The most valuable features are the ability to use various data sets from different platforms, the intuitive graphs, and the ability to play around with the data and graph selections for different views of the data. As the course work is focused on ‘Big Data’ - both structured and unstructured - the ability to mix some of these sets and have Tableau suggest the best graph was very helpful. Because the product is so flexible, other graphs can be selected and a new ‘view’ of the same data presents a different insight.
Sole Proprietor at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
When mixing structured and unstructured ‘Big Data’, it suggests the best graph.
What is most valuable?
How has it helped my organization?
All product use was through the school.
What needs improvement?
Version-specific work did not automatically version up with the upgrade. Since the version change occurred during the course and the majority of us had never used Tableau before, this static versioning for the projects caused some anxiety and some rework. There might have been an easier way to move these projects to the new version, but it was not transparent how to do that and online resources referenced an older version solution that did not work in the newer version.
For how long have I used the solution?
I was introduced to the product through a few courses in my master’s program in Business Analytics, and was able to use Tableau Desktop for one of the course projects.
Buyer's Guide
Tableau
January 2025
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Learn what your peers think about Tableau. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
I did not encounter any deployment, stability or scalability issues. All product was through the school.
How are customer service and support?
I did not interact with Tableau staff; all support was derived from the school’s IT staff.
How was the initial setup?
The initial desktop setup was phenomenally easy and straightforward. Access to test projects and videos are available to ensure that the product works as expected.
What about the implementation team?
Desktop implementation is user-based and although the setup is easy, it is necessary to be cognizant of where the base files reside and how projects and data sets are stored.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I am unable to provide pricing/licensing advice; the licensing is provided through the school with keys for each student to obtain a desktop version.
What other advice do I have?
Tableau is a very robust engine. As attractive as the speed to combine data sets is and the great visuals it can produce, it is well known that it is not an affordable product if you maintain small datasets. To use a phrase, you don’t need an army tank where a red wagon will do. Because of this, Tableau would need to have a Tableau-lite for smaller businesses, so that it wasn’t so hard to start using the tool, then as the business grows, so does the product if need be.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
![PeerSpot user](https://www.peerspot.com/assets/media/images/anonymous_avatar-ddad8308.png)
Lead Business Analyst at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Dependency on the IT team has been reduced. Visualization and ease of use are the product’s most valuable features.
What is most valuable?
Visualization and ease of use are the product’s most valuable features. Dependency on the IT team has been reduced. Users feel comfortable creating their own dashboards.
How has it helped my organization?
Tableau Provides a set of different visualizations that were not available in OBIEE. The dashboards help narrate a story. As an organization, we were able to bring in more people to use our platform because it was easy to use and helped business teams make quick decisions. In OBIEE, the business was dependent on IT vendors to generate reports. With Tableau, non-technical business users have become familiar with creating dashboards, thus reducing dependency on IT vendors.
What needs improvement?
We were not able to implement organization-wide security the way it exists in BO or OBIEE. We had to do a workaround to restrict access by transferring roles on the portal using Java and PHP to restrict content.
The second area for improvement is the processing large amount of data using R.
Finally, I’d like to see Tableau have more statistical capability.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used it for three years now and am pretty happy. We're going to upgrade on 9.3 in Q3/Q4.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
I have not encountered any deployment, stability or scalability issues to date.
We are planning to increase our infrastructure to support more complex queries in Tableau. We are still in process of integrating R with Tableau. This is one area where I can see problems as R and Tableau both have issues processing large amount of data.
How are customer service and technical support?
I rate technical support 8/10.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were using OBIEE for generating dashboards and wanted to upgrade our system with better visualization tools.
How was the initial setup?
Initial setup was pretty straightforward, except for security. Also, we had to change the entire data model so that we could get in Tableau dashboards similar to those we had in OBIEE.
What about the implementation team?
Technical expertise: in-house. Support: vendor team. I recommend that in-house implementation to bring expertise onto the team.
What was our ROI?
We were able to see 200% increase in usage of the platform vs usage of OBIEE.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated Spotfire, QlikView & Sisense. It came down to a tough choice between Spotfire and Tableau. We finally selected Tableau because it is good in providing visualizations, its integration with R, and it has a lot of connectors with various databases that Spotfire does not have. It also looked promising that it would provide more features in future releases.
What other advice do I have?
Do not think twice about it; just go for it to find new insights in your data. There is a great future for this tool. It will help you perform basic statistical analysis. It will give you a different way to look at data structures.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
Tableau
January 2025
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Learn what your peers think about Tableau. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Deputy Director, Global Sales Planning & Policy at a renewables & environment company with 10,001+ employees
It enabled a small organization to employ a state-of-art reporting tool without massive IT implementation cost.
What is most valuable?
- Table joins
- Formulas
- Visualization
- Dashboard
How has it helped my organization?
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.
What needs improvement?
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.
For how long have I used the solution?
I used it for six months.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
I developed the dashboard / storyboard for just one user, so I had no issues at all, except the limitation on the table join side.
How are customer service and technical support?
I did not utilize the tech support on my desktop deployment.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I previously used MicroStrategy. I chose Tableau for three reasons:
- Powerful functionality
- User-friendly interface
- Great community
How was the initial setup?
The desktop version is easy to setup.
What about the implementation team?
I implemented it by myself.
What other advice do I have?
On the desktop version, use the community forum wisely; you will be able to find enough support for 99% of your challenges.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Managing Partner at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Scalable product with a valuable user-interface
Pros and Cons
- "The product offers an intuitive user interface, detailed screens and widgets, and the absence of data limitations"
- "Tableau's data modeling, mining, and AI library features need improvement."
What is our primary use case?
Our customer uses Tableau for visual dashboard features.
What is most valuable?
The product offers an intuitive user interface, detailed screens and widgets, and the absence of data limitations. Its primary strength lies in visual analytics, allowing users to analyze data with visual compliance.
What needs improvement?
Tableau's data modeling, mining, and AI library features need improvement.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Tableau for five or six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The platform's cloud version is stable and has no CPU or RAM limitations. The dashboards work fast. In the case of an on-premise site, the stability is based on the hardware capacity.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The product is scalable. We have 50 users for it in our environment.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward. It can be deployed in the cloud and on-premises as well. For successful implementation, one must ensure well-designed data regarding KPIs, data strategy, etc., if one has an in-depth understanding of easy deployment. One needs to log in and select the model for cloud implementation. Preparing a Tableau server environment for the project site takes around two days. It is a self-oriented structure and doesn't require any manual adjustment. It is easy to maintain and involves giving a few commands. However, one must update the product to avoid compatibility issues with Windows and Linux.
What was our ROI?
The product generates a value for investment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Tableau has reasonable pricing similar to Power BI. It doesn't have any hidden costs.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Tableau has a good interface, is easy to deploy, and can be integrated with different AI systems. Compared to other vendors like SAP, the product's data layers need enhancement. Additionally, it could directly connect to cloud services similar to Power BI.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Tableau a nine out of ten. I advise others to help from experienced consultant teams and trusted vendors for implementation. Another piece of advice is to begin small by downloading Tableau Desktop, testing it with your data, and familiarizing yourself with its logic. They can increase their knowledge with online training sources published on the product's website. It is free to access.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Senior Software Engineer - Salesforce at DataGo
Functional BI solution that can be used for reporting for clients across a broad range of industries
Pros and Cons
- "The best use case for us is the solution's integration with Salesforce because we are also partners of Salesforce."
- "Some of our clients are looking for better UI when using Tableau as they often work with this solution directly."
What is our primary use case?
We have diverse use cases for Tableau for our clients who come different industries including manufacturing of ornamental stones, clothing and automotives. These clients have been using Tableau for tasks such as tracking leads, finances and stock management.
What is most valuable?
Tableau makes it easy to build panels. The best use case for us is the solution's integration with Salesforce because we are also partners of Salesforce.
What needs improvement?
Some of our clients are looking for better UI when using Tableau as they often work with this solution directly.
The solution could be improved by facilitating integration with data lakes such as Google Cloud Platform. Some of our clients have around 1 billion lines in their tables and usually we need to scale them from MySQL to a Google Cloud Platform.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been partners with Tableau for three years and have been using the solution for four years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This is a scalable solution. We have databases from 1 million to 100 million roles that run very fast.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward.
What was our ROI?
Some of our clients have seen a ROI with Tableau within five to six months as they previously had no BI solution in place.
What other advice do I have?
When presenting Tableau to clients, we show them how Tableau works and how it integrates as a bundle with other partners such as Salesforce. These integrations make the management of data easier.
I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Business Intelligence Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Dynamic tool that facilitates the visualization of a broad range of data types
Pros and Cons
- "Tableau has data relationships that can be applied to a data source which helps build out a directory which is helpful. Data blending has also been valuable to us."
- "The extraction, transformation and loading of data in Tableau takes a lot of time and we do not have confidence that Tableau is showing all the data we need."
What is our primary use case?
My client was initially using SAP BO as a reporting tool. This client added another entity to their organization and considered using Tableau for reporting purposes. The reason for choosing Tableau is because it is easy to use and we already had some developers with experience using Tableau. We have not done a complete migration from SAP BO to Tableau due to the volume of reporting still in SAP BO which Tableau cannot handle.
When creating reports for entities with less data, we make use of Tableau. We have trained 10 to 15 developers for this reporting. It took two to three months for them to master reporting in Tableau.
We use Tableau to create reports based on geographical maps to show the impact of natural hazards on the insurance industry. This solution offered us the flexibility and ability to visualize this type of information. We also use Tableau to host reports which are published on a weekly schedule to certain user groups.
What is most valuable?
Tableau has data relationships that can be applied to a data source which helps build out a directory which is helpful. Data blending has also been valuable to us.
What needs improvement?
The extraction, transformation and loading of data in Tableau takes a lot of time and we do not have confidence that Tableau is showing all the data we need. This is due to limitations on data extraction which needs to be improved.
We experience user restrictions using Tableau and require a more dynamic setup for extraction of data, configuration of reports and providing access to users.
Tableau useful for dashboard reporting, however, there are limitation on the number of rows of data you can view in a report. It is for this reason that we use Tableau alongside other reporting solutions. Tableau does not support any HTML coding in the same way Power BI does.
There is a maximum number of tables we can use in Tableau. This could be improved in a future release.
For how long have I used the solution?
I'm have been working with Tableau for seven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Tableau is a stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This is a scalable solution.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We continue to use SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform.
What other advice do I have?
Tableau is a business intelligence tool. It allows you to extract specific insights and analyze data. It comes with many add ons and features including stories and dashboards. Our biggest challenge when using Tableau is the ETL size. It is for this reason we are switching to Power BI.
I would rate it an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Implementer
Anonymous at a manufacturing company with 11-50 employees
Provides good visibility, dependable and has adequate technical support
Pros and Cons
- "From my perspective, it enables clients to better understand our data and make better decisions based on that information."
- "I take a long time to process the hundreds of thousands or millions of records that must be processed every day."
What is our primary use case?
We use Tableau, to retract, and for visualizing data.
I primarily use it at my company, but I do some implementation as well, with a teammate.
Tableau is used to visualize analyzed data for our customers.
What is most valuable?
From my perspective, it enables clients to better understand our data and make better decisions based on that information.
What needs improvement?
I would look at Tableau's security and performance. I take a long time to process the hundreds of thousands or millions of records that must be processed every day. I am hoping that it can be improved very soon.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Tableau for the last three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Tableau is a stable product.
How are customer service and support?
I would say that the technical support is adequate. We are unsatisfied with the support because every time we have a new problem, it will go to tier 1, and the tier 1 will take several days to reply to us, and then the result is not very satisfying, as we are still stuck with the problem. It is then escalated to tier 2, or sometimes tier 3, which can take about two or three weeks, as an estimated length.
Definitely, technical support could be improved.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
In a previous company, I worked with IBM Cognos to focus on data, for instruction saving and loading that data in a very efficient way.
I also use other types of data extraction, such as Vanilla. It's a new software from France that is being used by a number of non-government organizations to restore data.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is quite complex.
What about the implementation team?
We completed the setup ourselves.
What other advice do I have?
I recommend that they install it using a virtual machine or Docker first, as they may encounter issues with other projects if they are running on the same server.
I would rate Tableau an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Vice President at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
It's easy to install and use
Pros and Cons
- "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."
What is most valuable?
Tableau is easy to use.
What needs improvement?
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.
For how long have I used the solution?
I started working with Tableau two years ago.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In some projects, Tableau isn't stable. Sometimes it calls automatically.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Tableau is scalable. Right now, 200 to 300 people at my company use it.
How are customer service and support?
Their web-based tech support is okay.
How was the initial setup?
Setting up Tableau is easy.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Tableau's price should be lower so more people can access this application.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Tableau eight out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
![PeerSpot user](https://www.peerspot.com/assets/media/images/anonymous_avatar-ddad8308.png)
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Updated: January 2025
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