Tableau Prep vs. Toad Data Point

If your data sets are coming in without much stewardship then Tableau Prep can help to clean the data before you start trying to create visualizations for your end users. You will save a lot of time this way - rather than seeing problems once you are creating dashboards. If you don't have large data sets or your data is relatively simple, then Tableau Prep may not be needed.

Incentivized

Appropriate for general querying and some DBA work. It's the universal least-offensive solution for most environments - not best of breed, but not subject to unusual/extensive requirements. It just works. On the other hand, some functionality (e.g. data import/export, snippets) are perfunctory and minimal and seem to be either difficult or impossible to automate. If you need to streamline those operations, you'll be forced to rely on third-party solutions that mostly work on top of (instead of with) TOAD.

Incentivized

• Display the raw data coming in from the data warehouse
• Point out situations that might be erroneous
• Show the distribution of raw data figures

Incentivized

• Export data into excel.
• Export data into excel using a pivot table functionality.
• Navigation between windows is intuitive and easy to understand.
• Good for SQL novices and experts alike.

Incentivized

• Use of Macros within Workflow (and more types of automation)
• Join Editor also giving a SQL Update Query
• More types of visuals

Incentivized

• The workflow is a relatively new feature. Quest is adding additional functionality and the workflows are useful now.
• Would be nice if the 'Automate' feature was a bit easier to use.
• Would be nice if some of the SQL Editor features in the traditional interface worked better in the new workflow interface (although, these are being fixed with each release).
• Would be nice if there were fewer releases.

Incentivized

It is a valuable tool for generating and cleaning files for multiple purposes.

Incentivized

It works well and is user friendly for the basics but needs more options for bring in data (using SQL queries for example) and export format options.

Incentivized

I find Toad Data Point easy to use for both the novice and the experienced business analyst. If all you desire is to access data and create spreadsheets...this is a snap. Toad Data Point actually has cool data analysis features built into it. The newer workflow interface makes automating steps a snap

Incentivized

I have not really had to reach out for any kind of customer support for Tableau Prep, so I can't really say. However, the support that Tableau has given for their other products has been great, so I would assume it would be the same here. They are also constantly adding new features and providing software updates, and that is always a plus.

Incentivized

Live connections to cloud services (Google Sheets for example) and cloud hosted databases (cloud hosted SIS for example) for scheduled flows are not supported

Incentivized

Before Prep, we had to do all the data joining and connecting in a Tableau Workbook. Not only did this cause workbooks connected with live data to run frustratingly slowly, a new connection and set-up had to be established every time a new workbook as created, even if you were working with the same data. The extracts produced by Prep allow several workbooks to be working from the same data set-up without any additional work, saving time and stress.

Incentivized

Although Toad and UltraEdit are both great products, from an SQL standpoint Toad is a much better editor and troubleshooter.

Incentivized

• Quicker data sets for online reports
• More efficient data cleaning Ad Hoc reports
• Costly if using data management to schedule data pull and cleaning (priced per viewer accounts not creator accounts)

Incentivized

• It is the least common denominator - not particularly optimized for our environment or workflows.
• Hangs or slowdowns add anywhere from 5% - 7% for projects utilizing large/complicated data setts. (This could be due to other IT-imposed constraints and not entirely due to TOAD.)
• Trying to perform some operations requires reading documentation and experimenting in order to figure out the TOAD-specific approaches and commands.
• It just works (when we understand it). Updates don't break things and things don't suddenly start behaving differently. Best of all, we don't mysteriously lose functionality.

Incentivized