Tableau Reviews

This product is for non-technical users who know, or may not know, what they need but would like to automate their processes.

It has been the best tool to work with from a self-service point of view. The explorer capability in Tableau allows analysts to connect to data sources published on the tableau server, build their own product and customize reports.

The extremely intuitive and user-friendly UI helps naive users easily click and connect, drag and drop, and build fantastic visualizations. Of course, the back-end data structure needs to be strong for them to be able to do that, but it saves them a lot of time.

Licensing and pricing options could be made better so that more users would be able to use it. The biggest concern any organization has is its budget when trying to implement a new product. Tableau is an extremely powerful tool and hence expensive, but if there was a way to cut down the cost they would end up attracting more users.

Seven years.

Tableau is one of the most intelligent and dynamic visualization tools I have worked with. It provides dynamic adjustments of measures and dimensions. The reason this is useful is that it gives a business user multiple dimensions of data to look through. From these you can infer interesting business operation data characteristics.

Operational improvements have resulted from the efficient creation of ad hoc data visualizations in a timely manner.

The key feature of Tableau that has room for improvement is its performance with structured and unstructured data. I'm not sure I would suggest that Tableau go for a hardware oriented solution for this. Nevertheless, that would not be a bad approach to enhance the product and align with current marketing trends and its competitors.

Three years.

There were few issues with the stability of the product when there were features such as built-in data processing using TDE (Tableau Data Engine).

Not a lot here. Pretty scalable.

I would rate it as between very good and excellent.

Yes, we used MicroStrategy in the past. One of the reasons for the switch was to have more ad hoc data visualization and a more user-friendly tool for business; one which involved less coding and more GUI work.

The initial setup was not so straightforward. We had minor issues installing it across the enterprise, due to diverse technology in different business units. But none were actual showstoppers.

The pricing and licensing are generally high with Tableau. I thoroughly encourage their recent initiative of going to a “Tableau as a Service” business model, which aligns well with enterprises and also small and medium sized organizations. It even works for individuals who would like to learn Tableau and its core strengths.

We did evaluate QlikView. We actually have both in place, for various reasons.

The key point is if you would like to have faster, ad hoc and quick data visualizations, I would strongly recommend Tableau. But for enterprise-wide deployment and migration across different environments, I would say Tableau has room to improve further.

Ease of use, polished visualizations, all data elements are treated as discrete, the story-telling feature, self-service, excellent for visually exploring data with unknown questions.

Tableau is used in our Platform-as-a-Service offering for data visualization/exploration, seeking to retire a larger BI platform using it, good customer adoption/feedback.

Metadata/reuse, performance/scalability at high data volumes + high user concurrency, disparity between desktop vs. web versions – need to address enterprise requirements in general.

I have used Tableau for two years.

No issues with deployments/stability.

It does not perform well when you cross into TBs+ of data and thousands of users.

Technical support is very good.

For our PaaS data discovery needs at the time, we reviewed MicroStrategy 9.4 Visual Insight, which was not up to the capabilities/ease of use that Tableau had at the time.

Initial setup was straightforward, it is not a complex system to install.

We implemented it in-house, limited to no need for external assistance.

The ROI is unknown.

Licensing costs continue to increase in Tableau and in QlikView, which we also use, forcing us at some point to consider consolidating to one and/or turning some existing/owned MicroStrategy licensing inward to replace, if the upward pricing trend continues.

Pick the right tool for the job/consumers of the products. There is not a single product that can cover all personas/use cases well or there would be only one product out there commanding the world – and there’s simply not just one. Tableau is great if the targeted users want highly polished visualizations of the data and from an exploration use case, the question(s) for the data are unknown.

Ease of use (including frequently used calculations), drag and drop and interactive data visualization are the most valuable features of the product to me.

• Helped organization to identify the best time to roll out the campaign for summer cruise booking.
• Measured health plan product performance to identify health plan product(s) where organization is losing or making money.
• Source-to-destination mapping for health plan members to determine how far members travel to their primary care physician’s office from their residence to identify opportunities for service quality improvements.

We need a Tableau connector to connect to other BI tools like SAP BusinessObjects.

I have been using this product for over three years.

So far, I have never encountered any issues with deployment or stability. I do feel slowness rarely when I try to get data directly by connecting to Teradata database using SQL Query.

Technical support is excellent.

I did a POC with Tableau for my current organization and compared this tool with other BI tools.

I recommended Tableau for the following reasons: truly mature product, price-performance balance, ease of use, lot of flexibilities in regrouping the data on the fly, most of the frequently used calculations are built-in and very easy to use - unlike some other BI tools, which are quite clumsy - and for best interactive data visualization capabilities. Most importantly, a non-IT person can develop a simple dashboard without any IT help.

Initial setup was very straightforward.

I installed the Tableau desktop on my computer. Tableau servers are installed by our internal admins. It’s an easy installation and doesn’t need the vendor’s help.

Sometimes admin gets overwhelmed after Tableau is rolled out in the organization as users get up to the speed in a very short period of time, because of how easy it is to use the tool. Therefore, system access and resource planning should be done and properly planned ahead of time.

People should be aware of the fact that Tableau doesn’t have a semantic layer. It takes a good amount of time to prepare the dataset / data structure. Once the dataset is ready, the data visualization part doesn’t take much time, even for a fairly complex dashboard, because the tool is very intuitive and easy to use.

The ability to analyze data patterns in more visual dimensions (size, shape, color) than are realistically possible in Excel is the functionality most valuable to me.

Calculated fields are relatively simple and may leave a user wanting. Joining between multiple datasets also needs to be improved. (I heard this is an improvement that will be made with the version 10 release this summer.) Source data formatting requirements are a little particular, and reloading for new users can get repetitive.

I am a management consultant, and I have used this solution for multiple clients over the last two years.

I never had to use customer service.

Initial setup was extremely easy; when downloading the trial version or purchasing, just accept the defaults. There aren’t many ways you can screw this up.

I’d suggest taking the following steps:

1. Define what you want to get out of the tool. (People don’t always need these types of solutions, and this becomes evident once they actually get in there with the data they have.)
2. Make sure you have the existing data needed.
3. Download a trial version and play with the software and develop prototype dashboards and analysis
4. If you actually have a recurring need, then I’d look at purchasing Tableau desktop. If the need for use and analysis extends to many across the organization, Tableau Server could be your best option.

I also evaluated Qlik and Spotfire, but found Tableau to be more intuitive and visually appealing.

This product is the best visualization solution on the market. My rating is based on ease of use, visual appeal and additional functionality over Excel.

The best features of Tableau include:

• Freedom of connection: Its ability to connect to practically any database. There is no need to go through cryptic ODBC or other driver setup procedures.
• Freedom of exploration: The ease one can explore a data table. With simple drag and drop, you can produce easily readable cross tabs and paretos on-the-fly to learn everything you need to know about an unfamiliar table.
• Freedom of expression: You can pretty much build any type of analytic structure you need to analyze your data.
• Built-in visual best practices: Interfaces are clean and simple. You have to work hard to produce an ugly chart in Tableau.

With the ease of using Tableau, I am able to set up basic analytic structures in the meta data (dims and measures) with some starter chart types, then turn over to analysts who can then ask all the detailed questions of the data on their own without having to come back to me for every minor change.

• They still need to improve advanced query functions. Level of detail and table calcs have improved but still are difficult to use, especially when working with large data sets.
• The custom query editor has lots of room for improvement. If Tableau can add features and functionality here, it would be easier to work with the database in one environment, instead of having to open another query editor to develop custom queries for advanced analytics.
• The formatting interface is the one area that has lots of room for improvement, as well as the ability to be more precise in formatting. At the moment, it is much more of an all-or-none proposition.
• More integrated statistical functions.

I have used it since 2009, Tableau 5.

I have not encountered any deployment, stability or scalability issues. Although I do run into performance issues with Tableau server from time to time, it is not always easy to identify the root cause.

I have had so little need to use customer support, I can’t really rate them. Nonetheless, the few times when I have called, the level of understanding of complex data issues at the first few levels of support seems to be on the light side.

For the desktop edition, initial setup couldn’t be simpler. For the server edition, it is a bit more involved but that is to be expected.

It was implemented in house. For the server edition, an experienced server admin would definitely make the final install better.

My clients find the price tag for the desktop edition high, so they typically try to use the server/interactor edition, which for an analyst just doesn’t provide enough functionality to get the job done. Hopefully, as Tableau builds scale, they will be able to bring the price of the desktop edition down and get on more desktops, like Excel.

I have evaluated other competitive tools but in the end, my clients have always gone with Tableau.

The Tableau on-demand learning resources are fantastic to help a new user get going. There is a robust user community that is very generous with their time and knowledge to help you get through the learning curve.

Our customer uses Tableau for visual dashboard features.

The product offers an intuitive user interface, detailed screens and widgets, and the absence of data limitations. Its primary strength lies in visual analytics, allowing users to analyze data with visual compliance.

Tableau's data modeling, mining, and AI library features need improvement.

We have been using Tableau for five or six years.

The platform's cloud version is stable and has no CPU or RAM limitations. The dashboards work fast. In the case of an on-premise site, the stability is based on the hardware capacity.

The product is scalable. We have 50 users for it in our environment.

The initial setup is straightforward. It can be deployed in the cloud and on-premises as well. For successful implementation, one must ensure well-designed data regarding KPIs, data strategy, etc., if one has an in-depth understanding of easy deployment. One needs to log in and select the model for cloud implementation. Preparing a Tableau server environment for the project site takes around two days. It is a self-oriented structure and doesn't require any manual adjustment. It is easy to maintain and involves giving a few commands. However, one must update the product to avoid compatibility issues with Windows and Linux.

The product generates a value for investment.

Tableau has reasonable pricing similar to Power BI. It doesn't have any hidden costs.

Tableau has a good interface, is easy to deploy, and can be integrated with different AI systems. Compared to other vendors like SAP, the product's data layers need enhancement. Additionally, it could directly connect to cloud services similar to Power BI.

I rate Tableau a nine out of ten. I advise others to help from experienced consultant teams and trusted vendors for implementation. Another piece of advice is to begin small by downloading Tableau Desktop, testing it with your data, and familiarizing yourself with its logic. They can increase their knowledge with online training sources published on the product's website. It is free to access.