Tableau Reviews

Data Visualization & Analytics: In my last project, we used ESRI maps super-imposed with brand sales and sales history. By adding more dimensions to the data, we were able to drill from sales territories to analyze product sales at individual retail outlets. The next phase will be to add age-group demographics to the analytics.

That also describes our Agile approach. Incrementally add dimensions to the underlying data, and add richness to the analytics capability, and it’s a business-driven approach.

The client is in transition from traditional BI reports to real-time, mobile sales reporting, with a goal of eventually providing predictive analytics. The transition included a move away from IBM Cognos to Tableau, and using IBM Watson for predictive analytics. In this case, Tableau was able to do all the predictive analytics with less development effort and more visual results than Watson Analytics.

The trend I see from clients is towards more mobile solutions, more real-time analytics, and the integration of analytics and order entry. E.g. A sales consultant can seamlessly transition from sales analysis to entering an order while on-site. This implies a BPM integration with SAP, Oracle eBusiness Suite, SFDC and others.

The architecture this client was prototyping was an SFDC application with imbedded analytics provided by Tableau delivered to a tablet device. There are several ways to go about this, but the architecture was selected because SFDC was the system of record for all customer information.

I have used this solution on and off for about three years, more as Solutions Architect and Project Manager than a full-time developer.

I did not encounter any deployment issues, but a production deployment was outside of the scope of my role.

I know the client ran into several ODBC issues with the interface to Denodo, a data virtualization environment, but I can’t comment because Tableau support was outside of the scope of my role.

The client has a large Cognos footprint and they were looking to Tableau as a more agile reporting & analytics tool. For this project, we used Cognos 11 and were experimenting with IBM Watson Analytics. We were able to perform all the analytics they were doing in Watson Analytics, using Tableau.

In prior projects, I have experience with SAP BusinessObjects, SAS and QlikView.

Tableau was installed and configured by an in-house team and it was complete before I arrived on-site.

In my experience most (all) enterprise-scale clients have multiple, entrenched BI reporting tools that Tableau will have a tough time to displace. Tableau is most successful when it is introduced at a departmental or subsidiary level in an organization. That’s the starting point, and grow the ‘footprint’ from there. With that background in mind, make the initial pricing & licensing simple for a department to budget for & approve.

IMO, I don’t think any client can isolate an analytics tool and derive an ROI that stands up to scrutiny. I usually start by looking at a company’s annual report and I look for the transformational initiatives. E.g. They want more mobile capabilities, more real-time decision making, etc. I use that as the entry-point for discussion around capabilities, not a discussion of technical features and I look for real-world use cases to develop a solution architecture.

My advice to clients is always: Start with a clear goal in mind, generate some quick wins, and grow the environment from there. The enterprise-scale initiatives are big on vision, but I’ve seen more failures than successes.

The product is definitely a leader in the analytics-lite & data visualization space. Unless a client has a well-defined use case for one of the statistical or predictive analysis tools, Tableau can meet the needs. If the use case for Tableau becomes too complex, then clients can use the ‘R’ extension. I don’t have hands-on experience with that feature.

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.

The best features of Tableau include:

• Freedom of connection: Its ability to connect to practically any database. There is no need to go through cryptic ODBC or other driver setup procedures.
• Freedom of exploration: The ease one can explore a data table. With simple drag and drop, you can produce easily readable cross tabs and paretos on-the-fly to learn everything you need to know about an unfamiliar table.
• Freedom of expression: You can pretty much build any type of analytic structure you need to analyze your data.
• Built-in visual best practices: Interfaces are clean and simple. You have to work hard to produce an ugly chart in Tableau.

With the ease of using Tableau, I am able to set up basic analytic structures in the meta data (dims and measures) with some starter chart types, then turn over to analysts who can then ask all the detailed questions of the data on their own without having to come back to me for every minor change.

• They still need to improve advanced query functions. Level of detail and table calcs have improved but still are difficult to use, especially when working with large data sets.
• The custom query editor has lots of room for improvement. If Tableau can add features and functionality here, it would be easier to work with the database in one environment, instead of having to open another query editor to develop custom queries for advanced analytics.
• The formatting interface is the one area that has lots of room for improvement, as well as the ability to be more precise in formatting. At the moment, it is much more of an all-or-none proposition.
• More integrated statistical functions.

I have used it since 2009, Tableau 5.

I have not encountered any deployment, stability or scalability issues. Although I do run into performance issues with Tableau server from time to time, it is not always easy to identify the root cause.

I have had so little need to use customer support, I can’t really rate them. Nonetheless, the few times when I have called, the level of understanding of complex data issues at the first few levels of support seems to be on the light side.

For the desktop edition, initial setup couldn’t be simpler. For the server edition, it is a bit more involved but that is to be expected.

It was implemented in house. For the server edition, an experienced server admin would definitely make the final install better.

My clients find the price tag for the desktop edition high, so they typically try to use the server/interactor edition, which for an analyst just doesn’t provide enough functionality to get the job done. Hopefully, as Tableau builds scale, they will be able to bring the price of the desktop edition down and get on more desktops, like Excel.

I have evaluated other competitive tools but in the end, my clients have always gone with Tableau.

The Tableau on-demand learning resources are fantastic to help a new user get going. There is a robust user community that is very generous with their time and knowledge to help you get through the learning curve.

It has ease-of-use features that make it a good data discovery tool for use with our clients. Additionally, the ability to rapidly mine data and visualize data issues for clients is valuable.

We can use this tool with our internal data as well as on client sites to rapidly evaluate data sets and gain understanding of patterns rapidly.

The integration of multiple data sources has sometimes been difficult and the size limitations are sometimes an issue.

We have been evaluating this product for approximately six months now.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

We are very early in our project but do not see any major limits yet.

Customer service has been excellent.

Technical support is very good.

No previous solution was in place.

The connections to the SQL data and flat files were straightforward.

Implementation was all done in-house.

Unknown at this time.

• Tableau
• PowerPivot/PowerBI
• Birst
• Sisense

1. Understand your business hierarchies intimately.

2. Create flattened data files for roll-ups.

3. Be prepared to clean and process data prior to use.

1. Data Blending - the ability to blend data from multiple data sources to create the report that is needed.

2. Quick and meaningful visualizations - Tableau's drag and drop features provide on the fly reports that often don't take more than a minute to create.

3. Tableau Server Subscriptions - Gives end users the ability to quickly subscribe to a dashboard.

4. Awesome support! - The Tableau help-desk and server support teams are out of this world. Have a question, shoot them an email and get a response quickly. They also have a phenomonal website (tableausoftware.com) with traning videos, a knowldge base, and plently of Tableau experts to help work through calculations and dashboard building.

We no longer need to rely on certified report creators to create reports and dashboards. Just connect to data and start building. Plently of free training availble online at tableausoftware.com for first-time users. Allows for independancy from IT.

The tool is not perfect, but with each release issues are getting resolved and performance is getting better. There is an awesome "Ideas" page on their website that allows users to submit ideas for improvement and vote on ideas that they would like to see added into any of the Tableau products. Tableau does a great job of moving these ideas from conception to reality.

3 years

No

No

No

Outstanding!

Outstanding!

Our company used Cognos Planner and a few other BI solutions before. Tableau is less expensive and easier to use. An easy choice to make the switch.

Pretty straightforward. Tableau gives great instructions. My only complaint is that they make assumptions on how your company handles security ceritifcates when using SAML. It took us some time to work though SAML configuration, but once we passed this hurdle, everything else was easy to put in place.

The intial server setup was done with an in-house team. When we expended our environment, we brought a vendor in to make sure we were implementing everything occurding to our business needs. The vendor, recommmended by Tableau, was professional and we were able to get the job done quickly.

I use Tableau in a jewelry company to analyze sales and service inventory.

I can't comment on the valuable features of Tableau. I am familiar with some of the other tools, but I can't point out one specific big feature of Tableau.

A specific thing in Tableau is that I have looked at how to add pictures to the reports. I don't have the ability in Tableau to create a tooltip and see the picture of a piece of jewelry or watch that is a best seller.

I have been using Tableau for over five years. I don't remember the version of the solution I am using, but I feel it is the upgraded version. Maybe the server is not the latest one, which might be behind by a year. I am a customer of the solution.

Tableau does break down a little bit. The server version of Tableau doesn't allow you to see what is going on, making it a part of Tableau that is not great. Tableau's server version doesn't provide the ability to extract the information to see why the reports or dashboard didn't run properly. When you refresh in Tableau, you can't see what it's doing, and nothing happens since it doesn't show you what's going on, and then Tableau gets fixed all of a sudden.

One of my biggest problems is getting all the users to use Tableau, but that's not a specific problem of the tool alone since it is one of the most common problems among BI tools.

I only have ten Tableau licenses that are used in my company.

I have only sought some local support within Israel for Tableau. The only way to solve the problems in Tableau is through checking on forums.

Tableau is deployed on-premises.

Tableau's initial setup was straightforward. When you need to make complicated dashboards, that can be very difficult in Tableau, but the initial setup was very quick. Connecting the data sources was very easy in Tableau.

The pricing for Tableau is the same as the other products in the market. I haven't checked Tableau's price recently, but I don't think it is a factor when choosing the tool.

Before choosing Tableau, I had checked QlikView, which is now Qlik Sense, and I preferred the way Tableau works over Qlik Sense. Tableau made me feel independent and not dependent on programmers, making it more user-friendly.

I would look at Microsoft Power BI. I am unsure if I would push Tableau since it is not a widely used tool. I don't know if others in the field of jewelry use Tableau.

Overall, I rate the solution between a seven and eight out of ten.

We use the solution for the dashboard and visualization. We are a consultant company with 20 employees.

The solution is deployed on-prem. I am using the latest version.

I like the visualization component. 

The development part should be better. We are putting a lot of effort in during development, so if we face any struggles, we have to find workaround solutions on the internet. It would be nice to have new workaround solutions and other options. Every customer has different expectations, so sometimes it's hard to find the right solution.

I have been using Tableau for 15 years.

It is stable.

The solution is scalable.

The setup is straightforward. It took about a week to install. For deployment and maintenance, we used two team leads.

This license is on a yearly basis.

I would rate this solution 9 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.