Tableau Reviews

My team is working with Tableau to give presentations, create dashboards, and fetch reports from the system.

Tableau is a fantastic tool that provides impressive dashboards and customized reports.

The solution’s pricing could be improved.

My team has been using Tableau for the last eight to nine months.

Earlier, we were using only Power BI, which had certain limitations. We could not go beyond the maximum output we had expected. We observed multiple facilities or benefits after buying Tableau. The dashboards are getting more presentable, and we are getting customized reports. Things are in place after getting Tableau into our systems. We are getting appropriate dashboards and reporting with the solution.

Tools like Tableau are not cloud-native services of the cloud and the cloud environment. So, it is very difficult to secure things, move to the cloud, and deploy things onto the cloud. Setting up Tableau on the cloud requires a different skill set because the cloud is a different environment altogether, and data center technologies are something else. Although it's more or less the same, people are unfamiliar with the cloud these days.

Once the environment was set up, it hardly took a week to configure everything in the cloud environment. The team concerned worked with system integrators, who successfully set up everything. We are working seamlessly, and there are no problems as of now.

Tableau is an expensive solution compared to Power BI. We have paid the upfront cost for Tableau, which is 40% more expensive than Power BI.

We realized the benefits of Tableau within a month or so. We got the appropriate skill set to work on the solution directly and got fantastic outputs after deploying it in our systems.

We are working with the government directly. The government has observed that the tool is fantastic. The tool has multiple features, and they are getting the desired output. We are still exploring how many other features and functionalities of Tableau we can use.

We are still trying to integrate Tableau with other platforms to exploit the maximum potential of the portals, services, or software. We are still exploring those opportunities. We have integrated the solution with different schemes and applications, and it works seamlessly.

We are still discovering how many other platforms can be integrated with Tableau. As of now, we haven't faced any issues. We may face some challenges because we are currently trying to integrate it with the SAP environment.

I strongly recommend Tableau to other users because it is a fantastic tool that provides impressive dashboards and customized reports.

Overall, I rate the solution ten out of ten.

We are majorly using it for our procurement business area. We have created almost 50 to 60 dashboards for the entire procurement cycle. We have used it for procure-to-pay, and we have also used it for our retail business. We have a lot of petrol bunks, and we get a lot of data from them regarding sales and other things. So, procure-to-pay and retail business are the main use cases.

We've been using its latest update. It is on-premise. All our solutions are on-prem because we are in the Oil and Gas sector, and data is very critical for us. We have not yet migrated anything to the cloud.

It is very easy to build charts and drag and drop the fields that are there. It automatically identifies the dimensions and measures and makes our life easier when we need to build any dashboard. It is pretty user-friendly.

Its visualizations are good, and its features make the development process a little less time-consuming. It has an in-memory extract feature that allows us to extract data and keep it on the server, and then our users can use it quickly.

When it comes to visualizations, Tableau has a limitation as compared to Power BI. It has a limited set of visualizations. Power BI has the entire marketplace, so you can connect and import many visualizations and use them, whereas Tableau has only 10 or 15 visualizations. There should be more visualizations, and there should also be data integration with more cloud providers.

Tableau has recently launched a paid version for the documentation. So, documentation has become a little bit challenging when it comes to Tableau development because we do not have any tool to export the data out of it. It is a license-based feature that you need to purchase to prepare documentation. So, on the documentation front, for preparing clear documentation for any dashboard, it would help if we get an embedded option, rather than buying a license for each user for the documentation. To document anything, if I have to connect to each workbook and see what has been written as a formula and then document in the Word document, it is pretty time-consuming.

We have the Microsoft stack, and we are currently evaluating Power BI because Tableau has a limitation of 50 columns for a drill-down report. If we want more than 50 columns, we have found a hack, but there is no ready-made option for doing it. So, we have to use another tool in case we need a drilled report with more than 50 columns. There are many instances where users need 80 or 90 columns for their analysis, and switching between two technologies becomes a challenge. It is not a cost-effective approach for us.

Their support should be improved. We are not happy with their support. Whenever we raised queries, we were pointed to a few blogs, and we didn't get a proper solution from them.

Their licensing should also be improved. They want us to purchase a Tableau Creator license for business users, whereas Power BI Desktop is free for business users. They should come up with a basic license with one or two connectors that our business users can use for preparing their visualizations. Tableau also charges us per user for users who want the data only through email.

Tableau has been in our organization for more than four years.

Its performance and stability are good. Because we are not on the cloud, and it is on our internal servers, it is performing well.

I have a team of three people who are Tableau developers, and they have been working with me. We have one Tableau senior developer who does the server administration, as well as major Tableau development. Two members are supporting him on small dashboard developments.

When we were given the first project, we had hired a consulting company called PWC. They had implemented Tableau for us for procure-to-pay. They had deployed one project manager, one Tableau developer, and one MSBI because the data is on SQL. After that, for our support, we hired one senior Tableau resource, and then we internally trained two people. They have been using Tableau and supporting us.

We were not happy with their support. We did not get many solutions. Whenever we raised queries, we were diverted to a few blogs here and there. 

Even for the production issue, they didn't give proper support to us. There was a lack of clarity about how to resolve the issue. They work in shifts. So, one person hands over the ticket to another person, and we again have to explain. We had also approached our sales representatives, but unfortunately, because of Tableau being acquired by Salesforce, the team had changed. We had lost all points of contact because of which it was a little chaotic to get support when we needed it the most. 

Now, the first step we take is to go and search on Google about the issue and also on Tableau blogs and forums. That's because whenever we first approach Tableau support, we anyways get pointed to those blogs. So, we first try to search on our own. If we are still struggling, only then we approach Tableau support.

The initial setup of Tableau was not much complicated for us because we had hired a partner for its implementation.

It was implemented almost four years ago, and it probably took 10 to 15 days because it also involved getting the server, configuring it, and then doing proper configuration of the rights, etc. It is on-prem. So, we had to take care of a lot of security factors, such as opening the ports, etc. The vendor had to develop and establish proper architecture based on our security policies, and that is the reason it took more time. For simpler infrastructure, the deployment would take less time.

In terms of maintenance, Tableau does require maintenance from our end. We need to ensure that the servers are basically up and running. Sometimes, the upgrades come, and they have to be done properly. We had one instance where we rebooted without stopping the Tableau services and our entire server got corrupted. Luckily, with support from Tableau, we found the solution, and we could get back our project. So, it requires monitoring and server administration in terms of closing the services, giving the user access, and ensuring that the database size is proper because they use PostgreSQL as a backend for Tableau. These things are required to be maintained and overseen, and the licenses also need to be monitored. So, it requires a lot of administration activity and server maintenance because we are not on the cloud.

A partner had implemented it for us. We didn't find its installation much of a hassle.

Tableau is a little cheaper as compared to Power BI and other technologies that we have used in the past. However, if the business users in our organization want to make presentations, Tableau has been asking us to purchase a Tableau Creator license, and $35 per month is expensive for business users.

Power BI is giving a free desktop version for business users to connect to any data source and build their own dashboards. That's why we have proposed to use Power BI for most of the business users in our organization. We wanted them to be able to create charts and presentations for the management, and we didn't want to spend $35 per month on a Tableau Creator license. We tried to give them a Tableau Explorer license. We had purchased 15 licenses, but the Tableau Explorer license had a limitation where it did not allow business users to connect to their own data source. So, they had to come to IT to connect to the data source, which didn't work well for us. That's why we told them to use Power BI Desktop. This is where Power BI wins over Tableau. 

In 2011, we had purchased perpetual licenses for Tableau, and at that time, they were selling its perpetual license at $1,500. We had purchased these licenses for our business users, and they were making a lot of visualizations for presentations, but about a year or two ago, Tableau stopped issuing that license. Tableau can come up with a basic license for connecting with Excel because most of the business users only connect to Excel for preparing their visualization. They can provide one or two connectors at a cheaper rate than the Creator license. It would help them in promoting it to more business users and increase users across the organization.

Most of our users are on the field, and because we are not on the cloud, one of the challenges with Tableau was about giving access to them. They didn't want to log in to Tableau Mobile, and they wanted the data in email. We have around 400 territory sales managers who want to see the data in email. When we have to publish that, Tableau charges us per user, even if they're not going to the dashboard to view it. For sending an email, they charge you per user. So, if I have to send an email to 400 users who don't even use dashboards, it becomes expensive. That's why we moved to MSBI, which is free for us. We have bought a perpetual core-based license, and we can send an email to unlimited users. We no longer use Tableau in this use case.

We are currently using two tools, and we are considering moving to Power BI. We are evaluating whether we want to move to the cloud or not. If we are moving to the cloud, we may completely move to Power BI in the future. If we move to the cloud, we mostly would move to Azure, and integrating Azure and Tableau doesn't make sense. We are also considering the pricing point.

First, I would advise evaluating the data stack or database that you have, and based on that, you should make the decision of going ahead with Tableau or another technology. If you are on Azure, going for Tableau doesn't make sense. If you are on AWS or Google cloud, they have their own visualizations. So, the integration becomes a little challenging. You also need to see whether connectors are readily available for your database stack. For example, Tableau has a connector for SAP HANA, but it doesn't have a connector for SAP ECC, which is the older version. My organization is still on ECC, so we had to buy another connector to pull the data into our SQL, which increased the total cost of ownership for the company. Therefore, you need to first understand your database architecture and the kind of data you have been using and then move to visualizations.

Second, while implementing Tableau, you should not keep developing dashboards after dashboards. That's because they would require maintenance as you grow. The maintenance cost increases as you grow. Therefore, you should first evaluate the scope and then go ahead and build dashboards. 

Third, there are many selling partners, and they loop you in with a minimum purchase, such as 5 Creator licenses, 15 Explorer licenses, and 100 user licenses for two to three years, which is binding. You should evaluate licensing options properly because when you are starting a journey, you don't want to spend so much at an initial stage. One Creator license, one or two Explorer licenses, and 20 to 30 user licenses are generally fine. You should negotiate on the number. Otherwise, your licenses are underutilized. This is where we could have saved money while purchasing Tableau. We are now juggling between two technologies for drill-down reports.

Fourth, if you want to send an email to your team on the field, you need to understand and ask about how many users would subscribe to emails. If most of the users are going to just subscribe to emails and not use Tableau as a dashboarding tool, it is a waste of money. In most organizations, senior management doesn't like to go to the mobile app. They want to get information through email, and if you are buying a license just to send an email, it is a waste of money for the organization. 

I would rate it an eight out of ten. Two-point reduction is mainly because of the support quality, visualization limit, and lack of documentation capability.

On-premises

We use the solution for the client's management of KPIs; it involves monitoring various aspects. If they are a manufacturing company, key performance indicators revolve around production and other relevant factors.

The solution helps users create dashboards and analyze data without relying on IT or product teams. 

The tool's OpenAI integration was announced last year. However, it is late. Tableau is a good solution for end customers. However, there are some concerns regarding the stability and performance of its server architecture, including SaaS services. The server side appears unstable, and performance issues are noticeable, often accompanied by unclear error messages.

I have been working with the product for seven years. 

I rate Tableau's stability a nine out of ten. 

Our experience spans around 70 customers, covering manufacturing, pharmacy, trading, construction, universities, and the public sector. I rate the product's scalability a seven out of ten. 

The tech support takes too much time to respond.

Neutral

I rate the tool's setup a ten out of ten. While setting Tableau servers for customers, we often encounter challenges that vary based on their network configuration and operating systems, such as Windows or Linux.

In Korea, the tool's pricing depends on the scale of usage. For instance, it's reasonable for a department with fewer than 50 users to adopt Tableau, like sales. However, the pricing becomes an issue when considering an enterprise solution for a larger user base, say 10,000 people.

Tableau is integrating OpenAI's GPT feature. It will help to create automatic dashboards with natural language. Only ten percent of our customers use Tableau in the cloud since they prioritize their data. They don't want to import their data to the cloud. It is as per their policies and security advice. Traditional companies don't like exporting customer data outside the organizational network. 

Japanese data centers often support Korea. However, the challenge arises from the absence of a federal cloud data center in Korea. Consequently, utilizing Tableau Cloud may result in data being exported outside the country. This is not allowed legally for financial entities such as banks. 

However, the government does not regulate smaller companies like startups. Hence, they are more open to the cloud. This is not the case for public entities. They should install the software in the government's cloud. 

Our clients for Tableau are mainly enterprise businesses. I rate it a nine out of ten. 

On-premises

We use Tableau for the dashboard features. It helps us with the global planning of our business.

The product has the best features for analytical views and filters. Its integration with Jira helps us prepare intuitive dashboards with filters to share different details of broad-scale planning for a quarter or a year of our business.

The product’s router could be better in terms of readability. When we put more information on a single screen, it gets compressed and superimposed in many places while scrolling. It could be improved.

We are using the beta version of Tableau.

I rate the product’s stability seven or eight out of ten. I have never seen it crash.

The product’s scalability is good; I rate it a seven or eight out of ten. I have seen many people concurrently using it.

The product is deployed on the cloud. I rate its initial setup process a five or six out of ten. It is difficult because it has complex documentation, and I am still learning it. A team is involved in the implementation. It takes three hours to complete the process.

I advise others to opt for a POC and proceed with the product. I rate it a seven out of ten.

There are many use cases and many projects. I have done level cost-based analysis and forecasting. I have also created one dashboard for their risk measurement.

The most valuable feature is the analytics part. You can use simple reporting by using the analytics by businesses and stakeholders, giving insight into that particular information. It also has data cleaning. It saved a lot of time for the application.

Every time, they create a new version of Tableau. We need to update that version and create a new EXE file. Any visualization tool should have one particular application that only needs to be updated rather than creating version one, like 2024.1.2. You can see many versions in Tableau. We are using this number of versions only because of the latest update. Having the latest update in the same application rather than creating multiple versions would be good.

Some features are not enabled in Tableau. We can use the measure or Python to use that. Every company or every person has its own requirement in Tableau. Suppose I am using an in-date format. I'm extracting data from my data source in some other format. At the same time, businesses want to view this information in different formats. I have to customize the data format. If possible, you and your team can work on the date format in the world. There are multiple data formats or data get views available in the report. You can also accommodate in the gate feature.

I have been using Tableau for almost five to six years.

Tableau is scalable software. Almost 500 people within my department are using this solution.

During COVID-19, I had a few issues. Our support team didn't support it. We requested to the Tableau team, and that person helped us. Sometimes, they have a good way. They have excellent knowledge, but sometimes, when you provide your source to a third party, they don't support us technically. 

Neutral

The initial setup of desktop application is straightforward. We can also creat,e athe  project and tha e end user can also create their own project, and later on, if needed, the support team can help us with that.

It takes ten working days minimum to complete creating dashboard and setup server. We are using dev and production environment. Some are also using a testing environment based on their requirement and discussion with the business.

Multiple team is responsible for their activities. At least five to six people are required  for deployment because someone is creating a dashboard and some person has their knowledge at server level. Also, some person needs to have their permission management.

I was not able to connect Tableau with SharePoint online. Microsoft Power BI can be connected with SharePoint easily online. It has many more facilities than the Tableau application.

The daily reporting or data analysis has seen many improvements with Tableau. We can manage the users accordingly while doing the drag-and-drop interface for that application. I can do Python and use Python Tableau language, which creates a lot of differences.

I have never faced any issues with data integration. Before COVID era, I was using SAP HANA. I could use it very frequently and use the data set accordingly.

I have never faced any such issues. It is a very good application. There are many more application which are also very good and very user friendly, but Tableau is also one of them. We have a direct live collection. Even business users share experience while connecting the live. They feel some hindrance while using this application when they refer us or when they filter the data. You can see the delay response in the page.

Tableau is a good application. I created any dashboard for the business, and business want to view their information. They like that application, and they are able to on this side, what purpose they wanted to develop this dashboard.

I recommend Tableau. There are many BI application. Tableau is one of them, as I I use it.

If the user want to view information, it would be go with their line. It is simple to understand, and take decision based on their information. It would be very good to have on comparison heat map or the pie chart.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

We use the product to build diverse dashboards for a revenue authority. It helps us analyze taxpayer behavior to understand payment patterns and identify areas for improvement in compliance.

The platform's most important feature is predictive analysis. We can map taxpayers' locations with data and connectivity to databases and sources. We can forecast future trends using the visualization feature. These are a few features that make it unique.

The product's features for cloud integration need improvement. They should revise licensing and pricing models to cater to smaller enterprises. Users must be able to customize and write their code similarly to one of its competitors. Many companies have in-house data science models for Twitter or Facebook based on predictive analysis. There is a possibility of integrating these models seamlessly into Tableau.

We have been using Tableau for a year and a half.

It is a very stable tool. I rate the stability a ten out of ten.

We have 10 Tableau users in our organization. We plan to increase software usage.

The technical support team is very supportive.

We also work with Power BI and an open-source solution. In comparison, Tableau has a sharp learning curve. It is intuitive and easy to use. It has less deployment time and impressive visualization features. We can connect different data sources, including SQL, Oracle, etc.

The initial setup process is easy. It takes less than an hour to complete. I rate the process a nine out of ten.

The product's price is relatively inexpensive and manageable for enterprise-level companies. However, they could reduce the cost or offer discounts for smaller companies.

I rate Tableau a nine out of ten. It is a stable and powerful tool compared to Microsoft BI.

We use it in our parent company as well as in client companies. A few of our environments are on-premises, and a few are on Tableau Online. We have a mix of both.

The UI part is the best. The end-users can easily get started with Tableau Desktop or Tableau Online because of its user-friendliness.

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.

Their standard support is not good. They should improve it. I don't know if it has anything to do with the acquisition, but lately, their support has not been great.

Their upgrades have always been an issue. They never work. 

Tableau is a little bit costlier than other tools such as Power BI.

They should make it easy to integrate with tools like SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive, etc. Its integration with Office 365 should be improved because most of the users already have tools like Outlook, Teams, and SharePoint, and they want to integrate a reporting tool or a visualization tool with their existing tools. 

It is very easy to integrate scripting in Spotfire. We can do a lot of changes in the UI by writing some scripts. That could be something that Tableau can look into. They can also consider providing APIs, but most of the people who work with Tableau do not really work much on the scripting side. So, I am not sure if it is feasible or required technically.

I have been using this solution for almost eight years.

It is scalable for online and on-premises versions. With the online version, they take care of the load, and we don't have to worry about that. For on-premises, initially, we used to have core-based licensing in which we had a cap on the number of cores we could expand to. We then moved to user-based licensing, which makes it easy to scale.

In our parent company, we have close to 200 users. We also have two clients on this platform. One of the clients has about 400 users. For another client, overall, we support close to 20K customers on this platform. That's one of the biggest environments.

Their premium support is really good, but their standard support is failing. Their standard support is the worst. We recently had an experience where we waited for more than seven days for a ticket to be picked up. It was vacation time, and there were a lot of factors, but their standard support is not good. For a few of our clients, we do have premium support, and they respond to any issue because we include the technical account managers in the communication.

Comparing it with Power BI, the main differences are the cost and the integration with Office 365. It is very easy to integrate Power BI with Teams or SharePoint because they all belong to the same company, whereas with Tableau, I have to integrate it with a third-party vendor. It is a little tough to integrate Tableau with SharePoint or Teams. Nowadays, everyone wants everything in one place; it could either be in SharePoint or in Teams. 

I have been working with Spotfire lately, and it is very easy to integrate scripting in Spotfire.

The Tableau server-side used to be very good initially, but for the last year, we are having issues with the upgrades. Their upgrades never work. We always get stuck while doing the upgrades, and we end up taking a different approach. We take the data and keep it somewhere. After that, we wipe out the entire server and install it again. We then restore the data into that environment. 

In terms of maintaining this solution, I used to belong to level three (L3) support till last month. We were only handling the performance issues and any issues that need RCA. The L3 support used to have close to five people. L2 support, which usually included adding a user, removing a user, adding a new group, and providing usual production support, was taken care of by the Ops team. They used to have more than five people on the team.

Cost is where tools like MicroStrategy, Power BI, or Spotfire come into play. Cost-wise, Tableau is a little bit costlier than other tools such as Power BI.

I have been using Tableau all these years, but about four years ago, Power BI came out at a very low cost. Their desktop version was free from the beginning. Power BI Desktop has always been free, whereas Tableau Desktop is costly. When it comes to cost, people prefer Power BI because it integrates very well with Office 365. You don't have to worry about integration with Teams or SharePoint.

It is easy to use for most business users, but before using it, you should understand the basics of dimensions or measurements. If you directly come to this tool without understanding the concepts of warehousing, dimensions, and fact tables, you would not get what you want. This applies to any reporting tool. You should have a basic understanding of what data warehousing is all about and then get started with the tool.

I would rate it an eight out of 10. Tableau has always been at the top of my list. Because of the technical hold that I have on the tool, I always prefer Tableau. It would always be on top as compared to any other tool.

As an administrator, I use the solution in my company to deal with customers' current deployments and help with the troubleshooting process in case of issues while keeping a check on the performance, like the coverage provided by the solution.

Tableau is a good product for some of the projects my company has handled, and we have also used it as a visualization tool. Considering how certain products work for customers and how their businesses function, it is easy for my company to use Tableau in such environments as it is a user-friendly tool.

The most valuable features of the solution are the permission management and the user management.

With Tableau, the only downside stems from its prices, especially in the country where I reside, which is Sri Lanka. When my company reaches out to new customers with Tableau's new costs, we find ourselves at a disadvantage. The price is an area where improvements are required.

I think Tableau plans to release some AI-integrated features in 2024 for one of our company's clients we had initially. My company plans to use the AI-integrated version of the solution when it is released. AI is one of the best things that I was hoping to have on Tableau.

The only issue with the solution is with its prices at a regional level. Integration-wise, it is a good product. Tableau always provides support to users. Tableau should introduce some special pricing for its existing customers, and it should be possible for the partners and resellers to provide such special prices to customers.

I have been using Tableau as an administrator in my company for four years. My company, which is in Sri Lanka, has a partnership with Tableau.

It is a stable solution. If the people who are working on the tool know about the product, then it's a stable solution. New people who have an understanding of the product can use its stable nature. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten. There is a possibility that the product crashes at times.

The product offers scalability or scaling out options, but at the moment, there is no demand for the product from the customers, and nobody is getting it deployed. In general, though it is a scalable solution, no one prefers using the product presently. Recently, I have only done two deployments of the product for our company's customers. The people who use the product are not satisfied with it.

The product's clients are major banks and some other businesses operating in the financial sector, meaning all of the tool's customers run enterprise-sized companies.

The solution's technical support was good. I rate the technical support an eight to nine out of ten.

Positive

The product's initial setup phase was not very easy as it was a little bit of a technical process about which I didn't have any experience. I rate the product's initial setup phase a six to seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is a difficult setup process, and ten is an easy setup process.

Most of the solutions I have deployed have been done on an on-premises model. For some new customers, my company has deployed the product on the cloud. If customers are okay with their budgeting part, I suggest they deploy the tool on the cloud.

For new users, our company can set up an environment. If the customer can provide an on-premises environment, we can set up Tableau in four to five hours. A single-node deployment takes around four to five hours, but if it is a marginal level of deployment, it might take a day or a day and a half.

When involved in the deployment, if there is some support from the customer's IT team, then only one person is required to take care of the deployment process.

I rate the product price in the Indian region a seven to eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price. For the other regions in the world, the price of the product might be average. The additional cost attached to the product crops up when users plan to use the product on an on-premises model.

I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. Tableau is a good visualization tool for everyone, and it is also easy to learn, especially when compared with its competitors.

I rate the overall tool an eight to nine out of ten.

On-premises