We performed a comparison between SAP analytics cloud vs. Tableau based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Tableau users say the best feature is the ease of use, which allows anyone to use the platform. The visual capability helps users explain the data more straightforwardly. On the downside, users say Tableau could improve its data management and ETL features, especially in the Tableau Prep feature.
Comparison Results: SAP Analytics Cloud seems to be a superior solution because of the multiple features. Although the support is slow, it is still better than Tableau’s standard support. Tableau’s upgrades are also challenging to install.
"The most valuable feature of SAP Analytics Cloud is its integration with SAP."
"Visualization is quite seamless and awesome. Once the data messaging is set up, it's straightforward and simple to select how it should be displayed. So, that's another advantage of SAP."
"There is a really nice insight feature that I enjoy using."
"The features that are most valuable in SAP Analytics Cloud are the planning feature and the predictive analytics feature, though the planning feature needs to be more efficient."
"The Smart Predict, Smart Insights, and Smart Discovery predictive analysis features are quite good."
"A robust solution."
"SAP Analytics Cloud is very easy to use, and you don't require much technology. It has a very good library and analytics. It is easy to configure and offers good visualization."
"Planning and integration are the most valuable features. It is useful for planning, and it is useful for integrating with on-prem or cloud SAP solutions."
"The solution allows for the possibility for end-users to do their own reporting."
"The maps and colors and interface are all fantastic."
"I like the solution's web version, more so than Power BI's web version. It just makes it easier to drag and drop things and to blend data on the backend. It simplifies the process."
"The best thing I like about Tableau is that you don't have to go for creating; it is calculated free."
"Technical support has been responsive."
"One of the most valuable features of Tableau is that it's a visual analytics solution, not just a dashboarding solution. Compared to Power BI, which is a dashboarding solution, there are no limitations with Tableau. For example, when you add a chart or a map to Power BI, it has a 3,000-point limitation. When you try to track your whole vehicle on the map, you only see the first 3,000 rows on the map, and Power BI doesn't tell you which part of the data is shown on the map. But Tableau doesn't have any limitations, which means that you can see five million data points on a map. It starts the project by creating the visuals that directly converts to SQLs. In that way, all the components have no limitations. When we compared Tableau to Power BI, we also found Tableau to be more fancy. Fancy means you can create more visual graphics and more visual dashboards. With Power BI, this isn't so—it's just some tables and some simple charts together. Tableau is more for business users who want to analyze data. Tableau can directly connect the analytics systems, like R or Titan, and get the results in screen, so it's a good solution for analytics scientists. It has some predefined capabilities to understand the data."
"We frequently utilize visualizations using maps and different objects, all with rich coloring options. And tooltips are absolutely essential for us. Tooltips, like the pop-up descriptions when you hover over some object or graph. Those tooltips in Tableau are great features."
"Visualization attributes: Marks – Color, Size, Label, etc.. Easily Accessible and Intuitive."
"We need to know that we are using the latest and greatest, and SAP appears as if it has lost some credit in the market."
"What should be improved in SAP Analytics Cloud is the speed of importing information and data, e.g. from SAP S/4HANA. Gathering the data from the main database takes a bit of time."
"They need more support for more languages, Python for example."
"Pricing is fine for the BI license, but when it comes to client license, that fee is a bit high."
"SAP Analytics cloud needs better exporting options."
"SAP could add more templates to the platform."
"Sometimes there are speed issues with big deletion data."
"I would also like to have more advanced features for predictive analytics."
"Could have more integrations with different platforms."
"Tableau support could be improved."
"The forecasting feature in Tableau in my view is too limited because it must have dates but I should be able to predict the outcome of an event without having a date as part of the input."
"I would like to have the product be more flexible in terms of creating online shared dashboards."
"I am not a frequent user of this solution, so I am not sure what they've been doing recently. The last time when I used it, I had to use other tools with it for data extraction and cleansing. Its price should also be improved. It is more expensive than Power BI. In terms of training, there is generally better online training for Power BI, but I am not sure of that. It would be helpful to know from where to access its training."
"I also work as an SME on the platform side. Tableau is very nice and jazzy for the end-users, but there are pain points for the admins. Performance is something about which we hear a lot of complaints, such as the dashboard doesn't open in time. It performs well on the desktop but not on the server. I know that there is always a limitation when it comes to a huge amount of data or the complexity of the calculations, but we often hear from end-users about the performance on the server side. It is easy to drag and drop all the columns and do what we want, but if it is not going to load better on the server, users are not going to like it."
"There should be more widgets that would help less trained individuals create charts with less difficulty."
"When there are millions of records, scaling up is quite difficult."
SAP Analytics Cloud is ranked 5th in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools with 60 reviews while Tableau is ranked 2nd in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools with 293 reviews. SAP Analytics Cloud is rated 8.0, while Tableau is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of SAP Analytics Cloud writes "Good for reporting but needs to improve its predictive analytics features". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Tableau writes "Provides fast data access with in-memory extracts, makes it easy to create visualizations, and saves time". SAP Analytics Cloud is most compared with SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform, IBM Planning Analytics, Microsoft Power BI, Anaplan and IBM Cognos, whereas Tableau is most compared with Microsoft Power BI, Amazon QuickSight, Domo, SAS Visual Analytics and Qlik Sense. See our SAP Analytics Cloud vs. Tableau report.
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In case you are working for a small accounting firm, Tableau or Power Bi may cover all your needs. It is important, what kind of ERP system do you use. Are you running SAP S4/Hana, stay in SAP word. If you run other product look to other options. Does not make sense to use SAP AC only, far too expensive and will be hard to utilize fully. Solutions like Tableau or Power Bi are easy to use and will give you great result. On the other side it is not so much about the system, but about data quality, this is the key.
Tableau is a fantastic product. It works really well and is remarkably easy to use. SAP Analytics Cloud is also a good product. Both are quite inexpensive. Personally, I prefer Tableau for its ease of use and quick results.