Tableau Reviews

The primary use case is more visualization for user interactivity.

• Interactivity
• Fast data access
• The graphs
• Understanding our data better based on the sublevel of data provided. 

We would like a report model, because currently there is no schema that we can create in the tool.

It is a very stable product. It doesn't break.

I am not using the technical support. There is a great Tableau community.

I was not involved in the setup.

Tableau is an expensive solution, though it comes with its advantages.

We are researching for a new solution.

Most important criteria when selecting a product:

• Price and licensing
• Future landscape
• Support.

I knew this service from my academic field and was able to transfer it to the workplace. It is an excellent tool for data capture, processing, and visualization. The application of statistical models on the data displayed is very useful, and it is not complicated.

Tasks which may have involved days, even weeks, I was able to solve them in a very short period of time, thanks to Tableau. 

Information which was housed in a database, used for exploring, ordering and applying statistical models for analysis can be complex when involving different software. However, it was easy to do using Tableau exclusively.

What hooked me to this service is the combination of very pleasant, interactive graphical visualizations along with the application of advanced statistical models (in some cases).

The use of this service in the desktop version is annoying due to the constant updates which lead to reinstalling the application. If they could give support with updates on the same downloaded version, it would be great.

I like the payment model. For the people who need to create, they buy their licenses. Everyone else can use the free Tableau Viewer. This is much better than some of the competitor products, which require full licences for everything.

I have trialed a number of different tools similar to Tableau. There seems to be a whole group of them. However, I found that Tableau was by far the easiest to use. Within about 20 minutes of playing around I was able to quickly make fantastic looking, incredibly useful charts that I struggled to make in Excel or other data discovery tools.

I have only trialed it. I could not get this product signed off due to budget constraints, not related to Tableau (which is far from the most expensive out there). 

Recommendations to others considering the product: Trial it and play around with it. You will be amazed at how quickly you pick it up. 

• Rapid visualization of data
• Interactive views connecting multiple data sources
• Reduces need for IT cycles (hours vs. weeks to create report)
• Ability to analyze problems quickly
• Ability to share reports and analyses quickly

• Ability to focus staff on more analysis versus reporting
• More/Better/Faster analysis by staff

Pace of improvement to product has slowed. Most additions are now just nice to have.

More than eight years.

No.

No.

No.

I haven't really needed customer service. Help from the sales staff is okay at first. The community is amazing. You can google any question and usually find an answer.

I haven't really needed tech support.

Very straightforward. A lot of free training available online.

In-house. Easy!

• Spotfire
• MicroStrategy VI
• Qlik

The data blending capabilities is a huge factor for our team. The ease of blending data from multiple sources has allowed us to generate new insight and bring a different level of questions to the meeting table. The type of dashboards we have been able to create have made it easier for individuals who are not use to looking at data to navigate and drill into their own material to find answers or ask questions they never thought to ask in the first place.

We’ve been able to replace several manual spreadsheet reports that took hours for individuals to complete. With Tableau Server and some automation processes put in place, those reports are now automatically delivered to the end users, saving time and money. We can also develop reports much faster than in the past plus provide an interface to a database which in the past might not of been used as much due to the lack of technical skills to write the queries.

Formatting controls could use some improvement. We’ve found that to be the most confusing part of developing reports, at least until you get use to where all the controls are at and how to use them. Ideally, making a user-friendly interface for formatting the worksheets and dashboards would be a big improvement and time saver. Recent version upgrades have added some new features such as being able to change the format for your entire workbook all at once. Still a work in progress though.

I have used it for eight years and sever administrator for 2 years.

Deployment and stability have been flawless so far. We’ve not encountered a data set that has slowed the software down and we use records with millions of rows. There is no clear-cut line of determining when best to consider switching over to an enterprise-wide model vs. per license, so there could be a better way of informing their customers on when to flip that switch.

We have never experienced an issue with the server software or any technical problems with the desktop or interactor licenses.

Once others in the company start seeing what it can do they immediately ask what needs to happen so they can get a license. We started down the path of looking at core enterprise licensing but were told the company is moving away from that model and sticking with a per user/license structure. Depending on how many in the company want to start using the software plus needing the additional interactor license to access the server the purchases can add up quickly.

Very little need to contact their customer service but when I did they were professional and quick to respond.

Both customer service and technical support have been excellent. Sales reps have been very nice to work with and you don’t end up with that used car salesmen feel. In fact, we typically meet with our reps about 3-4 times a year and have been extremely supportive.

No - most of our reporting was done between MS Excel and MS Access.

Setup was extremely easy. Essentially a plug-and-play right out of the box.

We implemented it in-house. Implementation was easy in comparison to other systems we’ve worked on in the past. QA testing was seamless and found no integration issues.

We’ve found quite a bit of savings using Tableau, based on the time it takes to develop ad-hoc reports, changes in process due to new insights and report automation.

Best advice on pricing is to anticipate the desire for more licenses once the results of this product are acknowledged in other parts of your company. Note that for others to interface with a published report on your server, they need what’s called an interactor license. We acquired several guest interactor licenses in order to lend out to departments so they can see the benefit of accessing their reports on the server vs. static reports. This encourages them to purchase their own interactor licenses or at least plan to purchase when preparing their budgets for the following year.

We evaluated several potential software systems such as Visier, Lumira, and Qlik, but found Tableau the easiest to use for individuals who did not need to have a programming background. Plus, the freedom to develop from a blank canvas with data that could be from any corner of the company appealed more to our team than working with a set of canned metrics to one specific department.

The annual Tableau customer conference is a huge learning opportunity for new and seasoned users alike. The week-long conference provides a large number of workshops to help increase your skills and many of these sessions are hands-on training. Also a great way to network with other users and see how they are using Tableau.

I have been using Tableau since 2006; 3.5 years as an employee of Tableau Software and 7 years as a trainer/consultant. The more robust features include improved geo-encoding. Shape content is a big winner, as is cluster analysis. Cross-DB joins are helpful, as well. A huge improvement is the ability to render DV to any device from phone to PC.

As a training organization, the subject of improving organization functions is somewhat opaque. The overall view is that we see software as a service as the big win for any client. Note well: To truly realize organizational change, top management must embrace the use of Tableau.

• 100% in the cloud.
• Reduce the price once in the cloud.
• Go back to emphasizing simplicity.

I have used it for 10 years.

We have not encountered any deployment issues; still fast and easy overall.

We have not encountered any stability issues. The QC process seems to improve with each major release.

We have not encountered any scalability issues.

On a scale of 1 to 10, customer service is an 8. It is helpful to hear a tel call from support but not without advance notice. Also, some of the new support folks are not up to speed with more challenging subjects.

There are no 10s in real life; technical support is 8.5.

Initial setup was not complex at all.

Generally, assessing ROI is a very open-ended question. Real ROI if that significant will never be revealed. Day-to-day savings are in time savings, which are viable, to say the least.

We do studies for firms as part of our services. QLTek is still viable but more and more we are hearing about Power BI. Carolina Health Systems just adopted Power BI to replace Tableau due to server costs.

We find that there is a new type of Tableau user emerging. These new users do not abide by the tenets of data visualization by thought leaders like Stephen Few. Hence, we created a blog for an open discussion comparing the work of the artist Jackson Pollock with this new generation. That blog is accessible below.

http://www.viainsights.com/Blo...

Note well: VIA Insights has no formal relationship with Tableau; we are completely independent.

The ease and speed of creating visualizations and interfaces with any database are this product’s most valuable features.

It is able to provide answers within hours instead of days. Typically, we would have to create a SSIS package to connect to that database, then create a SSRS report and meet with the users a few times before coming up with the final visualization product. With Tableau, we can create all of these in one session.

It would be great if the licensing cost per user was cheaper.

I have been using it for one year.

We currently cannot use version 9 because we have to wait for our Tableau Server to be upgraded to version 9 first.

Technical support is good.

We were previously using SSR for reports and SSIS for retrieving the data.

Installing Tableau Desktop was easy.

We worked with the Tableau team.

I would recommend lowering the licensing cost per user.

I would recommend that everyone use this product.

The ability to create visualizations of data is the product’s most valuable feature to me because it provides a meaningful view of the data and the metrics used by our clients.

The ease with which users can visualize and share data has improved how we look at our metrics.

It’s a very basic thing, but being able to copy and paste data elements from the screen would be nice.

I have used it for nine months.

I have not really encountered any deployment, stability or scalability issues. Our issues are not related to the function of the tool, but more to do with attitudes concerning looking at data and metrics.

It is well received when people see what it can do in transforming their data and metrics into meaningful displays that allow for greater insights.

• 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.