Tableau Reviews

My primary use case of Tableau was in conjunction with Salesforce to enhance my data visualization and analysis capabilities. 

Tableau empowers users to delve into their data deeply, effortlessly unlocking valuable insights and critical information. It's got a user-friendly interface and extensive visualization capabilities that allow me to create compelling reports and dashboards that help me make better decisions. 

Tableau has greatly enhanced our organization's data-driven decision-making processes by enabling us to create visually compelling reports and dashboards.

This capability has led to better communication between teams. Despite some limitations associated with custom data connectors, Tableau has proven to be an invaluable tool for aggregating data from multiple sources, offering us a complete view of our operations. 

This comprehensive perspective has allowed us to identify trends, make informed decisions, and optimize our strategies, ultimately leading to increased efficiency and competitiveness in our industry.

The most valuable features of Tableau for our organization have been the interactive storytelling capabilities and easy integration with Salesforce. We can create visual descriptions of data, making complex information accessible and interesting to all sides. This feature enables us to effectively communicate data-driven insights. 

In addition, our integration with Salesforce provides access to critical sales data in real-time, which facilitates quick decision-making and improves customer relationship management. Together, these features enable us to get the most out of our information assets, which helps us to develop informed actions and strategies.

Tableau is excellent at visualizing data, however, I think improving the data preparation features would be a great addition. Navigating through activities like cleansing, reshaping, and wrangling extensive or complicated datasets could prove challenging within the Tableau environment. 

Also, the settings for working with complex datasets also need to be changed. In the next version, it would be good to add user-friendly resources for beginners, such as interactive tutorials and templates, to make Tableau even more accessible to a wider audience.

I've used the solution for more than three months.

I used a range of solutions to find the best one. I haven't switched; I'm using them at the same time.

I evaluated QlikView.

Tableau is pretty intuitive. It has a great interface, and you can get multiple visualizations. The best thing I like about Tableau is that you don't have to go for creating; it is calculated free. Unlike Power BI, Tableau has create a calculated column with dimension.

Tableau is quite fast and provides connectivity to 75 plus data connections, which is great.

Also, installation and configuration are pretty fast and seamless in Tableau.

In Tableau, it's just the concept of creating one calculated column and one create calculated free. So, it's pretty simple, and it's pretty easy to locate and work on it.

I have noticed that Tableau is not very compatible with ClickHouse. There's no direct connection to ClickHouse; you have to set up an ODBC connection.

Tableau's performance takes a hit if you have huge data. The stability and scalability could be improved.

I've been working for almost five plus years on Tableau.

Tableau's performance takes a hit if you have huge data. So in terms of stability, I feel that Cognos would be more stable because you can import all the metadata and store it in the Framework Manager. Tableau has scope for improvement regarding stability.

Tableau needs to be more scalable. The performance takes a hit if you have huge data. Even if you take an extract and you publish the extract and schedule it to refresh, if the report has multiple tabs, it can take quite a while to go from one tab to another.

We are going to scale the Tableau server so that it can accommodate more processes and can be more process inclusive.

We have a Center of Excellence team, and anytime we have an issue, we reach out to them. They then raise an incident or a ticket with Tableau technical support. In the case where we had 1 million rows and the Tableau data was failing to refresh, we shared the log with Tableau Center of Excellence. They came up with the findings that it's more of a database issue and not a Tableau server issue.

Installation and configuration are pretty fast and seamless in Tableau.

In general, if someone is new and wants to learn Tableau, it's around $70 per month.

I have experience working with Cognos and Power BI. Compared to Cognos, Tableau and Power BI are pretty fast. Cognos has the concept of Framework Manager where you can build a framework model. Once you build the model, then you have to release the package, and only then is the subset or the package of data available for reporting. Tableau and Power BI eradicate the dependency on a framework model.

With Cognos, installation and configuration wise the setup takes a bit of time. You have to install and configure and then make the data available. After that, you can do reporting. Unlike that, Tableau is very quick; you can just directly connect to Excel or a file on your desktop.

The connectivity, installation, and configuration are pretty fast and seamless in Tableau and Power BI, unlike those in Cognos.

From a license perspective, I think Cognos is the most expensive, then Tableau, and then Power BI.

If I were to rate these solutions on a scale from one to ten, I would rate Power BI at 7 and Cognos at 8.

You can do a lot in Tableau, and on a scale from one to ten, I would rate it at eight.

We are consultants and implement this solution for many of our clients. We had a project for a telecommunications company, where we extracted the transaction data and helped them to find some trends and improve analytics. They were able to gain knowledge from the data and to see some KPI indicators and build some dashboards for commercial, risk and financial purposes. We help clients connect their raw data, prepare and clean, and generally carry out the cycle. We then help them to extract insights, trends and work on forecasting so they can visualize their indicators in dashboards or in some ad hoc analysis. I'm the general manager and we are partners with Tableau.

The solution has several platforms or tools to visualize data and to build dashboards. The Tableau Prep tool is great for data preparation and this is the most valuable tool for preparing data, cleaning and building data models or data warehouses. The main issue, and most companies have the same problem, is updating data, which they can do with Tableau Server, where you can synchronize data to automatically refresh daily, weekly or monthly. It means your dashboards and KPIs will be updated. Most people know Tableau because you can build beautiful dashboards, but the main beneficial features are behind the scenes.

The product could be improved with more features in data analytics. Tableau is not currently a good database for handling built-in models for data science in order to test, train and run the models. It's not currently an AI tool or a tool for machine learning. Right now it's more for non-expert users. If they could improve their analytical capabilities for data science tasks, it would be a better product. In order to carry out data science tasks now, we have to use Vertica for big data projects to discover and run machine learning models. It would be very good if they had their own machine learning capabilities built in. I'd like to see more features in data analytics, AI and machine learning capabilities.

I've been using this solution for the past 12 years.

The stability is good, we haven't had many bugs. They provide many updates every week and we don't have problems with Tableau in general.

The solution is scalable, we have around 15% of our clients that are large scale businesses with the majority being small companies. We provide support for our customers.

Two or three years ago, technical support was very good. I think that now there are many more users of Tableau, the technical support is not as good as it used to be, particularly in terms of the depth of analysis. It's more general these days. You can buy their professional services in order to get better support.

Most companies find it very easy to implement Tableau and to make an impact with their data because it's very easy to install, to learn and to start using. For larger companies we combine Tableau with other solutions, such as Vertica or Alteryx or Hadoop or Python. That's a big project but most companies first need to solve their self-service BI. They need to find insights into their business and with Tableau it's very easy to do that. In minutes, you can gain many insights and discover knowledge without being an expert of business intelligence, let's say. Deployment takes an average of two months, it depends on the size of the company.

We are always evaluating this solution in relation to Microsoft Power BI and QlikView. Power BI requires knowledge of numerous other Microsoft products in order to get results from your implementation. You need an expert DBA that can handle it in cloud and many specialists to implement the Microsoft solution. People think that buying or using Power BI is all that they need to do, but that's not the case, Power BI is just the last step of the implementation. A lot needs to be done before implementation. It's the same when it comes to automatizing the data refresh. Tableau has just three products and you don't need much time to learn and to finish a project and be up and running. QlikView has less tools and less features for data preparation. Vertica is another database that handles built-in models for data science and for the data scientist, this is a good choice in order to run, test and train the models.

It's important to understand your needs because if you only need to build dashboards, Tableau is not essential. But if you need a deeper business intelligence project, and you have higher expectations, Tableau would be the solution. If you only need to build some dashboards, you can use Power BI, it's a very good tool and it's cheaper. If your project is more ambitious then go for Tableau. Tableau has a lot of experience and can solve all the typical problems. I rate this solution a nine out of 10.

The best feature of Tableau is the usability. It allows a business user to prototype something without going through IT and spending a lot of time and money trying to translate requirements. Going back and forth, it allows you to rapidly develop things that you need to analyze the data.

I also think, as I used SAP Business Objects before that and built out the reports, that you can build almost anything you need to, but it's a little more complicated. I would say Tableau is more like Apple, it just looks nice. It formats things. It just gives it to you in one way, as it assumes that is the way that everybody wants it. So it might be frustrating if Tableau doesn't give it to you the way you want. But usually, it does give it in a good enough way. So, it saves you a lot of time.

The thing I don't like is the refresh feature . The users can have the web page open and there's a browser refresh every 10 minutes, or every 30 minutes, whatever IT sets as the refresh rate. You lose everything when you have to refresh the page and it may take 30 seconds. So, that's a bit frustrating too. You expect that when you leave a browser page open, you want it to keep that view there.

I don't know if they've introduced it yet, but there is a connector with Smartsheet. We use Smartsheets a lot for project management and capturing data. We are basically exporting from Smartsheet to Excel, and then creating in Tableau and publishing it. I believe there is a connector now but I haven't actually used it. So that would be one useful feature; more connections to data sources.

I would sometimes get an error message stating “out of system resources”, but when I checked the RAM/CPU utilization in my laptop, it would appear that I had lots of resources.

Cisco has been using it for about seven years. Teams that I work with use it. I've contributed to the requirements of building dashboards with IT. I have been using Tableau for about three years.

There can be a memory hang, or the memory crashes sometimes. I'm not sure, but generally it's stable. I think it's when I build complicated data sets, like too many worksheets or too many reports in my workbook, this can happen, which is annoying.

I don't think it is scalable because of the stability issue. I think it's good for desktop; it's quick and dirty, making things you need, and you can actually build some really nice dashboards. It's scalable when you publish it to the server. Also, you can have as many users as you want accessing it. I have some impressions on how much data you can actually use at a time when you're building your reports.

I think technical support is OK. We have in-house support at Cisco, which is a team that supports Tableau as well, but we can go outside to Tableau support itself if we need help.

I found it easy to get started. I'm more of a technical user with an IT background, so I had no problems setting it up.

Get started using Tableau as it serves the purpose for most people.

There are many use cases and many projects. I have done level cost-based analysis and forecasting. I have also created one dashboard for their risk measurement.

The most valuable feature is the analytics part. You can use simple reporting by using the analytics by businesses and stakeholders, giving insight into that particular information. It also has data cleaning. It saved a lot of time for the application.

Every time, they create a new version of Tableau. We need to update that version and create a new EXE file. Any visualization tool should have one particular application that only needs to be updated rather than creating version one, like 2024.1.2. You can see many versions in Tableau. We are using this number of versions only because of the latest update. Having the latest update in the same application rather than creating multiple versions would be good.

Some features are not enabled in Tableau. We can use the measure or Python to use that. Every company or every person has its own requirement in Tableau. Suppose I am using an in-date format. I'm extracting data from my data source in some other format. At the same time, businesses want to view this information in different formats. I have to customize the data format. If possible, you and your team can work on the date format in the world. There are multiple data formats or data get views available in the report. You can also accommodate in the gate feature.

I have been using Tableau for almost five to six years.

Tableau is scalable software. Almost 500 people within my department are using this solution.

During COVID-19, I had a few issues. Our support team didn't support it. We requested to the Tableau team, and that person helped us. Sometimes, they have a good way. They have excellent knowledge, but sometimes, when you provide your source to a third party, they don't support us technically. 

Neutral

The initial setup of desktop application is straightforward. We can also creat,e athe  project and tha e end user can also create their own project, and later on, if needed, the support team can help us with that.

It takes ten working days minimum to complete creating dashboard and setup server. We are using dev and production environment. Some are also using a testing environment based on their requirement and discussion with the business.

Multiple team is responsible for their activities. At least five to six people are required  for deployment because someone is creating a dashboard and some person has their knowledge at server level. Also, some person needs to have their permission management.

I was not able to connect Tableau with SharePoint online. Microsoft Power BI can be connected with SharePoint easily online. It has many more facilities than the Tableau application.

The daily reporting or data analysis has seen many improvements with Tableau. We can manage the users accordingly while doing the drag-and-drop interface for that application. I can do Python and use Python Tableau language, which creates a lot of differences.

I have never faced any issues with data integration. Before COVID era, I was using SAP HANA. I could use it very frequently and use the data set accordingly.

I have never faced any such issues. It is a very good application. There are many more application which are also very good and very user friendly, but Tableau is also one of them. We have a direct live collection. Even business users share experience while connecting the live. They feel some hindrance while using this application when they refer us or when they filter the data. You can see the delay response in the page.

Tableau is a good application. I created any dashboard for the business, and business want to view their information. They like that application, and they are able to on this side, what purpose they wanted to develop this dashboard.

I recommend Tableau. There are many BI application. Tableau is one of them, as I I use it.

If the user want to view information, it would be go with their line. It is simple to understand, and take decision based on their information. It would be very good to have on comparison heat map or the pie chart.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

I primarily use Tableau for fair-market reporting.

I've been using it a lot for our dashboarding needs, circulating data to the business, generating PDFs, and publishing on the portal.

Over the time that I have used this solution, I've found the interface to be extremely user-friendly.

I especially like the flexibility that Tableau provides. You can quickly make web edits from version 9.0 onwards. My understanding is that Tableau 2020 has many more features for this, as well.

I customize the reports to my needs and preferences.

There is a lot of APIs available, which means that Tableau can be customized to a large extent.

Tableau had some issues with parameters. In particular, prior to version 2020, they did not have dynamic parameters.

Tableau cannot work with cubes or MDX (multidimensional expressions).

For enterprise-level users that are computing millions of records, they need to improve the features.

I have been using Tableau for close to five years.

In all aspects, Tableau has been very stable.

When there are millions of records, scaling up is quite difficult. There are, however, workarounds.

For example, you have to create summary tables or aggregate tables so that Tableau can be faster. There are third-party solutions like Kyvos available but if Tableau can integrate that and address the scalability, then it'll be an undisputed champion in the space.

Technical support is extremely good. Since we have been a customer of Tableau, they have always responded really well to our queries. This is true regarding price, as well as in the technical aspect.

They have a good knowledge forum.

I have worked with SAP BusinessObjects, Domo, SAP, and Birst.

One of the reasons that I prefer Tableau is that it's very user-friendly. Anyone who is familiar with Excel can easily adapt to Tableau.

We have been using Tableau for a long time, and we have seen a return on investment. The reason is that we have been able to scale it up to an enterprise level.

In the long run, there is definitely a return on investment.

Licensing is slightly on the higher side compared to other products, such as Birst. There are different licensing options so you really have to be careful when choosing them. I recommend that you discuss your needs with the salesperson and try to negotiate the price.

In general, the price is slightly higher than products such as Power BI and Birst.

Tableau is a solution that is near-perfect.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

It was used for a project in the capital finance domain. We used it to develop the dashboards. My role was to plan the development activity and prepare the dashboards.

All features are valuable. It is very user-friendly, and it is mostly drag-and-drop. If we have the dataset available, then we can develop any dashboard very quickly.

SAP BusinessObjects has some semantic layer designs that give the flexibility to do ad hoc reporting or dashboard designing. If that can be brought into Tableau, it would be great. We have the data in the database, but we should also be able to bring something between the database and the dashboard and do some semantic layer modeling for ad hoc reporting requirements.

I have been working with this solution for almost three years.

It is very stable and user-friendly. It is overall good.

I have used it only for building dashboards. I have not used it much for other areas, so I don't have any inputs about its scalability.

Its users are from the finance department. There are more than 20 people for that project, and they are using different dashboards. Its usage would expand in the future. They have a plan to also use it for machine learning. I am not sure if that would be a different team or if we will be involved, but machine learning is coming into the picture in the future.

We have experienced people in the company. Whenever we are stuck with something, or we want to achieve something new in Tableau, we consult each other. We help each other, and we get the solution. There is also a Tableau community where we can get help.

For any technical support, Tableau administrators raise the ticket and get the answers from Tableau's support team.

Initially, they were working on SAP BusinessObjects, and then they moved to Spotfire. After that, they moved to Tableau. SAP BusinessObjects was more for reporting purposes, whereas Tableau is for dashboarding purposes.

We also liked Tableau, and that's why we moved to Tableau. It is more user-friendly, and it is also better than SAP BusinessObjects in terms of look and feel. 

Its initial setup was easy. The time taken to develop dashboards depends on the dataset that we want and the data source with which we have to connect. We have to create the data source and the dataset, and then we have to develop the dashboards. If we have the datasets available and we have an understanding of the requirement, then in one or two days, we can develop a dashboard.

For its maintenance, there are three people in a project, and we are able to manage their requirements. There is one administrator and two developers.

If you have more ad hoc requirements, then I would recommend evaluating other BI tools as well. If you have fixed requirements and you know what type of dashboard or reporting is needed in advance, and it is not going to change very frequently, you can go for Tableau. It is very user-friendly. If product owners or users want to go for a self-serving tool, Tableau is the best option.

I am satisfied with it, but there is always a scope for improvement. This is a competitive market, so there will always be some scope for improvement. I would rate it a nine out of 10.

We are using Tableau to make a dashboard used by our internal users, and then it is being used for a KPI report. This part is also shared with our customers. The customers access the web, and they check some limited version of the KPI report.

We are using the Tableau server for clients and desktop. The solution is deployed on-prem. We are kind of a 3PL provider, and we are using Tableau to meet the requirements of our customers. We are implementers.

We introduced Tableau because it provides many features that can be customized by users. We provide training to make the dashboard look how our business side wants, and they are manipulating the dashboard for their needs.

On the technical side, we are IT support and sometimes we provide some education and information on how to use the solution.

I think it would be much better if Tableau provided some API-based integration. I did try to integrate the Tableau web page and web dashboard into our own application. Some parts were successful, but other parts have some open points. If Tableau provided this kind of package with some integration, it would be much, much better.

The most valuable feature is that we can integrate with our own database, and it will display the KPIs. This is highly required from the business side.

An improvement would be changing the design of the layout of the dashboard from the business side. Sometimes there are requests for the possibility to enhance the performance and the data depending on what they need more of. It depends on the situation.

I have been using Tableau for about four years.

It's already using 32 gigabytes of memory, but the performance is not so good. It's very heavy.

We have roughly 20 people using this solution. Most users have the role of logistics operator. Most users are doing their job regarding logistics, and they take more effort to make dashboards.

Currently, we have a strategy to open the reports to all customers, but I think we should develop more business-related skills, not only with the system or in some application terms. Our users do not have enough skills or insights for the dashboard.

We are doing our own technical support by searching the technical Wiki or things like that.

Initial setup is straightforward because it's a simple concept.

I'm not sure how long deployment takes because this is usually managed by our data engineer. There's no strategy regarding deployment itself. We just make some temporal or test dashboard and then communicate with our users. After confirming, we just announce it with email, and then they start to use it as an official version of the dashboard.

We didn't use an integrator, reseller, or consultant for the deployment. The number of staff required for deployment and maintenance just depends on the case. Sometimes it will be simple, so there are only two or three people to make suggestions. After they apply that, sometimes we officially open it.

Basically, we prefer a permanent license. A one-time charge is much better.

We didn't really evaluate other options. Every application provides some concept of a dashboard in using the data in that application. We have our own homemade dashboard and our business application, but users normally don't use it.

I think Tableau has many features for display, like graphs or pie charts. We can change dynamically, but our own dashboard doesn't provide that. It takes much more time if we change the layout there.

I would rate this solution 8 out of 10. Tableau has many features, and it's very nice, but it is very heavy. Tableau has to consume a lot of server resources.

It has many options and features but it's complicated. The users are having problems or difficulties to adapt or to learn the Tableau software because there are so many features. The many possibilities means that users should run a lot of it. It takes time to get used to Tableau. From my point of view, it's harder to learn.

For those who want to implement this product, I recommend that they research it themselves.