Tableau Reviews

I have been using Tableau to visualize data sets. The three features that are most valuable to me are:

• Ease of use. Most of the configurations are accessed by drag and drop, so very little actual programming is required.
• Interactivity, especially the ability to use tool tips to identify exactly which points are plotting in an unusual or unexpected position. This is the first step in distinguishing outliers from important data features, which is an important part of data exploration.
• The ability to easily annotate and export finished plots for presentation purposes.

I have previously used Excel or R to perform exploratory data analysis. Tableau is easier and quicker, which means results can be obtained more quickly.

Some of the command choices have to be memorized and are not intuitive. It could be even easier to learn.

I have used it for about three months.

No issues with deployment, except I wish a version was available for Linux (Ubuntu).

I haven't needed technical support yet.

I previously used R for data exploratory analysis. I'm choosing Tableau because it is quicker, and exploratory data analysis by its nature requires a large variety and volume of output.

Initial setup was very simple; standard Windows installation.

Just me... No problems. Just note that Tableau workbooks are stored in their own file structure by default, not in the file where the data originated or where the exported charts are stored.

Tableau has a free trial, free versions for academic scholars/faculty, and a free public version. The paid versions are a little pricey, but likely worth it.

There is a public version you can implement for free. Its main restriction is the variety of data source connections that it supports. You can still work with the typical text or Excel files, but live database connections are not supported.

I think it's great at what it tries to do.

Dynamic interactive visualisation and publishing to server for distribution are the most valuable features of this product.

Used on client projects, it was mainly helpful for visualizing proofs of concept for further implementations.

Data preparation and joining different data sources is still not very intuitive and could be improved.

I have used it for three years.

I had no issues with deployment, stability or scalability.

Customer service is very good, very responsive and helpful.

Initial setup was very straightforward, no issues encountered.

The pricing is complex and could be simplified.

Some very good and fancy visualisations are possible with "tricks" (not very obvious how to do it). It is very helpful to use the Tableau community to see if the visualisation one is looking for is possible and how to do it. There are also many ways to get to a result, so don't look for one perfect solution as long as you get what you want.

• Rich visualization
• Data blending

Probably, these factors set Tableau apart from many of its competitors.

Because of data blending, we are able to source from multiple data sources. For example, we take the transaction data by connecting to the DB and the goals data comes as Excel from the business. It helps us easily blend the information.

Performance is one big area of improvement I believe. Being an in-memory analytical tool, I think lot of work needs to be done to make the reports’ performance faster.

I have been using it for three years.

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

I rate technical support 9/10.

I've previously used Oracle Business Intelligence and SAP BusinessObjects. Both of them lack the rich viz that Tableau offers.

Initial setup was very straightforward.

Implementation was done in-house.

If you've previously used other BI tools, you need to be aware that Tableau doesn't have any semantic layer like OBIEE or BO. So, you might have to write lot of queries if the report involves complex logic.

• Amazing data visualization
• Excellent mobile support
• Low-cost solution to implement and upgrade
• Impressive integration
• Large customer base and resources
• Good customer support

It's a powerful business intelligence tool and is recognised as the cream of the crop for its visual-based data discovery that helps achieve our goals by responding faster to changes and needs in the market. We have reduced analysis delivery from weeks to days. But it is important to note that was for a PoC.

Some features where the product can improve are:

• It can be cost prohibitive.
• Little change management issues
• There is no functionality for scheduling and reports notification
• Needs the ability to build complicated reports
• Risky security and permissions

I have been using it the past eight months.

Tableau has been "good enough" for us in deployment.

It is very stable and we have been trying it without any issues for PoC purposes.

Technical support has resolved thousands of issues and is still expecting to improve in some areas of support through peer-to-peer assistance. It cements customer retention and loyalty.

Initial setup is simple and straightforward.

We implemented the solution in-house.

We installed a number of modern BI tools in order to evaluate them for our purposes. It didn’t take me long to discover that Tableau was much easier to use than the other tools. Since ours is a small organization and most importantly we tried it for a PoC because this tool has an amazing look and feel.

Proceed in a step-by-step manner of engaging users to find the best solution for the business. Be prepared to explore for yourselves how to analyse needs according to market trends, with the highest level of security management. Each and every step should be recorded and performed based on cross-domain analysis, so that it will be easy to implement in any kind of scenario.

• Flexibility: It's able to connect to any data source.
• Reliability: So far, no major issue seen with the tool. It never crashes, even with huge amounts of data to handle.
• Easy to use: I can create and modify dashboards, workbook or stories easily
• Easy to share: Even without the online version, workbooks are easy to export and share without any additional cost.
• Easy to maintain: Once the workbooks are set up, updating them is quick and easy.

• More data-driven decisions. Thanks to its way of presenting data and its ability to handle a huge amount of data, it helps the organization see data in a different, and more visual, way.
• Reduction of non-value-added tasks due to maintenance.
• Possibility of sending out new customized reports in a quick and reliable way, so specific issues can be addressed.

• Improved predictive analytics. This part is still a bit missing and it'd be useful for the companies.
• More advanced built-in statistical tools. Still a bit rough on defining trends.
• More flexible "storyboard" worksheet implementation. For instance, having a summary where you can define the filters and worksheets in the storyboard, without having to define it sheet by sheet.
• More easily customizable fonts and formatting. Today, it still requires some time. It would be great to implement a "copy format" function.

I have used it for two-and-a-half years.

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

Some consultants are keeping track of us and I would say they are doing a good job. Technical support through Tableau’s online forum might not be sufficient sometimes but somehow, I've always managed to overcome issues without calling support.

Initial setup was straightforward; no issues.

In-house implementation; the process is smooth and easy.

ROI is difficult to calculate.

We evaluated Lumira and QlikView. Tableau is more flexible and reliable, and it has no additional cost for sharing reports.

It's a great visualization tool, but not only that: It simplifies implementing new reports and maintaining them, combining a great way of looking at data with flexibility never seen in other tools.

Self-service: Its ease of use means Tableau can be operated by business users. It is aligned with the mission “Help people see and understand the data”.

Tableau has extended the native capabilities of various type of data sources (database, big data). There are also significant features at the map and features level of detailed expressions.

With the Device Manager in Tableau 10, you can design, customize, and publish a single dashboard with optimized views for tablets and phones.

Other features include clustering segmentation data and a custom territories map.

I have been using it since 2012 (four years).

We encountered issues with Tableau 8. However, since Tableau 9, there has been significant improvement.

I rate technical support 8/10.

We evaluated others, but Tableau is the business intelligence platform which allows everyone to use the product in a way that supports how they work with data.

Tableau is easy to be deployed from the beginning, from the desktop up to Tableau Server, which you can implement at the organization level.

We have implemented Tableau in organizations of up to thousands of users.

We are a Tableau partner. We provide system integration services to our clients. We begin implementation by focusing on a specific subject area where it is the most important and it will have a significant impact for executive management.

Research the variety of licensing schemes and choose the best one for your organization.

Try it first by downloading the trial license. You will love it and experience how easy it is to use the product.

Self-service.

Talking about self-service, now we can provide information enterprise-wide. Before Tableau, about 15% of the organization had access to information; now with Tableau, about 80% of the organization have access to our data warehouse, and other information sources such as Excel and SQL Server databases.

Well at this point, we are in the process of implementing the in-memory feature for our costing process. We need to have online costing information. We think if we have more parameters or tools to customize this feature, we can improve the performance in the processes that generate and load the information.

I have used it for two years.

We can tell you that Tableau 8 had issues mainly with SQL Server databases, but with Tableau 9 and above, the issues with SQL Server have been solved and now we have a very stable solution.

Our local vendor support (in México) was so bad!!! However, we have encountered in the online support a very good source of information that helps to solve our issues. In fact, we have submitted a lot of cases to the Tableau support team, with very fast responses.

We evaluated other solutions, and selected Tableau mainly because of the licensing costs.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward; we only had one issue with the Active Directory configuration.

Our in-house training program consisted of two teams for one week: one team for Tableau administration, and one team for Tableau super users.

I think that it is good advice to consider a well-organised implementation program.

I don’t have authorization to provide numbers for our organization, but I can say that Tableau is a product with great price performance.

Tableau is a user-friendly product, but I think that is very important to consider a well-organised training program based on the user roles (administrators, super users, information consumers, etc.).

The most valuable features of Tableau are:

• The ease of learning and use. Tableau is very user friendly. I have a few colleagues at my place of work that had never used it. Within a few months, they created brilliant content.
• The ability to connect to any data source without any reporting layer or meta-data layer needing to be developed. I can connect directly to Oracle tables & views, SQL Server objects, flat files, Excel files, anything. I don’t need to do any additional work in order to achieve this.
• The capability of creating brilliant, creative insights while still achieving data discovery. Tableau makes creating analysis fun and beautiful, while still finding incredible gold nuggets in the dark data of enterprises.
• The culture and support community around the product. There is a true excitement in the Tableau community and anyone who uses Tableau knows what I'm talking about. There are many user group community meetings around the globe that are educational, helpful and fun.
• The ability to share, collaborate and view content through Tableau Server or Tableau Public. It is easy to send users to a web portal to see content analysts create.
• The cost. Tableau is much lower priced than an Oracle-, SAP-, MicroStrategy-type product. The cost is similar to QlikView and a bit more than Microsoft PowerBI on its own (but you need an EA from Microsoft to leverage the lower pricing on PowerBI).
• The support. I can pick up my cell phone and call four people I know from Tableau and get their feedback and help right now.

We now are starting to remove the data silos. We are seeing how data visualization helps to lead to quicker actionable insight. It also has helped reduce the number of reports and dashboards the organization needs.

I am very excited about Tableau 10 and what has been built into the beta. I think with those changes and some we saw at TC15 that are coming, the product is poised to remain the industry leader.

I would like to see Tableau provide a bit better integration with the Microsoft Office platform. You can download your dashboard data to CSV or crosstab, but it’s not optimal. Even if it’s the best dashboard design ever, there are users that still want to see the numbers underneath. Until data visualization reaches a critical mass, like Excel did in the late 90s to early 2000s, we still will need a way to give access to some of the underlying data in an easy way for Microsoft Office to consume.

I have used it for 3 1/2 years.

I have not encountered any issues. Deployment, stability and scalability have been fantastic. We've had a few bugs, two of which were fixed by Tableau support and one took a bit longer and was fixed in a release. However, we've not had long-term outages due to any issues. Installing Tableau is easy. Upgrading the server could be easier, but I think they have addressed that with version 10.

Customer service and support at Tableau is top notch. I haven't seen a better organization in technology with this.

I have used Oracle OBIEE before and Tableau beats that product on cost, usability and ease/speed of development. I don't have to know how to develop the RPD or meta-data layer. Tableau does that behind the scenes when I import a data source. Tableau was also much cheaper than OBIEE.

We also own PowerBI and Tableau is significantly better at ease of use and the number of data sources.

Initial setup was straightforward. We had a rapid start-up "team" come and help us but it was one person and he was done in two days.

Tableau sent out one of their partners, Interworks. I would highly recommend Interworks to help with Implementation. They can make the most of the implementation with their Drive methodology.

Our first dashboard caught an issue in the system and almost completely paid for the server license with the money saved.

Negotiate the server license. The desktop license price is pretty set.

Find a couple of good, quick-win use cases and don't necessarily re-create the dashboard or report in Tableau, but find a way to tell something about the business that wasn't already known.