to date makes management extremely happy.

All-important, high-level metrics are at the fingertips of top management, which makes decision making less painful and more data oriented.

All employees have access to real-time data, which makes customer management a nuanced affair, because of which there is stark reduction in errors.

• Better dashboard creation
• Ease of making reports

I have used it for two years.

Once the reports are created, there are no issues at all. The only problem is the speed of loading data. For huge data sets, it takes a lot of time to load data. With Google' Data Studio coming out, they might want to improve this aspect of the tool.

Service is excellent and their support staff are very quick to answer any queries.

We did not evaluate any other solutions. We only worked with Tableau, as it was industry ready.

It is a pretty straightforward setup, as described on their website. If you follow those instructions correctly, there wouldn't be any problem.

• We did it in-house, as it helped us streamline things and rolling out required dashboards faster and more accurately.
• A team of two with basic tech background is more than enough to start off with.
• The learning curve is very flat, so within a month, resources can be ready to roll out reports.

Their price is as per industry standard and any company in analytics business will be comfortable with the pricing plans.

• Table joins
• Formulas
• Visualization
• Dashboard

I used this product to provide reporting and analysis solutions to my clients. It enabled a small organization to employ a state-of-art reporting tool without massive IT implementation cost (such as servers, ETLs, data admin, etc.). Utilize only basic Excel tables as the data input (5-6 Excel tables), my clients can visualize their quarterly reporting in one reporting package and share with their colleagues.

I would say they could improve the data blending within the desktop version. Ideally, it is better to be done on the server, but for small businesses (or company divisions), the server is not an option due to cost.

For the China market, I would encourage them to offer a license below $1,000 per year.

I used it for six months.

I developed the dashboard / storyboard for just one user, so I had no issues at all, except the limitation on the table join side.

I did not utilize the tech support on my desktop deployment.

I previously used MicroStrategy. I chose Tableau for three reasons:

• Powerful functionality
• User-friendly interface
• Great community

The desktop version is easy to setup.

I implemented it by myself.

On the desktop version, use the community forum wisely; you will be able to find enough support for 99% of your challenges.

Tableau’s flexibility is its best feature. The types of data it handles, and the various data sources, allows me to quickly analyze and present data in ways that Excel (our old way) never made possible.

The old way of preparing reports in the past was to have an analyst extract data from an Oracle database, export the results into an Excel spreadsheet, and then format that spreadsheet for client consumption. This process was very time consuming and the final product rarely consistent, especially visually. Tableau has made it possible to skip all those steps, allowing the analyst to touch the database directly, do the analysis, and create an interactive - and much more informative - report with a standard look and feel. This allows the analyst to “connect” more with the data they’re analyzing and not act as data pullers only.

There are a couple of areas where I’d like to see improvement. One: in creating visual templates so that the vizzes can be standardized with our fonts/layouts/colours. As more analysts are starting to work with Tableau, it is becoming harder to maintain some of the visual standards. Being able to have more control over the layout of sheets on a dashboard would also be helpful. Two: we use a lot of statistical formulae in our work to determine standard deviations, percentiles, etc. Currently I’m working on a project where those SDs had to be pre-calculated in order to create a funnel plot correctly. I’m not exactly sure how we could have done this in Tableau directly without being able to create custom functions.

One tiny thing ... being able to have no colour for a mark would help hide marks you can’t exclude in other ways. Yes, sometimes we have to trick Tableau to do what we need to do ;)

Oh, and one more thing ... we’d love to see more Canada-specific map details built in ... things like health authorities, postal code areas, etc. Creating custom background maps is not easy.

We started working with Tableau (a limited number of licenses) in the beginning of 2015. I’ve been working with it since October 2015. Today, more and more licenses are being added throughout the ministry as Tableau’s benefits and uses become evident.

At this point, we have not had many issues of this sort. We don’t have a server yet. The only thing I can think of is there not being a warning when multiple people open the same workbook to work on – causing work to be lost in the process.

Technical support is very good ... that said, I’ve been lucky to not need it much. ;)

We have SAS (Enterprise Guide) as our main data extraction tool. Some areas of the ministry also use MicroStrategy. After reviewing all three BI tools, it became evident that Tableau offered the best solution for the kind of work we do.

I work in the Performance Measurement and Evaluation Branch and our main task is to monitor and report on the health system’s performance. We get data in a variety of formats from a variety of sources, and at various times throughout the year. In order to analyse and report these types of data, Tableau proved to be the most nimble and flexible of the three.

The setup was very easy – our IT department had no problems installing the software. They did have more trouble getting the Tableau Reader packaged for our enterprise-wide SelfServe store.

I believe it was through an in-house one.

The drag-and-drop interface and its flexibility are the product's most valuable features.

It requires only a one-time effort to design worksheets and dashboards. New data can be appended or a whole new set in the same data structure can be loaded to existing working files without much effort to obtain the same results.

I would like to see more Excel-like functionalities, perhaps, e.g. the countifs function. It is quite a hassle to code this using query language.

I have used Tableau for around one year.

Hassle-free deployment for desktop version.

Initial versions crashed when large data sets were loaded. Subsequent releases were more stable.

Technical support is excellent. Tableau consultants were eager to help.

We chose Tableau for its simplicity and ease of use.

For the desktop version, initial setup was straightforward.

The straightforward installation can be performed in-house.

A non-complicated licensing scheme exists for the desktop version. Buy, activate and use. Licensing was easily manageable with a license key that could be activated or deactivated on a system as required.

Try it out to see if it suits your organisational needs. To make the product work as desired, know how it works and implement workaround solutions if that is not readily available.

• Data blending
• Storytelling
• Easy-to-use dashboard

It is a self-service tool.

• Enterprise deployment
• Prompting features
• Writeback to tables

I’d like to see extraction after publishing.

I have been using it for three years.

Development report publishing to the test server should have pointed to the test DB instead of the dev DB.

I rate the level of customer service and technical support 9/10.

Initial setup was straightforward.

I implemented it independently.

An Interworks license is required if you do not directly purchase it from Tableau.

The most valuable feature of this product is that business people with no technical background can autonomously design and implement their visual reports, relieving the IT staff from this burden. On the other hand, despite its ease of use, the tool does not support highly complex visualization and filtering mechanisms.

The adoption of this platform has improved the interaction between the IT and the business departments, through an increased awareness and more effective involvement of business users in the definition of business requirements and reporting needs. Now, the IT people can mainly focus on the setup and administration of suitable data sources published on the server that business users can directly connect to and explore with Tableau's visual tools.

I would give it a perfect rating if it weren't for a few flaws and limits that make it slip off from perfection.

There are some weaknesses in the desktop tool that could be greatly improved, concerning the dashboard layout management and the initialization of parameters.

There are also some frustrating limitations in its data engine that sometimes make it hard to handle filtering and combining data from multiple data sources in the same dashboard. Hopefully such limitations are expected to be solved in the next upcoming release, version 10.

We have been using this product for more than two years.

We have never encountered relevant issues with our deployments. Only once, and for a limited time, we encountered a JavaScript incompatibility with Google Chrome browsers.

The technical support is very responsive, as well as customer service. They easily escalate to the developers if a bug or a performance issue arises.

Previously, we had been using the SAP BusinessObjects suite for BI reporting. There were too many issues regarding the complexity in development, the deployment of reports and, mostly, the performance and stability of dashboards.

After the bad experience with SAP BusinessObjects, we evaluated and adopted Tableau for its amazing straightforwardness in the representation of geo-referenced data on maps, which was a strict requirement from our sales & marketing department.

This is probably one of the major strengths of Tableau: It enables organizations to set up and run a collaborative BI reporting platform in just a few days, with a smooth learning curve.

Of course, fine tuning of operating parameters - when it comes to optimizing performance - requires some more care, but really the administration of the system is easy compared to other equivalent platforms.

We first started alone with in-house activities. Then, at a later time, we got some support from a local consulting company that was a Tableau partner.

In my opinion, a medium-sized company could adopt the platform without any significant support from outside.

I’m not in a position to make a reliable evaluation of ROI. However, I can firmly say that the cost of licenses is pretty fair and surely more convenient compared to other competitors.

The best way to have a clear perception of the potential of this product is just downloading a trial version of the desktop application and play with it a few days. In my case, that experience was clearly decisive in making the decision to buy.

Its desktop application is a beautifully designed tool - very powerful and intuitive. It allows a business user, with no knowledge of databases and query languages, to build in a matter of minutes complex and compelling visual dashboards that enable users to detect and highlight interesting patterns in data. The dashboards created can be published and shared through Tableau Server, a powerful web platform where dashboards are rendered efficiently in HTML5. A cloud version and a free public version are also available.