Tableau Reviews

Tableau is primarily used for analyzing data. It is not just a dashboarding solution, it is also a visual analytics solution, which means that end users can make their own analyses on that product. They can find lots of findings. The product has lots of capabilities that allow the user to focus on data. 

One of the most valuable features of Tableau is that it's a visual analytics solution, not just a dashboarding solution. Compared to Power BI, which is a dashboarding solution, there are no limitations with Tableau. For example, when you add a chart or a map to Power BI, it has a 3,000-point limitation. When you try to track your whole vehicle on the map, you only see the first 3,000 rows on the map, and Power BI doesn't tell you which part of the data is shown on the map. But Tableau doesn't have any limitations, which means that you can see five million data points on a map. It starts the project by creating the visuals that directly converts to SQLs. In that way, all the components have no limitations. 

When we compared Tableau to Power BI, we also found Tableau to be more fancy. Fancy means you can create more visual graphics and more visual dashboards. With Power BI, this isn't so—it's just some tables and some simple charts together. 

Tableau is more for business users who want to analyze data. Tableau can directly connect the analytics systems, like R or python, and get the results in screen, so it's a good solution for analytics scientists. It has some predefined capabilities to understand the data. 

Tableau's automatic insight could be improved. It has some predefined capabilities to understand the data, but I think they need more. Customers need more insight automatically from data—they don't want to discover them, they want to get the forecast automatically. 

The data preparation should also be improved because it's not easy. 

Tableau tries to focus on the business side, but the backend side has not improved much. They also have an ETS solution, but it's limited. 

I have been working with Tableau for four years. 

Tableau is stable, but the analytic tools don't distribute. You should subscribe in analytic prospectus. In that way, Power BI or Calique or Tableau uses subscription instead of publication, so if the user should ask something or should want to avail of something, they focus on a report and click on subscribe. In that way, they get the data, so the business case is changing a little. Old products, like Oracle BI or SAP BusinessObjects, have more publication features that these kinds of products don't have. I think Tableau's publication feature needs to be improved. 

Tableau is scalable. 

We also evaluated Power BI. We chose Tableau because it is a visual analytics solution, not just a dashboarding solution, so there are no limitations with Tableau. The second reason was because Tableau is more fancy—you can create more visual graphics and visual dashboards. However, Power BI has the advantage on the backend side. It has a huge cloud environment, but Tableau doesn't. 

I rate Tableau an eight out of ten. 

Tableau has a good site named publictableau.com. There are lots of examples and millions of Tableau dashboards already published there. You can download the dashboard and see what's behind it, to analyze it. It's a good chance to create different kinds of dashboards. 

To those considering using Tableau, I would also advise that they understand the infrastructure of Tableau. Tableau uses lots of big data technology inside their product: Elasticsearch, Red Cache, Amazon Apache, etc. I think there are more than 50 different big data technologies inside them. If they know their infrastructure, they should understand the big data technologies also. 

We are not resellers, we are developing in Tableau, and we are implementers.

It is very simple to use for the end-user. It is user-friendly.

It integrates well.

The interface is good.

It is very easy to implement and to use.

A strict security measure is needed. I believe it is weak in terms of security.

We have been using Tableau for three years.

Tableau is a stable solution.

The scalability is great.

We have ten users in our organization.

We are also experienced in using Oracle OBIEE. We have the same application ruling in both technologies.

We have no issues with the configuration.

We need two people to deploy and maintain the system.

The price could be improved.

Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis. 

The licensing is by addition, we currently have an administrator and the viewer.

Yes, I would recommend this solution to others who are considering using it.

I would rate Tableau, a nine out of ten.

Public Cloud

I'm not using it on a daily basis. I've gone through the training and I've got my associate certification.

The solution is very easy to use and simple to understand. They make it very easy to navigate around it and to learn the product. 

The solution is very easy to set up.

The pricing is good.

The stability seems to be very reliable. 

Personally, I have not extensively used it, and therefore it's hard to think of areas that might need improvement as I haven't fully experienced every aspect of the product. 

I'd like to see more advanced forms of charting, if possible. 

There should be more widgets that would help less trained individuals create charts with less difficulty.

Tableau probably does not have advanced big data analysis features. It's not in the same category. It doesn't have those features to the same degree as R. You do this recreational; kind of modeling and analytics. It does have some predictive items, however, it's very simple. You can't customize much.

The solution seems to be very stable. I wouldn't say that we have used it in a big data kind of way. We don't have big data; we're not really able to test Tableau to the limits.

Most of the companies that we work with that use it are medium-sized enterprises and is typically public companies or government organizations. 

I can't really evaluate support services from Tableau. Our client agencies use them directly, and therefore they are the ones dealing with support. I don't have much experience on the support side.

Some of our clients also work with Microsoft BI. I'd personally worked with Talend, SAP HANA, and Power BI. I personally prefer Tableau due to its ease of use. With SAP HANA, I don't really have easy access to it. However, with Talend, if I wanted to, I could easily go to its website and download a copy of it.

The initial setup of the product is not difficult. It's very easy and quite straightforward. A company shouldn't have any troubles handling an implementation. 

It's my understanding that the pricing of this solution is quite reasonable and very competitive. That said, I haven't really done an in-depth comparison against competitors.

We are consultants and not exactly customers of the product itself. We run projects. We give policy guidance.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

If a company is looking for a way to create charts quickly, and communicate with charts, Tableau is definitely an easy place to start. Of course, users will need some training to understand how to create certain visualizations in Tableau. Other than that, Tableau is quite easy to set up. It's easy to connect to your data sources. Once you have connected to the data sources, you easily create the charts. There's a lot of options, a lot of charts that you can create. However, for the more advanced features, you definitely need some experience. 

The most attractive feature for our users is the ease of visualizing data in a meaningful manner. The ease of experimenting with different visualizations is also very useful.

The ability to load and work with large volumes of data without requiring very high level of system resources is also valuable for us.

Key users of Tableau are from the Internal Audit team. Introduction of the tool has allowed the team to move away from data sampling to working with the entire data population in most cases. More importantly, the ability to present the analysis results in a visual manner to stakeholders, which has enhanced the ease of communicating the impact of the audit findings.

Improvement is required in the way filters operate when applied on large data sets. Having the ability to select and deselect filters without having to retrace the original path would make it easier to demonstrate the results.

More than two years.

The maximum volume of data we have connected is approximately six million records each having about 130 data fields. We did not encounter stability issues when connecting to a pre-downloaded copy of the data. However, on trying to access the live data (a flat file system), the operation was very slow.

No.

With reference to the issue stated above, we noted that Tableau did not attempt to provide any resolution for the issue. We felt that they just left it with the local vendor to sort out the issue (which was never resolved).

We have used (and continue to use) ACL for data analytics. However for simple analytics, and in particular, data visualization, we prefer to use Tableau. We have also seen that users are able to understand Tableau faster than ACL.

The initial setup was for the desktop version of the tool connecting to Excel files and stand-alone databases at the back end. We did not have any issues with this.

However, on attempting to move to the server version, we faced issues with data connectivity for our core ERP which were not resolved. Attempting to connect to the Oracle HRMS module went without a hitch, and within a few seconds, we were able to perform live data analysis without any degradation in performance. Connecting to our core ERP (Kerridge Autoline, now known as CDK Autoline) failed due to ODBC driver version issues (we presume).

The Desktop and Professional version pricing is straightforward. Cannot comment on the Server licensing aspect.

Qlik Sense and ACL.

Thoroughly test your data connectivity requirements to make sure everything works well.

From an end user perspective, it is a very easy tool to use.

• Graphical representation – great for showing trends over time or comparisons • Data source integration – can integrate with almost every type of databases/data sources like text files (csv, txt), SQL, SSAS, Oracle, etc • Flexible – very simple for a user to create reports with parameters and filters • Drill down – this functionality is built in so it is very simple to export into Excel and link from report to report, dashboard to dashboard. • Links - Using the URL you can link to any webpage or any report accessible via URL

• Unlike Tableau, QlikView is a powerful, agile platform. • Lack of shortcuts – no controls such as dials or gauges which are generally find with dashboard • Poor Performance in hierarchical data– this is an usability problems when filtering as it doesn’t recognise the hierarchy. You can’t clear all filters enabling the user to start again when using complex filters • Unable to link parameters

• Graphical representation of data - refers to the aggregation of data in a relevant and easy to read • Customizable Maps: Table 7 allows correlation with geographical indicators displayed by different colors. Each geographical area will receive a predefined color. For example, if economic growth in Spain it will receive colors depending on the level of growth • Related Charts: It is possible that in one chart to be visible all the variations. • In addition to the possibilities of visual correlation with indicators of geographical areas, the new version of BI offers a number of other new features: • multiple maps • Multiple names points / geographical areas (depending on language, types of abbreviations) • ability to add new points according to geographical longitude and latitude points • Automatic identification and centering it on the map for viewing relevance.

We are a consultant, and it is our main product for consultancy.

It is deployed on the cloud as well as on-premises.

It is so easy to do a lot of things. There is a lot of flexibility and creativity in this product. In other products, you don't have this flexibility.

I would like Tableau Prep to be integrated with Tableau Desktop. I would also like more customizations for tables.

Its setup should be simple. It is complex to deploy if you work in a test environment.

I have been using this solution for four years.

It is stable.

It is easy to scale. It is suitable for small, medium, and large enterprise

Their technical support is great.

It is complex. If you work in a test environment, it is complex to deploy. It should be more simple. You need someone who can help you with deployment.

It is reasonable based on what it offers.

I would advise following Tableau Blueprint in your deployment. There are guidelines that will help you.

I would rate it a nine out of 10.