Tableau Reviews

Ease of use. The power to do anything I want to do. The ability to connect to any data. The ability to merge ("Blend" data from multiple sources). Built in "best practices" in data visualization. Statistical capabilities with the "R" integration.

I'm a consultant - specializing in Tableau. It allows me to go into a client and be productive immediately. Also, it's ease of use helps me get in the doors, initially - I can walk in, connect to a client's real data, and find insights from that data, in a 30 minute meeting.

Everytime I make a request for a new feature, it is, typically, in the next release. I would like to see some additional calculation functions - maybe some statistical one for clients that do not want to have to learn R. As in every product, there are things it does not do, but, I've never had a user need I could not meet.

I started with Tableau Desktop in 2005. At that time I had been using Brio Query, Cognos, and some others. Once I saw Tableau, talked to the founders and heard where they were going, I started leaning toward Tableau & I've never looked back!

I've had no deployment issues. With some clients that have "specialized/custom designed environments", it may take a few minutes/hours longer to get everything running, but, Tableau Support has always been there for me.

I have had a couple crashes - usually linked back to something stupid I did in my Windows machine. I've done some work with the latest Mac version - have had no issues, in it...

Never. I do a BILLION+ record demo on my notebook, with sub-second response time. As in any other tool/application, proper design is still needed. Tableau affords me the advantage of being able to implement increment aggregate data sets without having IT involvement. THAT is BIG!

Customer Service: Excellent - best Customer Service in the industry, from my experience. I've never had a question or issue where I did not feel like I was their top priority...Technical Support: They suffered some growing pains, for a while. But, they seem to have implemented processes and procedures that aid in the support function. Right now, I rate them as excellent.

I was a Cognos and a Brio user / developer. Every update became more fragmented and harder to use - always seemed to be from acquisition, not smart & integrated, development. As an experienced BI consultant, I saw that Tableau's direction was where they all should have been going. Switching was the smartest business decision I ever made!

Server and Desktop install the same way. Double-click on the installer program - click "Next" a few times. Done. You can customize the Server installation, along the way. in many cases, that is not needed. The whole process is easy and fast. Desktop installs in a minute. Initial Server installation can take 10 minutes.

I've always done my own Tableau installations and upgrades - too easy to think about paying someone. There are consulting companies, that specialize in Tableau, for businesses that have too few resources, or, might have a complex environment. For the most part, Tableau Support can help with installation issues. Once set up, I advise clients to work with experienced consultants, for a short period of time, to set up a "production process".

As an independent consultant, I have no "projects" of my own. Two comments, 1. My entire income from consulting is based on my Tableau knowledge. In that sense, my ROI is an infinite percent. 2. I've seen clients find actionable insights so fast, and with so much bottom line impact, that the cost of implementing an enterprise environment was paid for, up front, from a two week trial copy of Tableau Desktop.

Tableau Desktop is $1999 per named user (Professional version). There are no add-on fees. Mapping, census demographics, R interface, ALL data connectors - are all included... From my perspective, and from my client's perspectives, the pricing model is ideal. You get it ALL for one price - no issues after the fact...

Yes & no. No real "project" to review where I was going. Many times, the client dictates what I would be using. As I developed into more a higher level consultant, I was always looking at new products, and updates from existing ones. In the last nine years, no one has come close to unseating Tableau as my choice...

Start NOW, In the free, full offering trial (2 weeks), coupled with the free on-demand training and passionate & active user community, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish. Many find they PAY for it, BEFORE they buy it! If you need help, there is Tableau Support, Tableau Consulting and a bunch of us in the independent world, all ready to assist.

I've used it for multiple purposes, for example, for exploratory analysis or just for dashboards for presentations.

I'd say it brings a centralized place to check day-to-day metrics and KPIs. It helps reduce the duplicated reports or sources of information to get the same data or information. Everyone knows that those dashboards are up to date. They know where to find the answers they're looking for.

I really like the interactivity of the dashboards.

I appreciate the fact that you can have filters and parameters so that users can really customize the view to what they want to see.

Truthfully, this solution offers pretty much everything that I need for my everyday tasks.

It seems that power BI is more targeted for report creation while Tableau is more of just a dashboard. If you need to have something report-like, or downloadable to share outside of the dashboard, that's where Tableau is lacking some features. 

Users would like to be able to export an Excel file when they see a table or something like that. That's not an out-of-the-box feature for Tableau.

I've used the solution for a year and a half so far. It hasn't been that long.

I've had a good experience with the stability. There are no bugs or glitches that I have experienced. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

We did have an issue with our server and it took a while for Tableau support to find a solution. However, that was a one-time thing. That's the only time where we've had issues with our server.

The scalability is pretty good. In our case, we did start small and we are now scaling in for our different departments. It's working great.

We are not a big group, however, I would say that we have around 80 to 100 users and that combines creators, explorers, and viewers - a little bit of everything.

We are getting used to it and using it more and more. We are expecting to increase usage in the future.

I've never been in touch with technical support. I cannot speak to how helpful or responsive they are. 

We did not previously use a different solution prior to adopting this product.

I wasn't around for the initial setup. I cannot speak to what the process was like and couldn't say if it is difficult or straightforward. 

We have some server admins that take care of it and work with Tableau to support it whenever needed. It's a group of people, however, I am unsure about the actual number of personnel that handles it directly. It might be three to five people. 

I've looked into Microsoft BI and downloaded some information about it recently.

I'm just an end-user of the product.

I'm likely using the latest version of the solution. 

Everything was implemented when I started, so I wouldn't know if there were any hiccups or best practices, or lessons learned from the process of setting it up. 

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten, from the experience I've had so far. It has helped us tremendously with our everyday reporting and things like that. I can do pretty much everything I want to do and it's been working fine for us.

On-premises

It is usually used to visualize how the data looks. It is used for drawing charts and different types of visualizations. You can visualize sales, profits, and metrics by geography, product categories, and so on.

I'm using the 2020 version. The latest version came out in 2021. I've not downloaded that one yet. I'm using the last year's version.

It is easy to use, and it can handle a large amount of data.

An advanced type of visualization is a bit tricky to create. It has something called a Calculated field, and that sometimes gets a bit difficult to use when you want to create an advanced type of visualization.

I've been using this solution for five to six years.

It is stable.

It is scalable. We have around 10 users.

I have not contacted their technical support.

It is just a matter of downloading the file from the internet and installing it. That's it.

It is pretty simple to use. We don't require anyone for its deployment and maintenance.

I believe it has a lifelong license, and once you purchase it, you don't have to renew it, but I'm not sure.

I would recommend this solution to others. I would rate Tableau an eight out of 10.

On-premises

We primarily use the solution for our data visualization, our different types of data. It is linked to our normal data visualization. It's not usually related to the medical side of the business. However, it is related to the revenue, and financial accounting, and submission on the RCM side. 

If I compare Tableau with Power BI, I prefer Tableau. It's easier to use.

The solution has very good drag-and-drop functionality and the screens are easy to navigate. You can easily create measures and dimensions. It has a user-friendly layout that makes task completion simple. In comparison, in Power BI, all of these actions are quite cumbersome.

It is quite similar to Excel. If a person has good Excel knowledge, it will be quite intuitive to learn.

Tableau is the whole package.

The solution allows you to write in SQL and Python. We don't need to write the Python code and we don't need to write the SQL script. However, it is an option that's on the table.

The solution is very stable.

You can scale the solution well.

It's very easy to set everything up.

There is another ETL tool for Tableau that is new. It takes time to reach some level of experience. IN Power BI, they have Power Query. I find it easier to convert the information in Power Query with a single shortcut key. That's not an option in Tableau. 

You have to prepare your data. It will take a lot of time to clean the data. 

There's no mature ETL tool in Tableau, which is quite a negative for them. They need to offer some built-in ETL tool that has a nice and easy drag-and-drop functionality.

There needs to be a bit more integration capability.

I've used the solution for about six months to one year. It wasn't very long. I used it at my previous organization. We're also using it at my current company. At this organization, we've only had it for about three or so months. It's quite new here. 

The solution is extremely stable. It's much more stable than, for example, Power BI. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's very reliable. The performance is great. We've never faced any stability issues while using the product.

I'm not sure how many users we actually have within the company. 

Tableau is one package and there isn't too much complexity. The main pieces are Tableau itself, Prep Builder and Tableau Server, and Tableau Mobile. Sorry, Tableau Online. These four are the most basic software pieces of Tableau.

Whenever you purchase Tableau, you will pay a bit more and more. You will have access to the four main software products. After this, there is no need to purchase something extra. Therefore, in Tableau, there is no scalability issue. In comparison, if you will to Microsoft, there is a lot of products - such as Power BI. There is Power Automate RPA and Power Apps and MicroPower Apps also. You will need to call to Microsoft and they will integrate this Power App with your account. It takes time. With Tableau, there isn't an issue like that. 

We haven't had any sort of technical issues. They did assist us a bit at the outset. and they were very good. They are always online and easily approachable. We're quite satisfied with their level of service.

We also use Power BI.

The initial setup was very simple. It's not a complex process.

They have an excellent team here over at Tableau. They assisted us. 

The setup wasn't too difficult due to the fact that our system is not very complex. We work with rather simple data, which helped save us from suffering through many complexities. 

Maintenance is required at our database level. Our database is smart and lean, and therefore it's pretty straightforward. However long it takes for maintenance tasks is based on the level of data and on the heaviness. We basically do a sort of troubleshooting and some fine-tuning at the database level.

At the time of making visualization, we have to do some research to load everything properly on Tableau and have a refresh rate we can maintain. There should not be too much of a refresh rate every time. 

We had Tableau's technical team help us here and there. They were great and we were satisfied with their help.

The pricing is $70 per month. You have to pay about $800 or something in that ballpark annually for one license.

We are a customer and an end-user.

We are currently using the latest version of the solution.

I would recommend the solution. If a company really wants to go for some easy solutions, and something that is robust and dynamic this is a great option. Microsoft's Power BI also has its advantages and could be a good option as well, depending on what a company needs. If Mircosoft offered a bit more, we might even consider switching over. However, for us, Tableau is the better option. 

I'm using Microsoft Power BI also. Therefore, personally, I see the importance of the ETL tool. Microsoft is also adding many items rapidly - with new features two or three times a month. Tableau isn't making such advances regularly. 

Many people are considering shifting from Tableau to Microsoft very seriously. Therefore, Tableau needs to begin to compete. They need to offer more integrations and invest in a robust and easy ETL solution. It would really assist in cleaning the data.

If a company wants to onboard Tableau, they need to have some sort of ETL tool on the side as well. If they don't, and they don't have SQL or Python, I'd actually direct them to Power BI - simply to get that ETL capability. However, if the data is ready, and no ETL is required, Tableau is an excellent solution. If you just need to visualize the data, Tableau is the best.

Overall, due to the lack of ETL, and the inability to effectively clean the data, I would rate the solution at a six out of ten.

On-premises

The speed with which it is possible to explore data is, for me, the best thing about Tableau. By this, I mean it is extremely easy to drill into data, which in turn shortens the time from having raw data to having useful, actionable insights. The aesthetics of the dashboards and adherence to data visualization best practices by default is also great.

Our organization’s workflows dictate that the front desk staff are supposed to collect demographic data from our customers. However, we knew that this was not happening. Tableau allowed us to very easily monitor which staff members were adhering to these workflows and which weren't. We could then do very targeted re-training of those staff members who needed it.

Two major improvements that I would like to see:
- A better/quicker interface for formatting graphs and dashboards. The current design takes too much time and doesn't really allow for the same formatting to be applied globally across all of the visualization.
- Improved data formatting prior to visualization. I do know that some improvements are coming with the next major release - for instance, the ability to join data across disparate data source types (e.g. joining CSV and SQL Server DB) - but this is currently a major limitation.

I have been using it for 2.5 years.

For the most part, we have not had any real issues here. That said, our "biggest" data is 10 million rows of mostly discrete data, so we aren't pushing the envelope.

Customer service and technical support have been very good for us. It's worth mentioning that the community forums are VERY active and will often provide answers from Tableau Masters faster than actual Tableau support can respond.

In late 2013, we tested QlikView Desktop and Yellowfin Analytics. They did not seem quite as powerful at the time. However, I have not evaluated those products since. In early 2016, I explored Microsoft Power BI and found the interface clunky compared to Tableau. It is, however, much cheaper.

We found setup straightforward with relatively few surprises. We did have to work through some issues with drivers to connect to a SQL Server 2008 database, which customer support did help with.

We had an in-house implementation (4 desktop licenses, 25 server licenses) and found learning Tableau to be relatively easy for our dedicated analysts (the desktop users). The biggest difficulty we found was getting the Tableau Server users to actually log in to look at the dashboards that we had created for them - often providing them with the data they requested. Getting the adoption by the business decision-makers was the hard part (and obviously that is a problem that would apply to any BI tool).

While I don't have specific $$ numbers, I can say that several reports that we were maintaining previously in Excel that took 4-5 hours to be updated manually each month, now can be updated in 20 seconds. I do think that this would probably be true of any of the products similar to Tableau available on the market now.

The video tutorials available on the Tableau site are very helpful. We spent many hours watching both the step-by-step tutorials as well as the broader webinars highlighting an organization Tableau use case for education and ideas on novel dashboards/metrics to develop.

The most valuable features of Tableau are:

• The ease of learning and use. Tableau is very user friendly. I have a few colleagues at my place of work that had never used it. Within a few months, they created brilliant content.
• The ability to connect to any data source without any reporting layer or meta-data layer needing to be developed. I can connect directly to Oracle tables & views, SQL Server objects, flat files, Excel files, anything. I don’t need to do any additional work in order to achieve this.
• The capability of creating brilliant, creative insights while still achieving data discovery. Tableau makes creating analysis fun and beautiful, while still finding incredible gold nuggets in the dark data of enterprises.
• The culture and support community around the product. There is a true excitement in the Tableau community and anyone who uses Tableau knows what I'm talking about. There are many user group community meetings around the globe that are educational, helpful and fun.
• The ability to share, collaborate and view content through Tableau Server or Tableau Public. It is easy to send users to a web portal to see content analysts create.
• The cost. Tableau is much lower priced than an Oracle-, SAP-, MicroStrategy-type product. The cost is similar to QlikView and a bit more than Microsoft PowerBI on its own (but you need an EA from Microsoft to leverage the lower pricing on PowerBI).
• The support. I can pick up my cell phone and call four people I know from Tableau and get their feedback and help right now.

We now are starting to remove the data silos. We are seeing how data visualization helps to lead to quicker actionable insight. It also has helped reduce the number of reports and dashboards the organization needs.

I am very excited about Tableau 10 and what has been built into the beta. I think with those changes and some we saw at TC15 that are coming, the product is poised to remain the industry leader.

I would like to see Tableau provide a bit better integration with the Microsoft Office platform. You can download your dashboard data to CSV or crosstab, but it’s not optimal. Even if it’s the best dashboard design ever, there are users that still want to see the numbers underneath. Until data visualization reaches a critical mass, like Excel did in the late 90s to early 2000s, we still will need a way to give access to some of the underlying data in an easy way for Microsoft Office to consume.

I have used it for 3 1/2 years.

I have not encountered any issues. Deployment, stability and scalability have been fantastic. We've had a few bugs, two of which were fixed by Tableau support and one took a bit longer and was fixed in a release. However, we've not had long-term outages due to any issues. Installing Tableau is easy. Upgrading the server could be easier, but I think they have addressed that with version 10.

Customer service and support at Tableau is top notch. I haven't seen a better organization in technology with this.

I have used Oracle OBIEE before and Tableau beats that product on cost, usability and ease/speed of development. I don't have to know how to develop the RPD or meta-data layer. Tableau does that behind the scenes when I import a data source. Tableau was also much cheaper than OBIEE.

We also own PowerBI and Tableau is significantly better at ease of use and the number of data sources.

Initial setup was straightforward. We had a rapid start-up "team" come and help us but it was one person and he was done in two days.

Tableau sent out one of their partners, Interworks. I would highly recommend Interworks to help with Implementation. They can make the most of the implementation with their Drive methodology.

Our first dashboard caught an issue in the system and almost completely paid for the server license with the money saved.

Negotiate the server license. The desktop license price is pretty set.

Find a couple of good, quick-win use cases and don't necessarily re-create the dashboard or report in Tableau, but find a way to tell something about the business that wasn't already known.

Valuable features include the various “Show Me” graph options; the ability to do forecasting (which is an area that Tableau needs to continue growing its modeling capabilities); and the immediate responsiveness to adding dimensions/measures and their effect on the visualization.

We have used Tableau to develop institutional dashboards for the university. We’ve used it to illustrate trends in cash balances, research grant expenditure trends, and student metrics and performance.

I’d like to see the forecasting capabilities expanded from an algorithm standpoint to offer different options for multi-variate forecasting. I think they can improve the ability to integrate with web pages. I’d like to see a more secure option for data regarding HIPAA regulations.

We’ve been using the Tableau solution for over three years. We started out with about 30 users and have grown to over 350 interactors and 50 authors.

A strong guide to help determine the scaling up options does not exist; it is still new to third-party support consultants which performance options are the best. I do like the fact that AWS has a one-click solution, but it needs more of a config wizard to better outline what storage/memory impacts choices will produce.

We have experienced less-than-preferable service with the technical support. For a while, it felt like they were experimenting for answers, even with complete log and infrastructure details. Their response time to issues is not acceptable for customers who are paying for core licenses, and they acknowledge that.

Initial setup was straightforward; the upgrade path is also straightforward.

We implemented from within our team. We did engage with a consultant about two years later to see how we were doing and discuss the next steps with server admin training. The results were acceptable.

Pricing continues to be a sore spot. Desktop licensing discounts in bulk do not exist, which is challenging for a non-profit. Server core licensing is also prohibitive from an expansion standpoint.

We only went with Tableau based on the feature set and the user base reviews.

There is a lot of competition brewing with other visualization providers that may be at better cost points. Definitely go in and deep dive/experience the other solutions. Though Tableau has a great reputation for ease of use, there definitely is a learning curve to optimize it, and other solutions like Microsoft Power BI and Qlik are making progress.