Tableau Enterprise Reviews

Tableau’s flexibility is its best feature. The types of data it handles, and the various data sources, allows me to quickly analyze and present data in ways that Excel (our old way) never made possible.

The old way of preparing reports in the past was to have an analyst extract data from an Oracle database, export the results into an Excel spreadsheet, and then format that spreadsheet for client consumption. This process was very time consuming and the final product rarely consistent, especially visually. Tableau has made it possible to skip all those steps, allowing the analyst to touch the database directly, do the analysis, and create an interactive - and much more informative - report with a standard look and feel. This allows the analyst to “connect” more with the data they’re analyzing and not act as data pullers only.

There are a couple of areas where I’d like to see improvement. One: in creating visual templates so that the vizzes can be standardized with our fonts/layouts/colours. As more analysts are starting to work with Tableau, it is becoming harder to maintain some of the visual standards. Being able to have more control over the layout of sheets on a dashboard would also be helpful. Two: we use a lot of statistical formulae in our work to determine standard deviations, percentiles, etc. Currently I’m working on a project where those SDs had to be pre-calculated in order to create a funnel plot correctly. I’m not exactly sure how we could have done this in Tableau directly without being able to create custom functions.

One tiny thing ... being able to have no colour for a mark would help hide marks you can’t exclude in other ways. Yes, sometimes we have to trick Tableau to do what we need to do ;)

Oh, and one more thing ... we’d love to see more Canada-specific map details built in ... things like health authorities, postal code areas, etc. Creating custom background maps is not easy.

We started working with Tableau (a limited number of licenses) in the beginning of 2015. I’ve been working with it since October 2015. Today, more and more licenses are being added throughout the ministry as Tableau’s benefits and uses become evident.

At this point, we have not had many issues of this sort. We don’t have a server yet. The only thing I can think of is there not being a warning when multiple people open the same workbook to work on – causing work to be lost in the process.

Technical support is very good ... that said, I’ve been lucky to not need it much. ;)

We have SAS (Enterprise Guide) as our main data extraction tool. Some areas of the ministry also use MicroStrategy. After reviewing all three BI tools, it became evident that Tableau offered the best solution for the kind of work we do.

I work in the Performance Measurement and Evaluation Branch and our main task is to monitor and report on the health system’s performance. We get data in a variety of formats from a variety of sources, and at various times throughout the year. In order to analyse and report these types of data, Tableau proved to be the most nimble and flexible of the three.

The setup was very easy – our IT department had no problems installing the software. They did have more trouble getting the Tableau Reader packaged for our enterprise-wide SelfServe store.

I believe it was through an in-house one.

The drag-and-drop interface and its flexibility are the product's most valuable features.

It requires only a one-time effort to design worksheets and dashboards. New data can be appended or a whole new set in the same data structure can be loaded to existing working files without much effort to obtain the same results.

I would like to see more Excel-like functionalities, perhaps, e.g. the countifs function. It is quite a hassle to code this using query language.

I have used Tableau for around one year.

Hassle-free deployment for desktop version.

Initial versions crashed when large data sets were loaded. Subsequent releases were more stable.

Technical support is excellent. Tableau consultants were eager to help.

We chose Tableau for its simplicity and ease of use.

For the desktop version, initial setup was straightforward.

The straightforward installation can be performed in-house.

A non-complicated licensing scheme exists for the desktop version. Buy, activate and use. Licensing was easily manageable with a license key that could be activated or deactivated on a system as required.

Try it out to see if it suits your organisational needs. To make the product work as desired, know how it works and implement workaround solutions if that is not readily available.

• Data blending
• Storytelling
• Easy-to-use dashboard

It is a self-service tool.

• Enterprise deployment
• Prompting features
• Writeback to tables

I’d like to see extraction after publishing.

I have been using it for three years.

Development report publishing to the test server should have pointed to the test DB instead of the dev DB.

I rate the level of customer service and technical support 9/10.

Initial setup was straightforward.

I implemented it independently.

An Interworks license is required if you do not directly purchase it from Tableau.

The most valuable feature of this product is that business people with no technical background can autonomously design and implement their visual reports, relieving the IT staff from this burden. On the other hand, despite its ease of use, the tool does not support highly complex visualization and filtering mechanisms.

The adoption of this platform has improved the interaction between the IT and the business departments, through an increased awareness and more effective involvement of business users in the definition of business requirements and reporting needs. Now, the IT people can mainly focus on the setup and administration of suitable data sources published on the server that business users can directly connect to and explore with Tableau's visual tools.

I would give it a perfect rating if it weren't for a few flaws and limits that make it slip off from perfection.

There are some weaknesses in the desktop tool that could be greatly improved, concerning the dashboard layout management and the initialization of parameters.

There are also some frustrating limitations in its data engine that sometimes make it hard to handle filtering and combining data from multiple data sources in the same dashboard. Hopefully such limitations are expected to be solved in the next upcoming release, version 10.

We have been using this product for more than two years.

We have never encountered relevant issues with our deployments. Only once, and for a limited time, we encountered a JavaScript incompatibility with Google Chrome browsers.

The technical support is very responsive, as well as customer service. They easily escalate to the developers if a bug or a performance issue arises.

Previously, we had been using the SAP BusinessObjects suite for BI reporting. There were too many issues regarding the complexity in development, the deployment of reports and, mostly, the performance and stability of dashboards.

After the bad experience with SAP BusinessObjects, we evaluated and adopted Tableau for its amazing straightforwardness in the representation of geo-referenced data on maps, which was a strict requirement from our sales & marketing department.

This is probably one of the major strengths of Tableau: It enables organizations to set up and run a collaborative BI reporting platform in just a few days, with a smooth learning curve.

Of course, fine tuning of operating parameters - when it comes to optimizing performance - requires some more care, but really the administration of the system is easy compared to other equivalent platforms.

We first started alone with in-house activities. Then, at a later time, we got some support from a local consulting company that was a Tableau partner.

In my opinion, a medium-sized company could adopt the platform without any significant support from outside.

I’m not in a position to make a reliable evaluation of ROI. However, I can firmly say that the cost of licenses is pretty fair and surely more convenient compared to other competitors.

The best way to have a clear perception of the potential of this product is just downloading a trial version of the desktop application and play with it a few days. In my case, that experience was clearly decisive in making the decision to buy.

Its desktop application is a beautifully designed tool - very powerful and intuitive. It allows a business user, with no knowledge of databases and query languages, to build in a matter of minutes complex and compelling visual dashboards that enable users to detect and highlight interesting patterns in data. The dashboards created can be published and shared through Tableau Server, a powerful web platform where dashboards are rendered efficiently in HTML5. A cloud version and a free public version are also available.

I have been using Tableau to visualize data sets. The three features that are most valuable to me are:

• Ease of use. Most of the configurations are accessed by drag and drop, so very little actual programming is required.
• Interactivity, especially the ability to use tool tips to identify exactly which points are plotting in an unusual or unexpected position. This is the first step in distinguishing outliers from important data features, which is an important part of data exploration.
• The ability to easily annotate and export finished plots for presentation purposes.

I have previously used Excel or R to perform exploratory data analysis. Tableau is easier and quicker, which means results can be obtained more quickly.

Some of the command choices have to be memorized and are not intuitive. It could be even easier to learn.

I have used it for about three months.

No issues with deployment, except I wish a version was available for Linux (Ubuntu).

I haven't needed technical support yet.

I previously used R for data exploratory analysis. I'm choosing Tableau because it is quicker, and exploratory data analysis by its nature requires a large variety and volume of output.

Initial setup was very simple; standard Windows installation.

Just me... No problems. Just note that Tableau workbooks are stored in their own file structure by default, not in the file where the data originated or where the exported charts are stored.

Tableau has a free trial, free versions for academic scholars/faculty, and a free public version. The paid versions are a little pricey, but likely worth it.

There is a public version you can implement for free. Its main restriction is the variety of data source connections that it supports. You can still work with the typical text or Excel files, but live database connections are not supported.

I think it's great at what it tries to do.

Dynamic interactive visualisation and publishing to server for distribution are the most valuable features of this product.

Used on client projects, it was mainly helpful for visualizing proofs of concept for further implementations.

Data preparation and joining different data sources is still not very intuitive and could be improved.

I have used it for three years.

I had no issues with deployment, stability or scalability.

Customer service is very good, very responsive and helpful.

Initial setup was very straightforward, no issues encountered.

The pricing is complex and could be simplified.

Some very good and fancy visualisations are possible with "tricks" (not very obvious how to do it). It is very helpful to use the Tableau community to see if the visualisation one is looking for is possible and how to do it. There are also many ways to get to a result, so don't look for one perfect solution as long as you get what you want.

• Rich visualization
• Data blending

Probably, these factors set Tableau apart from many of its competitors.

Because of data blending, we are able to source from multiple data sources. For example, we take the transaction data by connecting to the DB and the goals data comes as Excel from the business. It helps us easily blend the information.

Performance is one big area of improvement I believe. Being an in-memory analytical tool, I think lot of work needs to be done to make the reports’ performance faster.

I have been using it for three years.

I have not encountered any deployment, stability or scalability issues.

I rate technical support 9/10.

I've previously used Oracle Business Intelligence and SAP BusinessObjects. Both of them lack the rich viz that Tableau offers.

Initial setup was very straightforward.

Implementation was done in-house.

If you've previously used other BI tools, you need to be aware that Tableau doesn't have any semantic layer like OBIEE or BO. So, you might have to write lot of queries if the report involves complex logic.

• Amazing data visualization
• Excellent mobile support
• Low-cost solution to implement and upgrade
• Impressive integration
• Large customer base and resources
• Good customer support

It's a powerful business intelligence tool and is recognised as the cream of the crop for its visual-based data discovery that helps achieve our goals by responding faster to changes and needs in the market. We have reduced analysis delivery from weeks to days. But it is important to note that was for a PoC.

Some features where the product can improve are:

• It can be cost prohibitive.
• Little change management issues
• There is no functionality for scheduling and reports notification
• Needs the ability to build complicated reports
• Risky security and permissions

I have been using it the past eight months.

Tableau has been "good enough" for us in deployment.

It is very stable and we have been trying it without any issues for PoC purposes.

Technical support has resolved thousands of issues and is still expecting to improve in some areas of support through peer-to-peer assistance. It cements customer retention and loyalty.

Initial setup is simple and straightforward.

We implemented the solution in-house.

We installed a number of modern BI tools in order to evaluate them for our purposes. It didn’t take me long to discover that Tableau was much easier to use than the other tools. Since ours is a small organization and most importantly we tried it for a PoC because this tool has an amazing look and feel.

Proceed in a step-by-step manner of engaging users to find the best solution for the business. Be prepared to explore for yourselves how to analyse needs according to market trends, with the highest level of security management. Each and every step should be recorded and performed based on cross-domain analysis, so that it will be easy to implement in any kind of scenario.