Tableau Reviews

We just created the data visualization and analytics models and the complete setup file was sent to the client for deployment in their own premise as that was their client policy. We just created the solution and the solution was transferred to them.

We were trying to create a dashboard for the contractors in an oil and gas plant. It's for a million-dollar company. That was the level one priority. The use case involved a pilot project meant to drill down the visualization of each contractor and the sub-KPIs at a sub contracting level, plus the geographies involved. Tableau is a data visualization tool with analytics involved in it. The art was to create a set of dashboards that were geography-specific plus contractor-specific. Along with that, there were some common KPIs against which the visualization was supposed to cover as well.

The best part about Tableau is the visualization. 

Tableau has some amazing features. We can have some additional UI features that act like a skin. You can get it to really customize to your needs and then you can incorporate items as a plugin in your Tableau version and the user interface.

The graphics are quite good.

The solution can scale.

Technical support was helpful.

We found the solution to be quite stable.

Tableau is good, however, it lacks a bit on the integration side if you compare it to Power BI, for example. Power BI has quite a good amount of connectors. Even though Tableau does have some, Power BI works well with the Microsoft environment and most of the firms are in granular detail. That's where Microsoft shines. Maybe Tableau can collaborate with other bigger, well-recognized solutions in order to get an edge in the market the way Power BI does with Microsoft. 

The pricing is a bit expensive.

There's a bit of a learning curve for those new to implementing the solution.

We've been using the solution for less than a year so far. In the last eight months, we've developed and deployed the solution. We haven't been using it as long as, for example, Power BI.

It's a reliable solution. There's no doubt about it. The solution is stable. It does not crash or freeze. There are no bugs or glitches.

For deployment, the capacity was increased. It required really strong contractors also. That was easily manageable. It is quite scalable.

We had a team of around 20 developers who are working on the solution.

We only dealt with technical support once or twice. There wasn't a lot of interaction in the time we used Tableau. That said, they were always helpful and responsive. We were happy with their amount of assistance. 

We are also using Power BI. We use both products currently.

For us the solution's initial setup was complex as we were just aware of how to use Power BI previously. It was a completely new solution. We had to get an instructor to get the things in place.

I'd say it was about an eight-month installation process for the particular software. In-app work was one month and then seven months of development everything and all over the board.

We had an instructor assist us in the implementation process. and show us how to use the product.

We bought a monthly license as we were not able to continue with it long-term. It was simply a specific client requirement that was not needed forever.

The pricing of Tableau is a bit on a higher side compared to Power BI, however, for us, it didn't matter much as we were charging it to the client. That said, for a normal end-user, it would be considered a bit pricey compared to Power BI.

For Tableau we have been using only for a specific team within that also was for the external clients. That experience was only around eight months. However, it was a pretty good experience. Up to that point, we had been strictly using Power BI. Adding Tableau was for a specific client who just wanted the Tableau licenses created and developed for them.

We were using the latest version. It was not a cloud version. It was the desktop on-prem version we were using.

The solution would work well for small, medium, or large enterprises. It caters to all different sizes of companies.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten overall. We've mostly been quite happy with it.

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.

Tableau is very good in the front-end visualization compared to Power BI.

The look and feel of Tableau are the best when compared with Power BI.

Power BI meets with my expectations but the wow factor is in Tableau.

An issue that is common to both Tableau and Power BI is with large data sets. When it comes to large datasets, the data should be extracted faster.

Tableau should offer the end-user a desktop version that is free where they can go in and practice. There are other solutions that offer it for free such as Huawei, and the desktop version of Power BI is also free.

People tend to know if they want to learn visualization. They don't have a proper tool in place, they don't know how to or where to go to learn. If you give them the tool to learn and let them explore when they want to go into production, people are able to purchase the license. A 14-day trial version would not be enough time.

If they want to be competitive in the market, the price must be improved.

They should allow more than a 14-day trial version. It should be a longer duration otherwise no one will want to learn it.

Tableau is $35, whereas Power BI is only $9.90. Tableau is not competitive and should reduce its price.

SQL is the most important. Writing SQL queries is very important and that's the first foundation I would recommend for any juniors to start.

If they're not very strong in SQL then they will not be able to write the functions for both Power BI and Tableau. SQL is the foundation for anything.

I would rate Tableau a seven out of ten.

There are many and various use cases. Some use it internally for inter-department analytics, sales analytics, campaign management, and sentiment analysis.

The most valuable feature is the richness of its visualization and from a self-service standpoint, the ease of use.

The interface is fine. The functionality in the UI front is good as well.

It integrates easily.

From a UI visualization standpoint, I think it's pretty robust.

The data processing in Tableau is pathetic compared to Qlik.

In Qlik, I can replace my ELD layer for an application. This can't be done in Tableau.

The initial processing of data in Tableau takes a lot of effort.

If there could be a feature that a particular visual can be exported or just the data behind the particular visual can be exported in one single click, just one button on a visual and it exports the relevant data out to Excel or a CSV output, that would be good.

I have been using Tableau since 2014, maybe even before that.

It's pretty stable.

It's decently scalable. I have been able to scale it pretty easily.

Technical support is good. On a scale of five, I would say four.

The initial setup is neither straightforward nor complex.

Pricing is not bad. It's competitive.

I'm a BI Architect.

My recommendation for this solution would depend on the use cases.

I would rate Tableau and eight out of ten.

We use Tableau for BI reporting.

The most valuable feature is the interface, which is user-friendly and intuitive. Even for somebody new, who has no idea of how a BI tool is supposed to function from a technical standpoint, it is very intuitive. You simply import the data and then use the drag-and-drop capabilities.

Data cleansing and data transformation functionality need to be improved. Tableau is not a full-stack BI tool, like Sisense. Including this type of functionality would add flavor to the tool.

The main point is that Tableau requires the data to be in a certain format for the end-user, in order for them to create charts. If it's not in a certain format, or in a certain structure, then the user will have to manipulate it.

The charts in Tableau are quite limited.

I have been using Tableau for a few years.

Tableau caters to a lot of databases and flat files, which means that you can connect to multiple data sources. In this regard, I would say that it is quite scalable.

We have between 40 and 50 users in the company.

We are quite satisfied with community support. It is always there if you need any help and I am pretty happy with it.

I have worked with other BI tools including Spotfire and Power BI. There are not as visually appealing as Tableau and I would stay that purely from the UI perspective, Tableau definitely has the upper hand.

Conversely, Power BI has some capabilities that are missing in Tableau. Examples of this are charts and graphs. If you want to create something that's customizable, it's a very difficult and tedious task in Tableau. This is unlike Power BI or Sisense. 

The initial setup is very easy. Once you download it, it is a typical setup with a series of screens where you just press the Next button. Anybody can install it in a few minutes.

I am currently researching Sisense to get an idea of what the pros and cons of the different BI tools are. Sisense is a more complete tool that includes data cleaning, data transformation, and ETL capabilities right in the tool.

Tableau, on the other hand, is used for visualizations, dashboards, and storytelling. Their data has been cleaned or preprocessed in an SQL database beforehand.

Tableau is a product that I recommend.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use this business intelligence tool to build dashboards to display some of the statistical and analytical information that our company gathers. We develop a precision medicine software platform that enables academic and community healthcare providers to implement and scale precision medicine programming. We capture clinical data, genomic and other molecular data, biomedical knowledge, and the relationships among them. We also provide integrated complex genomic and clinical data to clinicians with actionable insights. 

Previously, we built the dashboards manually but this practice proved to be inefficient and ineffective since it meant we spent a lot of time debugging. It's was hard to find developers capable of doing that kind of work at scale. Since the Tableau community user base is so big and a lot of people can use it; the widespread support is one of the biggest benefits. Besides that, it's a fantastic framework to build dashboards and innovative visualizations.

One of the most valuable features is that the solution allows users to build interactive dashboards. This allows the end user to modify the criteria or the filtering if need be.

As far as for my personal use as a QA Engineer, I really value how extensive their API document support has been.

Improvements can be made in template support. The workbook file structure is really hard to version control. If there was some sort of version control support offered particularly for workbooks, that would help big time.

Another note is that the interactions within the UI are not fast enough and in certain instances, there have been issues with the intuitiveness of the tool. Such as delays in configuring and achieving some specific effects. 

I have to say Tableau does have excellent and extensive online support.

The solution is stable. I've never had any problems.

My impressions of the scalability of this solution are that there are ways to make it as scalable as you want. There have been some issues with the amount of the data that we had to use on the platform. We ended up using the extracts. It works fine now. I would say it is scalable.

I haven't contacted their live support or emailed them. Their documentation is fairly extensive and we also had a training session conducted by one of their partner companies. It was the Tableau Accelerated Course and that helped a lot.

The initial setup was straightforward with respect to the deployment. 

Tableau provides a UI which can be used to build a clear graphical visualization that allows quick and easy data comprehension. This functionality really helps turn data into scalable insights. This makes things a lot easier for people who don't have coding experience and with dedicated people focused on managing the visualizations, not requiring them all to be developers or to have any coding experience is a real plus.

If I was to give this solution a rating from one-to-ten, ten is the best, I'd rate it a 9 because it does all that we require of it and more. I would recommend this solution to my colleagues from another company. It's a nice tool to work with.  

I have a lot of experience using Tableau for the Healthcare Market. I use Tableau for visualization and reporting mostly. Main observations:

• Tableau is nice and smooth. 
• Tableau is quite user-friendly and easy to use. 
• The digital agents were really great. 
• Clients and customers liked the visualizations. 

Overall, I got positive feedback from clients by using Tableau.

I work for clients. That is my business model. Business people really like to see Tableau. They love Tableau because it is very user-friendly. The platform provides an easy to use interface, which is what most people like about it. 

Being easy to use is more important to me than the look and feel Tableau gives to your data. Nevertheless, data analytics is what we value the most. 

Tableau definitely has a big user community. If you get stuck or anything, you can easily seek help through that. Whenever you do this, you get good results.

The diagram drop facilities help to double up hard drive reports. The map facilities and the ability to connect with different data sources are the most valuable features. 

Tableau has a lot of different connectors, many of which are very new. You can connect many different data sources with Tableau. 

Overall, it was a good experience with Tableau and the visualization looks quite attractive with the proper combination of colors.

I have a lot of experience on the desktop version of Tableau. My recommendations for improvement for Tableau would be:

1. From the developer perspective, the data connection handling the target data set is what most needs to be improved. 
2. Tableau keeps evolving with each version. With Tableau 192019.2, they're coming again with some more features. 
3. Data preparation is where Tableau needs to work a lot on. Every time with Tableau you have to invest a lot of time preparing the data before you start using the visualizations.
4. Tableau doesn't perform well on big data processes. Suppose I was working with a file of like 1 or 2 gigabytes, then in that case Tableau is really slow. 

Sometimes I feel that Tableau is too slow when you have a big data file.

It's quite stable, aside from the data file which is not. Otherwise, Tableau doesn't hang.

Good scalability. Not that bad, not that great, it's good.

I didn't need technical support with Tableau.

We don't have any preference for other solutions. We depend on Tableau for the solutions based on the client's requirement. If a client requires Tableau, we develop the application and customize it.

A lot of complexity happens initially. Tableau is a little bit too complex. I started using the clear tool and application. Then you will feel comfortable with the tool and with the data. 

There will definitely be some tough, complex things in your development, especially with the data. The data preparation (combining everything else) has to work. 

Initially, all the data preparation tools have that kind of experience. In the beginning, you have some tough times and little complexity. Once you resolve this, the future and further development will come relatively easy.

First, clients should be comfortable with the existing resources or existing platform which the organization is using - that is one of the very important aspects before you decide on any new tool or any kind of new technology. 

Second, you want to go ahead and invite a new application into your current system. Ask how compatible the application is before you decide on any new product in your organization.

Third, you should consider if your employees are comfortable with the new incoming technology in terms of whether it’s easy to learn or adapt. Ask how comfortable your employees are before you bring any new tool into your organization

These are the key important points. I will rate Tableau at eight out of ten because there will be some shortcomings in the application that are not up to the mark.

• Data Interpreter: Which can identify issues or potential errors with your imported data.
• Split: When you need to split columns.
• Pivot: Good for changing date columns.
• Metadata: This selection can clean up field names, especially after a pivot.

• Data Interpreter: Can rid your data of null value fields.
• Split: Click on the column you want to split, identify how you want to split it, and where you want to split the data.
• Pivot: Great when you have many columns of dates. Just highlight your date columns, then right click and select Pivot. That's it. Now, your totals and region data will be based on any particular year.
• Metadata: You can select the second icon above your previewed data source. You can select the dropdown arrow for each Field Name you would like to change and you can split the names here as well, or double click on the Pivot name and correct the name where it makes more sense for the type of data you are using. You can create alias names as well.

Tableau is always good at improving, but I typically get so busy with utilizing what is there, I have not had any needs yet for improvement.

More recently in the past few months.

No deployment issues.

No stability issues.

No scalability issues.

I have not had to use customer service for Tableau. I just go online and google my needs typically.

I have not had to use technical support for Tableau yet. As with customer service, I just go online and google my needs typically.

I really like the user-friendly (usability, user experience) layout of Tableau. The visual layout for me is very appealing.

It is really straightforward, but I can see if someone has issues with the download and setup, you may want to contact technical support.

Implementation was in-house on my own. It was easy.

I have not measured this, but the time saved by allowing the tool to make the necessary changes instead of going back to the spreadsheet is definitely worth my time and the company's money.

Not sure about this, except that Tableau can be costly (but this can be indefinable, such as user experience vs. cheaper etc.)

Again, this was more based on learning curve and user experience for me. I've worked with MicroStrategy and BusinessObjects (learning curve is higher for me for these, then Tableau). Big thing here is the user experience for less savvy or non-technical people (from my experience). I'm sure MSTR and BO are good tools, just not my preference.

As I had mentioned above in regards to improvements, I believe every tool or application or databases for that matter can always use improvement. That's why we work in the field of data and/or IT, it's ever changing and improving, so we need to change and improve as well. Keep abreast of new things in the market and the improvements of the tools or apps you use on a daily basis. The last thing we want in our industry is to become complacent. Then again, we should never become complacent in any facets of our lives.