Tableau Reviews

The ability to connect multiple data sources, build data extracts, and display said data in an automated, graphical, format is the key driving factor insuring I continue using Tableau. While there are plenty of other tools on the market, such as Report Builder or Crystal Reports, Tableau is the first I have used that allows for such wide spread data integration and presentation in a visibly pleasing format. Moreover, the data extract function of Tableau has hooked me into using their tool over any other. Specifically, the ease of extracting and automating report generation from these extracts.

Tableau has allowed us to build automated weekly dashboards that explain our organisation's pipeline. Moreover, these dashboards have resolved long standing time sinks which have freed up resources to focus on ever larger and more interesting BI projects. Additionally, we have used Tableau to increase the range and width of reports we are able to generate on a weekly basis.

Tableau development has an increasingly large learning curve. It is marketed as an upper management tool that anyone can dive into. However, trying to develop even simple tables within Tableau is an exercise in frustration and patience. The end results cannot be denied, but the path to getting there is not for the lighthearted.

I have used Tableau now for 2 years.

Tableau customer service has been incredible. Not only do they have an active community forum, but their account managers have been very pleasant to work with.

Out of five, I would rate technical support a solid 4.

I have used Report Builder and Crystal Reports. Switching wasn't really my decision, as the other tools used were at different organisations. Since then, I have tried to move back to other reporting tools, but found them lacking in functions I hadn't even realised I had come to rely on!

Setup of Tableau was the easiest of any reporting environment I have used.

We implemented Tableau through a vendor team who were helpful in getting us off the ground. That being said, any reporting tool is dependent upon the data set it connects to. As such, real value has only appeared from Tableau after long usage and learning of how to use its myriad of functions.

Stick with the development process, try a report over and over, and use Google to search out answers to those questions you think have no answer. Take it from me, if you can build it in Excel, then you can build it in Tableau. It just takes time and effort. Also, it may not look EXACTLY the same, but you can get it pretty close. In some cases even better.

It provides access to many kinds of data sources. For example: big data/SAP BW.

The second-most valuable feature is the wonderful usage experience. You cannot find this on any other vendor’s solution such as Microsoft or SAP. Even though Qlik’s QlikView is similar.

We use it for a very complex dashboard design showing our raw material trend analysis. Even though there is huge amount of data and information in these dashboards, Tableau easily provides high-quality UI presentations, along with quick response and design times.

Its server lacks traditional BI solution capabilities such as job scheduling, HA and etc. If you want to roll out it as an enterprise-wide application, you must consider many usage scenarios and operation-level items. Tableau has a robust design UI and presentation layer, but lacks many of the capabilities of an enterprise BI solution. We have been using the SAP BO BI solution for many years. We feel Tableau Server still has a long way to go.

I have used this solution for nearly one year.

I have had poor experiences using its mobile app when I demo some dashboards to high-level executives. Sometimes, it does not respond with results very quickly. But, the web UI is OK. I don’t know why there is a discrepancy.

Technical support has been good so far.

We have used SAP BO BI for many years. We liked the WebI /BO dashboard. We also evaluated Microsoft PowerBI and QlikView. Finally, our IT and project team chose Tableau because its UI/user experience is the best.

Its initial setup is simple, but server installation took some time to finish. We use Desktop and Server on our Windows platforms.

We have a local partner to support us. But, we also try each product by ourselves. A vendor partner provides some technical support or Q&A.

ROI has been good so far.

They must understand their real business goal and user’s needs or behavior for using the dashboard design. That impacts your tool’s usage and design approach. Try using Tableau Desktop anyway. Pay more attention to the Tableau community’s sharing or other experts’ design sharing on the website. It will give you many ideas or best design practices and reference.

• Ease of use - very intuitive
• Same design for both the desktop and server solution - Easy configuration
• Easy and intuitive manipulation of data
• Program automatically suggests the best data representation
• Graphical design - modern and nice

It brought easy and comprehensive access to company data to managers, without needing the IT department.

It would be nice to be able to use the reports as a data source. Calculations in reports are still tricky.

I have been using it for a few months.

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

Customer service and technical support are very good; the free tutorials are especially great.

I used IBM Cognos for many years, I am now working with BO, and I have evaluated many others. I choose this product for a particular customer because he needed analytical access to data for managers without having an IT department in the company.

Initial setup was very straightforward, and configuration was easy. Both the client and the server solution have the same UI design. It is easy to begin with the desktop solution and then upgrade to the server.

I implemented just a pilot project and I did it myself.

I have not calculated ROI.

Pricing is very competitive.

The product is probably not very suitable for standard corporate reporting, but if your users need analytical insight to data, it is an excellent solution.

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.

• 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.

For both Tableau Public and Desktop, the ability to quickly pull together data sources into a meaningful (visual) display. Also, the intuitive design and ability to work with increasingly large and real-time data sets.

Mostly, I focus on the management and operational reporting aspects, enabling businesses to make better decisions at all levels through improved access to data.

It's hard to say right now but I can see challenges ahead as the market share and common standards become an issue - if the goal is to replace Excel, then it will be a winner-takes-all type of battle. For clients this may make them delay purchase and adoption.

I've used it for around eight months. My hands-on experience is mainly Tableau Public and Desktop trials. Project experience working with people who are expert in Tableau and Alteryx.

Tableau Public crashes on opening on my iMac. So far the web-based tools have worked very well.

Tableau Public crashes on opening on my iMac. So far the web-based tools have worked very well.

Not encountered any so far, but this appears to be one of their big selling points.

So far, very proactive. They have a lot of good training resources available online and very fast response from sales team.

It's been very good so far.

At my last company I tried to encourage the IT team to adopt these tools, but they were very focused on developing everything themselves. This turned out to be quite an expensive error and I would encourage companies - even those with their own in-house analyst teams - to consider using these tools as a way to quickly build models. They should only consider building models themselves if they know they have a product and solution that justifies it.

So far it's been very easy but I think a large enterprise would need to consider widespread adoption quite carefully so it aligns to the overall IT road-map.

We used a vendor team. What was useful about this in the examples I’ve seen is their ability to demonstrate "quick wins” to get support for wider deployment, and then to train key staff around the organisation to increase the pace of adoption.

I’d expect it to pay back within a year if the avoided costs of existing IT platform upgrades is included.

We are currently in the evaluation process.

Get some help to evaluate the options and identify the opportunities, find a test case to demonstrate the benefits, engage the IT team early.

• Prototyping
• Visual representation
• Quick for report readers versus tables and numbers in most other similar tools

As a consultant, the organizations I've been at like the ability to see a visual report. This is can be done fairly quick as opposed to numbers.

• Difficulty when moving 'outside of the norm' where 'workarounds' are needed
• Difficult if you want to present reports as numbers and tables
• Free version only available for educational users but not for consultants working in many organizations (and could therefore be introduced to it).

2-3 years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

Good as there are various methods of finding answers and fixes.

Good again as they have various methods to ascertain answers.

I have used many other solutions as a BI consultant including Discoverer, Brio Query, Impromptu, Bus Objects, etc. Tableau seems to be popular right now as, again, the presentation and data model are quite different than the others

It is a straightforward setup.

In-house and via myself.

As mentioned in previously, many clients choose Tableau due to its data model and presentation layer.

As a consultant, ALL BI tools use phrases like 'it empowers the end user', 'end users can create reports in minutes', etc. However, in the real world, end users can create SOME reports once middle layers are built, training is given, limitations and security is imposed, etc. For a complete system, IT departments and consultants must install, set up, create initial works and then have SOME power end users involved. NO tool bypasses this and gives all to end users - and if it did, security would be lax.