He wrote: "Seems like all of them have pros/cons. Tableau won in my mind but PowerView is brand new, its integrated with Sharepoint (if you're running SSRS 2012 in Sharepoint) and is of course free for the Excel version."
Do you agree with this analysis?
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Tableau is a great tool, no doubt about it. However we all want simple answer to the question of whether its the right tool for our organization and unfortunately, it really does depend.
If you have small amounts of data in relatively simple data sources and you need quick and dirty way to combine it into bling filled dashboards, that's one scenario that works well here. If you have a DW or EDW or datamart and have data explorers this may be a great tool for that. But this is not a one-size fits all. Tableau is a great data exploration and dashboarding tool for standalone thick clients or for certain types of need to deploy ability to read dashboards very cheaply (using their free reader). But it's NOT a DW and never will be. It relies on pre-aggregating your data or you'll tip it over. So will Qlickview and PowerPivot/PowerView. They are just nice visualizations of data - don't expect more than that. They are all subject to the laws of disparate data sources and data quality issues that will never get resolved by a reporting tool. If you try to turn it into an ETL and reporting tool, you're going to head down a road that takes you to a place that will not be easily sustained (masses of backend database aggregate tables, views, hardcoded business rules, etc etc)...
So bottom line is, I hope I don't have to be a Jedi knight to convince you that Tableau is not the Silver Bullet you're looking for. That bullet in fact (despite what some vendor or consultant will tell you) does not actually exist.
I have not compared the suggested Business Intelligence Software as suggested however, You must determine the end result you are looking for and the type of information gathering that will meet those results.
Thank you so much. Have a wonderful week.
It very much depends on your evaluation criteria and what you expect to achieve.
All of these tools have a client and server component and one of the key things for me is ease and simplicity of administration. Here I would say that Tableau wins the race. Another key area is the ability to deliver a self service interface, so that the business users can carry out Ad hoc analysis of KPI's. Once again Tableau comes out on top. Another key area is how well the tool supports the visualisation of the available data. Once more I believe that Tableau is the better tool.
I hope that this helps
I am still in the same process. Please let all of us out there know what the final analysis reveals.
I am only using Tableau now. One question: is Pow View or Power View?