Tableau Enterprise Reviews

• Easy and intuitive chart creation
• Easy conversion between different chart types and crosstabs
• Easy map-based charting
• Built in geo coordinates for cities, states, countries- Easy-to-create fields with formulas
• Ability to connect so many kinds of data sources

• Now, the business decisions are "data driven" based on Tableau
• There are standard interactive reports/dashboards.
• And there is a dedicated data analyst role.

• Tableau can handle only one joined/denormalized table, e.g. students, classrooms, teachers.
• Sometimes I need to analyze the joined/denormalized table from multiple perspectives in one single workbook.
• Create analysis both for students, teachers and classrooms
• To use simple drag-and-drop is not enough to show
  
  • Average student age per classrooms or teachers because some students have classes multiple times in the same classroom
  • Average grades per teacher
• Sometimes I would like to analyse both student-classroom and teacher-student or classroom-student relations out of the original joined/denormalized table.
• I think the Qlik Sense approach is better for this very specific case.

I have been using it for nine months.

Tableau 8.3 did not scale properly.
I had four cores, but Tableu 8.3 was single-threaded. Tableau froze once in a fortnight, and without saving either *.tde or *.twb, they lost their sync.

I used and liked the documentation and user forum very much, and found there either a solution, a workaround or at least an explanation to my problems.

Initial setup was easy.

• We bought official basic and advanced Tableau trainings.
• My local Tableau instances (on my desktop and AWS instances) were installed by me.
• The central Tableau server was installed by the BI and administrator teams.

For a large company, the ROI is really fast.

Always buying the latest Tableau Desktop Professional is too expensive for an individual analyst/developer.

My team evaluated 50 visual analysis tools in 2014. I also was one of the key developers of Cygron Datascope.

Tableau was selected because it is the common platform for both data analysts and regular users. Both groups can use it. Of course, analysts can utilize more advanced techniques, but even an average user can understand charts and do basic things after 60 minutes of training.

Go for it. It is an excellent product for the majority of analyses. However, for complex reports and decision support cases, custom application development might be needed.

• Easy interaction with data
• Variety of visualizations possible
• Integration with R and Alteryx

We do a lot of work for our clients helping them understand the impact of marketing campaigns on their business results. Tableau helps us tell stories with data.

It helps us shorten the interval between raw data and actionable insight. We used it to standardize basic tracking and optimization functions for our digital media campaigns. We’re also developing a broader analytics practice, diving into the impact of on-line and off-line media combined.

There is a pretty steep learning curve, the product would be better if it were somehow more intuitive to use.

I’ve been using Tableau for about three years.

We have a small number of licenses with one Tableau server; we haven’t had any deployment, stability or scalability issues yet.

Generally, technical support is very good; responsive with generally effective solutions.

We primarily used Excel prior to Tableau. We are aware of some of the others, but for us, it is not worth investing the time re-inventing our process.

Initial setup went well; straightforward to install and get started. Takes a while to master the basics.

Implemented in-house. It would be helpful to have someone with a year of Tableau experience on staff to speed ramp up.

ROI is difficult to estimate as a lot of our use case revolves around streamlining internal processes / analysis. We are now providing analytic solutions to clients where we price on our hours, plus pass through costs for seats on the Tableau Server and a monthly maintenance fee. As we scale this up, we expect to drive profitable revenue through our analytics products.

It makes sense to implement it in tandem with Alteryx. Use Alteryx to clean / prep data, and then visualize in Tableau. Tableau is not the place to try to clean / join data.

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.

• Flexibility producing visualizations
• Scalability

Anything and everything becomes fact-driven; we don't do a lot by gut feeling.

ETL functionality is limited, which is both a strength & weakness. It would be nice to have Alteryx & Tableau as a package, but I believe Tableau have deliberately stayed out of the "deep" ETL capabilities to "stick to the knitting", which they have done very well.

I have been using it for eight years.

Any issues we have encountered have been related to data preparation rather than the tool itself.

Technical support is excellent.

I have historically developed using SAP BusinessObjects and IBM Cognos for visualization and various tools for ETL. I have trialed Qlik and Power BI, but this has a much higher level of maturity at this stage.

Initial setup was significantly easier than other products I have used.

An in-house team implemented it. Your investment needs to be in data preparation, then the implementation of any of these analytics tools is much easier. Typically, I spend between 70 & 90% of project effort on data not the tool. If data is well prepared, the Tableau development is very quick and best handled by the business analysts, rather than any tech personnel.

To get the best from Tableau you need:

• Data preparation suitable for analytics applications. (This is not Tableau specific, the same is required for pretty much all analytics apps.)
• People bouncing off each other to get the creative process going. Consider internal show & tells and take advantage of local user groups
• Subscribe to "Viz of the Day” to get exposure to as many viz's as possible
• Tableau is (I believe) the best tool for data visualization. Equally consider investing n the best tools for data preparation, such as Alteryx. The combination of best data prep with best analytics capabilities is MUCH more powerful than either without the other.

• Drag and drop-oriented development process that facilitates rapid development of dashboards and reports
• Can connect to any data base in industry
• Sits really well on top of big data platforms
• Sharing and collaborative development is awesome with Tableau Server
• Excellent and visually rich visualizations

It should allow user-defined functions. There are several ideas logged by various Tableau developers in the community and they should implement those ideas as soon as they can.

I have been using it for more than three years now.

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

We are treated as valuable partners by Tableau, the engagement is very stable and we get expertise from Tableau technicians whenever we request it.

I have used other visualization tools in past. However, Tableau is much better than they are; much better compared to QlikView and Spotfire.

Very simple initial set up. Tableau provides setup guides on their websites.

Tableau implemented it for us. Always ask for Tableau's help to determine architecture and implementation of any Tableau server.

This is the best product in this category, among all BI tools available in market; top ranked as per Gartner's Magic Quadrant report.

The properties of each chart: It is helpful because in the world of analytics, not everyone is a developer; there are business analysts and directors as well, who want to play around and find quick solutions. If that requires coding or other settings, it would be more difficult or they don't even think of playing around. For developers, also, it’s easy to build reports as compared to coding.

Tableau gave us better visuals with more settings that help us find a better solution in the analysis world.

Performance improvement: Handling a huge amount of data and loading reports in a minimal time frame.

I used it for about two years, but very little in the past 12 months.

We moved to Tibco Spotfire because of performance issues in Tableau.

Technical support was 7/10.

We previously used SSRS and other analytics tools. We moved to Tableau because of its visual effects and because it was easy to develop with it.

My admin team handled the configuration.

We implemented it in-house, with a little help from vendor support.

Tableau is a good and growing tool in the business analytics world. It’s good to have it, but always compare and find out whether this tool meets your requirements.

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.

The live connection to data and publishing are the most valuable features of Tableau. You can connect to your data almost wherever it resides in a straightforward, simple connection. Your local dashboard is only one click away from being online and shareable with other users.

I have used Tableau in the last couple of companies I worked for and it helps any organization that has clients who need visualization.

It can also be very useful for internal purposes.

I would love to see some easier ways for predictive analysis or machine learning in Tableau. The only way to do it at the moment is manually and with the integration of other tools. I’m used to everything being fast and easy in Tableau and I think that can be a significant upgrade.

I have used it for four years.

I did not encounter any issues with deployment, stability or scalability. However, I would prefer an updating system within the tool instead of going to the website and downloading newer versions. Also, major updates are installed as a separate software on your PC, which can only be useful in some rare cases.

Technical support can sometime take a while to respond, but they are very helpful and friendly.

I use a lot of other tools, such as QlikView, because we deal with different clients who use different tools, so we need to have expertise in the different tools provided by the market leaders.

Initial setup is very straightforward and easy. You can install the desktop version in one click with no setup needed. As for the server version, the setup is also easy for non-technical users by following some simple step-by-step guides.

I have implemented through a vendor team and in-house. Because the implementation is easy, I would advise staying up-to-date and always using the latest releases.

ROI is strictly related to how are you using the tool. You can publish dashboards and embed them in a live website which can bring you more hits, or you can provide your users/clients access to your Tableau server, which is related to how much they are paying for that. Use your licenses wisely so they are worth the high amount you’re paying.

The most important thing that people need to know is that Tableau is ONLY a visualization tool (the best in the market). Don’t confuse it with other business intelligence, big data or data analytics tools. If you want to do fast and good looking customizable and interactive visualizations on data from one or multiple sources, Tableau is your tool.