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Tableau Desktop is a data visualization product from Tableau. It connects to a variety of data sources for combining disparate data sources without coding. It provides tools for discovering patterns and insights, data calculations, forecasts, and statistical summaries and visual storytelling.https://media.trustradius.com/product-logos/sv/Ao/PCZWTEQ42WEW.PNGVisualization made simple, and complex!Currently my organization is using Tableau Desktop to perform most if not all of our in-house analytics, it not only speeds up the process of our in house analytics but it also gives us plenty of options to customize and filter our reports. We also use Tableau as a consulting tool with our clients to help answer questions they have about their own business key performance indicators.,Easy to use Plenty of Customization options Can be quick to pick up for average users Supports some complex analytics Integrates well with other software,expensive does require some workarounds to solve sometimes simple analytics training for product is also very expensive,10,Microsoft Power BI,10,8,Alteryx Analytics, Tableau Server, Tableau PrepTurn Tables Into Vistas of Visualization with Tableau DesktopSeventy-five percent of our department uses Tableau Desktop, for a range of use cases, including the joining of related data sets for specialized reporting purposes, and also for the analysis of assessments data. Tableau allows us to easily merge and process large datasets without needing to be SQL experts, and to produce compelling and fluent data visualizations.,Tableau's suite of powerful data visualization tools allows users to create static and interactive dashboards with the ease of a drag-and-drop interface. It can help users avoid common data visualization pitfalls. Tableau handily deals with millions of rows of data, from various data sources, including spreadsheets and SQL databases. This allows users to integrate disparate data sources that may have been difficult to connect otherwise. Tableau's interface allows data analysts of all experience levels to quickly begin producing compelling and useful analysis and visualizations. As a user gains experience, Tableau's feature set continues to keep pace.,Pricing at scale is inordinately expensive. One must pay for the best, it seems, but better large-volume pricing would be appreciated! When assembling a worksheet, there is only limited room for columns, and when that capacity is exceeded, columns are auto-collapsed into merged placeholders, which cannot be easily inspected. Tableau is so feature-rich that it can feel impossible to master. While the vendor does provide training outreach, an emphasis on interactive tool-tips and other forms of "hands-on" training would be a welcome addition to the application.,8,8,7,IBM SPSS, Navicat Premium, SlackTableau Desktop still is my go-to product in a crowded BI tool marketTableau Desktop is one of the primary business Intelligence tools we use at my organization. We have an enterprise license of Tableau server (8 core) that runs in the AWS Cloud. We have over 100 licenses of Tableau desktop and use it to help visualize and make data easier to consume. While it is used for some ad-hoc analysis, I would say it is used to deliver dashboards to employees, faculty, administrators who don't have a lot of reporting or SQL experience. Meanwhile, we also use tableau public to showcase our official data. These dashboards are built with Tableau Desktop as well.,Visualization of data. Easily connects to local or a variety of data sources or APIs. Short learning curve to come up to speed.,The pricing model has been tricky at times. Tableau corporation doesn't do a great job with the inventory of those who own licenses. Performance has been an issue at times.,9,Microsoft Power BI, Amazon QuickSight, Toad Data Point and Alteryx Analytics,8,7,Alteryx Connect, Microsoft BI, Toad Data PointTableau is the market leader when it comes to Interactive Data Analysis and VisualizationTableau has increased our business and productivity exponentially. Tableau helps to make data-driven decisions with confidence, solve harder problems more easily, and uncover new insights more frequently. It is the backbone of our analytics department and it is used by us throughout the analytical life-cycle from data preparation to deep analysis, to the shared insights that drive the business forward. Because of it, we are able to call out patterns and anomalies and it has helped us enormously in fraud detection as we will be recognizing the trends in the data which we use to feed the tool.,Tableau offers incredible data visualization tools and the ability to parse massive data-sets in a very limited time. Its plethora of different chart formats and tools allow you to show data almost any way, making it easy to adapt visualizations to differing needs and tastes. Tableau is great for creating a combined dashboard with multiple databases as the source. This is one of the main features that the Tableau can connect to almost any data source and import the data easily and quickly. The support for natural language query is invaluable. It helps people of all skill levels quickly discover actionable insights because they don't have to learn any particular language to get on-board with it. The charts and graphics that tableau makes are easy for even nonanalytical people to understand, ideal for end-users of information as well.,When we are importing data from multiple sources and the data is huge, it sometimes tends to lag and have also crashed sometimes. Tableau Desktop lacks the basic functionality of cleaning and prepping the data to be imported in Tableau Desktop. This is one of the major features which it lacks, you need additional support from Tableau to get these things added. It has the annoying habit that saved database connections must be re-authenticated every time you open the program, which is a complete waste of time and effort to do it, again and again, each time.,9,Qlik Sense and Salesforce Analytics Cloud,9,10,Qlik Sense, Amazon Aurora, Amazon Cloud DriveNo tool is better than this for data visualization. A must have.In our company, we use this department-wide. The teams that work on data visualization use this product. The work on this tool is client specific, some teams use this to understand the data, some teams use it for making the good charts for presenting the data. The teams that are mainly using this tool are more into analytics.,It creates good dashboards. Selecting the fields and metrics is quite easy. We can create the formulas for presenting any variable. We can use this tool with R studio and SQL, which I think is the major power of this tool. We can process huge data in a very limited time. Output delivery of charts is also very efficient. For example, we can take the PDF of the charts, which is good, from other tools.,More statistical functions need to be introduced in it. We can not clean the data through this tool. While taking the data from multiple sources, it hangs sometimes which sometimes crashes the whole system.,7,QlikView, Qlik Sense and Microsoft Power BI,9,8,Microsoft BI, JMP Statistical Discovery Software from SASTableau ReviewIt was used by our department. And we mainly use it to build web-based reports, which can be used interactively by the senior management team.,User-friendly interface. Good IT support and lots of resources. Can publish reports to a server.,Quite expensive. Limited functions in calculations. Not support embedded SQL. Not compatible well with Microsoft’s products.,9,,9,9,Qlik SenseStill the Industry Standard for BIWe are a boutique consulting firm with the ability to choose what BI platform we consult with. Tableau remains the industry standard BI/Data Visualization Tool for business. It remains as our tool of choice for our customers and our internal reporting. We have used it to solve all kinds of problems across the data value chain, from data exploration, automation of reports and providing insights.,Lots of Data Connections Easy Visualizations Well supported in the community Flexible tool - many ways to do things.,Error messaging is ambiguous Confusing interface - many ways to do the same thing Limited Crosstabs Dashboard layouts don't allow cutting and pasting of objects Despite what they try to demonstrate, big datasets still don't perform as quickly as you might expect them to,9,,6,7Basic desktop data science and analytics are now awalaibleWe use Tableau as a tool to visualize analytics in many industries and search for insights. Data sources usually include SQL and CSV. We also use the ability to build white label solutions based on Tableau.,After basic training users can operate with Tableau by themselves. Tableau is good for evaluating base data analytics and data science tasks.,In comparison to Ms PowerBL: fewer visuals in Tableau. Fewer free versions and support documentation/examples in Tableau rather than in PowerBI.,8,,8,9,Microsoft Power BIVisualization is the FutureTableau Desktop is being used to actively track sales achievement to the number of leads created per week to optimization reporting and everything in between! While the sales team here at Sojern are the main users, it can serve a purpose and be a resource for almost every department within the company.,User-friendly, and made for visual learners. The best tool for presentation purposes and actionable examples. Good for using our data in a way that can be understood by everyone in the business.,It can be slow, as in loading slow and taking a while to switch from dashboard to dashboard.,9,Salesforce.com,9,10,Salesforce Analytics CloudEasy to use and share reportsUsed for reporting purposes for many business units to see how products are performing. Also used to make analytical decisions by the product team to see how to position products in the future. Production support issues can also be triggered off these reports if something is not working the way it should.,Very easy UI for all level of users. Easy to save/favorite different dashboards. Granting access to different levels of users is easy.,You still need to have a fair amount of technical skills to set up some dashboards. Drag and drop functionality could work a little easier. Keep working on the UI.,10,,10,10,Jira Service Desk, JIRA Software, Atlassian ConfluenceTableau is a great data tool!Tableau Desktop is being used by our team for social media and raw data visualization. It addresses the problem of being able to visualize raw data from social channels to which we don't have the API access to integrate with our existing social media tools. It addresses the problems of being able to house and visualize data from all platforms in one place.,Dynamic visualization. Easy data entry. Easy data correction/cleaning/modification.,Steep learning curve. Not very user friendly to navigate.,8,8,9Tableau -- A foregone visualization leader?Tableau is being used in several departments of our organization. I work on it as part of the business intelligence team. The problem it addresses for us is to create dashboards and visualizations that are suitable for a variety of users and are highly configurable which together leads to a greater understanding of the organizational data.,Tableau's customized visualization capabilities are super awesome and pretty much unmatched in BI technology stack. The drag and drop features allow even novice users to create smart visualizations. A new user can effectively start building viz's sooner than later. The Tableau story feature helps users create a powerful narrative that can be used in a presentation to users of all levels and effectively communicated the message.,Creating some of the chart types can be very difficult with Tableau. Try creating a bagel chart. Tableau can make improvements in providing suggestions on which are the best chart types to use based on the input data set. The architecture needs improvement. If there is a dashboard with large quantities of data and if a small portion of the data changes, Tableau reloads the whole dashboard to refresh the data set, which is quite unnecessary in the age of cloud architectures.,8,Looker,8,7,Looker, Informatica PowerCenter, SAP HANAThe best tool for visualization and storytellingI work for a Data Sciences organization which provides consulting and corporate training in data science and visualization, and since Tableau is my bread and butter for visualization, either to understand my data or train people on the nuances of data. It is generally used across the organization although some people prefer using R and Python libraries in pockets.,Easy to import data from multiple sources Easy to drag and drop and create various dimension Easy to build a storyboard,A simple knowledgebank to get people started is essential. The pricing could be slightly lower for individual users The calculated fields could be made simpler,9,,9,8,Microsoft Power BI, QlikViewTableau is a sophisticated BI platform that's constantly improvingIt is being used to create analytics for distribution and use throughout the supply chain organization. We have creators that publish to the server which other users leverage. That solves the business problem of sharing spreadsheets and everyone having a consistent view of the information.,Easy to use Consistent analytics Presentation ready,CTE for custom SQL Comments for users to add enhancement requests JIRA style project management of a workbook,9,Qlik Sense,9,10,Alteryx Analytics Gallery, Oracle Analytics Cloud, SQL Server Business Intelligence ManagerThe Dominant Tool, But Will It Stay That Way?Tableau was purchased on the recommendation of a SaaS provider to get analytic data from their product. The IT Dept currently is the only user of Tableau and processes all the data. Over two years our organization has used Tableau to go from zero analytic data to a significant amount for our size. Its use has grown far beyond the initial single SaaS tool we bought it to use with.,Easy to learn. Analyzes your data and recommends potential reports. User-friendly interface.,Expensive compared to other tools. Hooking into data beyond CSV can get complicated. Entire Tableau ecosystem (Desktop, Server, etc) is overly complicated.,7,Microsoft Power BI and Google Data Studio,6,1,Google Data Studio, Tableau ServerGreat for Data-Viz-Wizzes, Painful for OthersTableau Desktop is used at our organization by most of our analysts, who then publish the reports to Tableau Server for distribution to everyone else in the organization to consume the information. This enables our analysts, myself included, to use Tableau Desktop to create helpful insights which can then be used by anyone at any technical level.,Allows for complex dashboards to be made and then presented to less-technical audiences Stories help highlight important information in the information, allowing a presentation to stand on its own without having to be explained in person Recommends different visualizations based on the type of data inputted,Very steep learning curve for those who haven't used it previously. Because it's a powerful tool, getting it to do simple things can be extremely difficult. A jack-of-all-trades solution, sometimes it's hard to find or create industry-specific visualizations, such as NPS gauges.,1,Domo and Microsoft Power BI,6,10,Slack, Qualtrics, Salesforce.comTableau is a good tool for those willing to invest the timeWhile working for a large defense contractor, Tableau was adopted and implemented on a large scale and enterprise-wide. We used to Tableau to roll up and display data in charts that were used for decision making. We started using Tableau desktop to build models on top of datasets where inputs could be added to see what happens when certain variables are changed.,Can process large amounts of data. Has lots of data connections to feed data. Easy to set up basic reports and dashboards. The Online and Server products make Tableau easy to use and share work with large groups (or small groups). Now has the backing of Saleforce and that admired company culture.,The cost for Desktop and Server is extremely cost prohibitive. Tableau is quick to blame the users when performance and processing speeds are poor, but in reality, Tableau needs to work on making the application lighter and more powerful. There is a tool to evaluate performance on each workbook. Needs more data connectors. It takes advanced training/knowledge to create advanced reports and dashboards. If you use it every day you can become advanced in a few months. Training documentation and access to trading materials are lacking. Maybe they want youtube to be the main source of training?,8,Microsoft Power BI and Power BI For Office 365,8,7,Microsoft Power BI, Microsoft Dynamics 365 (formerly Microsoft Dynamics CRM), Adobe Premiere ProA Great BI Tool for those that love customizationTableau Desktop was being utilized internally to automatically process monthly reports and create PDF exports for client delivery.,Data Visualization Data Importing Data Blending,Providing login-free dashboards for client/stakeholder visibility Definitions for tooltips Custom color schemes,10,Google Data Studio and Datorama,9,7Best solution for BI (features + price)Today it is used to create/show dashboards for a specific product that we sell to customers. It is a fundamental tool to this application because it shows all data related to Industrial Internet solutions, and has many features that are awesome. It is used worldwide and it improves our solutions.,It is easy to use. It has many data connections (data sources). It is multilanguage. Tableau is easy to learn.,It is difficult to configure page layouts. Complex data sources correlations are difficult to create. The price could be better when compared to competitors.,9,Birst, Microsoft Power BI and QlikView,10,9,Birst, Stash, Microsoft SQL ServerGreat data tool if you know how to use itWe use Tableau as a way of combining a large number of data sources to create one cohesive story, which guides our business decisions.,Pulling data from multiple sources. Can handle large data sources, unlike Excel. Pivoting data in more dimensions than Excel.,Difficult to learn and use. Requires a lot of skill to create more developed visualizations and automated reporting. An extremely expensive and over the top solution for small businesses.,5,7,6Tableau Desktop - iReviewedWe use Tableau Desktop mainly for creating dashboards that are live and easy to refresh when required. It helps in monitoring KPIs of our business that may go up or down on a daily bases. We also use Tableau Desktop for ad hoc analysis where we want to look at any trends & patterns that may be helpful to provide insights for the broader audience.,Very user friendly, even a beginner would not have problem in understanding how to use it. Various types of charts are available. Sharing the dashboards is easy. Creating a dashboard is pretty easy and only Tableau has storytelling options which have helped me in my presentations.,Raw data downloading behind the dashboard - The format of the data that we download would be in a very confusing format. Format matching is pretty much manual for various charts that we create. Data cleaning, wrangling & formatting has a lot of room for improvement. Alerting system from the dashboard is not available yet.,8,Microsoft Power BI and Google Analytics,8,8,Microsoft Power BI, Google AnalyticsGreat visual tool for sharing data with othersTableau is used across the organization to solve business problems. In our business unit, we use it to view data quality and staffing requirements for projects. In addition, we use it to perform data exploration on data to see what needs to be addressed. Other groups use it for all kinds of reporting needs.,Multiple data connections and blending Ability to see recommendations for graphs Ability to use API to create custom applications,Extension gallery needs more options I think having the ability to use libraries like D3 into graphs Hyper being able to handle multiple joins better,9,Information Builders WebFOCUS,8,8,Microsoft SQL Server, Alteryx AnalyticsVery robust BI tool, but a steep learning curve. Be sure to dedicate enough time to learn it well!Tableau Desktop is being used as the primary business insights tool in our organization, so Tableau Desktop is used by our power users to build visualizations.,It's a highly flexible for building dashboards. Once you know how to use the tool, you can design a dashboard to look exactly how you want. Has a broad range of data connection options. An easy UI for joining datasets.,The learning curve is really steep. Even with online self-help resources and training modules, it takes a long time to learn fairly basic operations compared to other tools I've used. Basic operations in Tableau Desktop should really be simplified to acclimate new users. I experience lots of unexplained connection errors and the error messages are really ambiguous. I've learned to keep retrying multiple times and that often resolves the error, but sometimes if a workbook has been inactive for a while, the only way to resolve the connection error is to restart Tableau Desktop. That is really buggy behavior, and I have wasted a lot of time (as have many colleagues of mine) trying to decipher these errors. This really needs to be fixed. The application runs really slowly. I have a powerful PC, but Tableau Desktop really saps its resources. The previous BI tool we used was cloud-based, so this was a big adjustment moving to this resource-intensive thick client. I think it should be optimized to run faster. I spend too much time waiting.,7,Domo,10,9,DomoSelf-taught user reviewTableau Desktop was initially going to be used across the whole organization for internal and external purposes. It was going to help automate much of the reporting so more time could be spent on analyzing the data.,Data visualization Data integration Data clean Up,Sharing reports Duplicating dashboards Overall learning curve,10,Datorama and Google Data Studio,10,8,Datorama, Google Data Studio, TrackMavenRobust analytics tool for analysts and business usersIt is mainly used by the Analytics department in order to solve business problems but there are some savvy business users. It helps to find possible reasons for business performance spikes or drops by slicing and dicing the data. Also, it is generating automated daily reports to key business stakeholders and senior executives.,Diverse options for data visualization Intuitive user interface Robust built-in analytics,Needs more sophisticated data governance options. Needs more smooth connection with other tools (such as Adobe Analytics).,8,Domo,7,8,Adobe Analytics, Alteryx Analytics
  3. Tableau Desktop Reviews
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Tableau Desktop
1436 Ratings
Score 8.3 out of 101
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Tableau Desktop Reviews

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Tableau Desktop
1436 Ratings
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Score 8.3 out of 101

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Clinton Shields profile photo
June 20, 2019

Visualization made simple, and complex!

Clinton Shields
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Currently my organization is using Tableau Desktop to perform most if not all of our in-house analytics, it not only speeds up the process of our in house analytics but it also gives us plenty of options to customize and filter our reports. We also use Tableau as a consulting tool with our clients to help answer questions they have about their own business key performance indicators.
  • Easy to use
  • Plenty of Customization options
  • Can be quick to pick up for average users
  • Supports some complex analytics
  • Integrates well with other software
  • expensive
  • does require some workarounds to solve sometimes simple analytics
  • training for product is also very expensive
Great for visualizing basic and complex analytics, can be very useful in a myriad of situations, for example it can be summarized up for grand views for executives and plenty of drill down opportunities for more analyst level staff. This allows the staff to performing the analytics to save time by not having to duplicate reports on different levels for different staff.
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Benjamin Plotkin profile photo
October 07, 2019

Turn Tables Into Vistas of Visualization with Tableau Desktop

Benjamin Plotkin
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Seventy-five percent of our department uses Tableau Desktop, for a range of use cases, including the joining of related data sets for specialized reporting purposes, and also for the analysis of assessments data. Tableau allows us to easily merge and process large datasets without needing to be SQL experts, and to produce compelling and fluent data visualizations.
  • Tableau's suite of powerful data visualization tools allows users to create static and interactive dashboards with the ease of a drag-and-drop interface. It can help users avoid common data visualization pitfalls.
  • Tableau handily deals with millions of rows of data, from various data sources, including spreadsheets and SQL databases. This allows users to integrate disparate data sources that may have been difficult to connect otherwise.
  • Tableau's interface allows data analysts of all experience levels to quickly begin producing compelling and useful analysis and visualizations. As a user gains experience, Tableau's feature set continues to keep pace.
  • Pricing at scale is inordinately expensive. One must pay for the best, it seems, but better large-volume pricing would be appreciated!
  • When assembling a worksheet, there is only limited room for columns, and when that capacity is exceeded, columns are auto-collapsed into merged placeholders, which cannot be easily inspected.
  • Tableau is so feature-rich that it can feel impossible to master. While the vendor does provide training outreach, an emphasis on interactive tool-tips and other forms of "hands-on" training would be a welcome addition to the application.
Tableau Desktop is a great tool for merging a variety of data sources for custom reporting purposes, although like many Swiss army knives, it can be a pricey multi-tasker option that is only used for a single purpose. If you are not expanding beyond this basic use case, you are not getting proper value out of the application. If you can afford the pricing model, Tableau Desktop's visualizations are worth the spend!
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John Rome profile photo
September 13, 2019

Tableau Desktop still is my go-to product in a crowded BI tool market

John Rome
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Tableau Desktop is one of the primary business Intelligence tools we use at my organization. We have an enterprise license of Tableau server (8 core) that runs in the AWS Cloud. We have over 100 licenses of Tableau desktop and use it to help visualize and make data easier to consume. While it is used for some ad-hoc analysis, I would say it is used to deliver dashboards to employees, faculty, administrators who don't have a lot of reporting or SQL experience. Meanwhile, we also use tableau public to showcase our official data. These dashboards are built with Tableau Desktop as well.
  • Visualization of data.
  • Easily connects to local or a variety of data sources or APIs.
  • Short learning curve to come up to speed.
  • The pricing model has been tricky at times.
  • Tableau corporation doesn't do a great job with the inventory of those who own licenses.
  • Performance has been an issue at times.
For pixel-perfect reports that are graphically beautiful, Tableau is one of the best on the market. It supports a lot of graphs and visualization, and you can even bring your own visuals. However, for more tabular data reporting (just data, not visualizations), it still needs a lot of improvement.
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Rahul Malik profile photo
August 09, 2019

Tableau is the market leader when it comes to Interactive Data Analysis and Visualization

Rahul Malik
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Tableau has increased our business and productivity exponentially. Tableau helps to make data-driven decisions with confidence, solve harder problems more easily, and uncover new insights more frequently. It is the backbone of our analytics department and it is used by us throughout the analytical life-cycle from data preparation to deep analysis, to the shared insights that drive the business forward. Because of it, we are able to call out patterns and anomalies and it has helped us enormously in fraud detection as we will be recognizing the trends in the data which we use to feed the tool.
  • Tableau offers incredible data visualization tools and the ability to parse massive data-sets in a very limited time. Its plethora of different chart formats and tools allow you to show data almost any way, making it easy to adapt visualizations to differing needs and tastes.
  • Tableau is great for creating a combined dashboard with multiple databases as the source. This is one of the main features that the Tableau can connect to almost any data source and import the data easily and quickly.
  • The support for natural language query is invaluable. It helps people of all skill levels quickly discover actionable insights because they don't have to learn any particular language to get on-board with it.
  • The charts and graphics that tableau makes are easy for even nonanalytical people to understand, ideal for end-users of information as well.
  • When we are importing data from multiple sources and the data is huge, it sometimes tends to lag and have also crashed sometimes.
  • Tableau Desktop lacks the basic functionality of cleaning and prepping the data to be imported in Tableau Desktop. This is one of the major features which it lacks, you need additional support from Tableau to get these things added.
  • It has the annoying habit that saved database connections must be re-authenticated every time you open the program, which is a complete waste of time and effort to do it, again and again, each time.
Tableau Desktop is best suited when you want to create appealing and informative data visualizations. It is used extensively by organizations to draw conclusions and insights by feeding it with data from multiple sources and the source could be any back-end system, even cloud infrastructure. The graphics in Tableau are very simple and make it easy to get information across different groups of people. The brand new dashboard and story features where various worksheets can be combined to tell a story and that makes it different from the other similar software available in the market.
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Akshaya Bhardwaj profile photo
July 17, 2019

No tool is better than this for data visualization. A must have.

Akshaya Bhardwaj
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
In our company, we use this department-wide. The teams that work on data visualization use this product. The work on this tool is client specific, some teams use this to understand the data, some teams use it for making the good charts for presenting the data. The teams that are mainly using this tool are more into analytics.
  • It creates good dashboards.
  • Selecting the fields and metrics is quite easy. We can create the formulas for presenting any variable.
  • We can use this tool with R studio and SQL, which I think is the major power of this tool.
  • We can process huge data in a very limited time.
  • Output delivery of charts is also very efficient. For example, we can take the PDF of the charts, which is good, from other tools.
  • More statistical functions need to be introduced in it.
  • We can not clean the data through this tool.
  • While taking the data from multiple sources, it hangs sometimes which sometimes crashes the whole system.
For performing the exploratory data analysis(EDA) through charts this is the best tool that is available in the market. For understanding the data i.e finding the insights so this leads. If you are working on data management, then you can not completely depend on this tool as data cleaning and data transforming is not possible through it. For drawing inferences, no one will suggest this tool.
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Jason Xiao profile photo
June 30, 2019

Tableau Review

Jason Xiao
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
It was used by our department. And we mainly use it to build web-based reports, which can be used interactively by the senior management team.
  • User-friendly interface.
  • Good IT support and lots of resources.
  • Can publish reports to a server.
  • Quite expensive.
  • Limited functions in calculations.
  • Not support embedded SQL.
  • Not compatible well with Microsoft’s products.
Good use case: a large company which has sufficient funding in data visualization and has great needs in access control and web portal reports. Bad use case: not good for a small or medium company which has less funding in data visualization.
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GH Powell profile photo
October 03, 2019

Still the Industry Standard for BI

GH Powell
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Reseller
Review Source
We are a boutique consulting firm with the ability to choose what BI platform we consult with. Tableau remains the industry standard BI/Data Visualization Tool for business. It remains as our tool of choice for our customers and our internal reporting.

We have used it to solve all kinds of problems across the data value chain, from data exploration, automation of reports and providing insights.
  • Lots of Data Connections
  • Easy Visualizations
  • Well supported in the community
  • Flexible tool - many ways to do things.
  • Error messaging is ambiguous
  • Confusing interface - many ways to do the same thing
  • Limited Crosstabs
  • Dashboard layouts don't allow cutting and pasting of objects
  • Despite what they try to demonstrate, big datasets still don't perform as quickly as you might expect them to
Well suited to quick analysis and suite of KPI dashboards. Not so good with Live streaming (big) data.
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Michael Sadofyev profile photo
May 28, 2019

Basic desktop data science and analytics are now awalaible

Michael Sadofyev
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use Tableau as a tool to visualize analytics in many industries and search for insights. Data sources usually include SQL and CSV. We also use the ability to build white label solutions based on Tableau.
  • After basic training users can operate with Tableau by themselves.
  • Tableau is good for evaluating base data analytics and data science tasks.
  • In comparison to Ms PowerBL: fewer visuals in Tableau.
  • Fewer free versions and support documentation/examples in Tableau rather than in PowerBI.
A good scenario for Tableau is the fast analysis and visualization of the amount of data that can't be analyzed with Ms Excel. The case of embedding Tableau in, for example, a web-page is not so convenient.
Read Michael Sadofyev's full review
Maddie Cheasick profile photo
May 22, 2019

Visualization is the Future

Maddie Cheasick
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Tableau Desktop is being used to actively track sales achievement to the number of leads created per week to optimization reporting and everything in between! While the sales team here at Sojern are the main users, it can serve a purpose and be a resource for almost every department within the company.
  • User-friendly, and made for visual learners.
  • The best tool for presentation purposes and actionable examples.
  • Good for using our data in a way that can be understood by everyone in the business.
  • It can be slow, as in loading slow and taking a while to switch from dashboard to dashboard.
Tableau Desktop is well suited for all sales teams, sales operations teams, and business development teams. It creates an environment when a salesperson has daily access to their achievement and can actively forecast their business.
Read Maddie Cheasick's full review
Tim Ryan profile photo
May 10, 2019

Easy to use and share reports

Tim Ryan
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Used for reporting purposes for many business units to see how products are performing. Also used to make analytical decisions by the product team to see how to position products in the future. Production support issues can also be triggered off these reports if something is not working the way it should.
  • Very easy UI for all level of users.
  • Easy to save/favorite different dashboards.
  • Granting access to different levels of users is easy.
  • You still need to have a fair amount of technical skills to set up some dashboards.
  • Drag and drop functionality could work a little easier.
  • Keep working on the UI.
It is becoming the industry standard so it's a good tool to learn since you can use it in so many different places. Allows team members from all different departments the ability to follow what's happening in your business. Highly recommend this to anyone looking for more visibility to analytics within the company.
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August 02, 2019

Tableau is a great data tool!

Aditya Gollakota
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Tableau Desktop is being used by our team for social media and raw data visualization. It addresses the problem of being able to visualize raw data from social channels to which we don't have the API access to integrate with our existing social media tools. It addresses the problems of being able to house and visualize data from all platforms in one place.
  • Dynamic visualization.
  • Easy data entry.
  • Easy data correction/cleaning/modification.
  • Steep learning curve.
  • Not very user friendly to navigate.
Tableau Desktop is well suited for any situation that may be needing help dealing with large data sets and detailed visualizations, complete with annotations and callouts.
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October 08, 2019

Tableau -- A foregone visualization leader?

Verified User
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Tableau is being used in several departments of our organization. I work on it as part of the business intelligence team. The problem it addresses for us is to create dashboards and visualizations that are suitable for a variety of users and are highly configurable which together leads to a greater understanding of the organizational data.
  • Tableau's customized visualization capabilities are super awesome and pretty much unmatched in BI technology stack.
  • The drag and drop features allow even novice users to create smart visualizations. A new user can effectively start building viz's sooner than later.
  • The Tableau story feature helps users create a powerful narrative that can be used in a presentation to users of all levels and effectively communicated the message.
  • Creating some of the chart types can be very difficult with Tableau. Try creating a bagel chart.
  • Tableau can make improvements in providing suggestions on which are the best chart types to use based on the input data set.
  • The architecture needs improvement. If there is a dashboard with large quantities of data and if a small portion of the data changes, Tableau reloads the whole dashboard to refresh the data set, which is quite unnecessary in the age of cloud architectures.
Tableau is always the best choice for highly customized dashboards, storytelling, and building complex dashboards. It can suit the needs of enterprise-level dashboards very well, but it is not the most agile tool when it comes to building quick and neat narratives.
It is not as well suited for generating quick visualizations or building reusable visualizations, which can be plugged and played in different dashboards.
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September 19, 2019

The best tool for visualization and storytelling

Verified User
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
I work for a Data Sciences organization which provides consulting and corporate training in data science and visualization, and since Tableau is my bread and butter for visualization, either to understand my data or train people on the nuances of data. It is generally used across the organization although some people prefer using R and Python libraries in pockets.
  • Easy to import data from multiple sources
  • Easy to drag and drop and create various dimension
  • Easy to build a storyboard
  • A simple knowledgebank to get people started is essential.
  • The pricing could be slightly lower for individual users
  • The calculated fields could be made simpler
Tableau is really good if the company is serious about what they are doing.

There are instances where organizations do not have enough of a budget to invest in a visualization and storyboarding tool and hence like to go with open source tools. In such scenarios, considering the pricing of Tableau, it may not be appropriate.
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September 18, 2019

Tableau is a sophisticated BI platform that's constantly improving

Verified User
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
It is being used to create analytics for distribution and use throughout the supply chain organization.
We have creators that publish to the server which other users leverage. That solves the business problem of sharing spreadsheets and everyone having a consistent view of the information.
  • Easy to use
  • Consistent analytics
  • Presentation ready
  • CTE for custom SQL
  • Comments for users to add enhancement requests
  • JIRA style project management of a workbook
Well suited for larger organizations where ad-hoc reporting is less important than daily use of the same analytics. Not well suited for quick ad hoc analytics or teams not willing to learn. This is a program which favors the learning person.
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September 13, 2019

The Dominant Tool, But Will It Stay That Way?

Verified User
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Tableau was purchased on the recommendation of a SaaS provider to get analytic data from their product. The IT Dept currently is the only user of Tableau and processes all the data. Over two years our organization has used Tableau to go from zero analytic data to a significant amount for our size. Its use has grown far beyond the initial single SaaS tool we bought it to use with.
  • Easy to learn.
  • Analyzes your data and recommends potential reports.
  • User-friendly interface.
  • Expensive compared to other tools.
  • Hooking into data beyond CSV can get complicated.
  • Entire Tableau ecosystem (Desktop, Server, etc) is overly complicated.
For processing basic spreadsheet/CSV data, connecting to data is almost trivial. From there, if a user knows how to use a basic spreadsheet tool, Tableau has the built-in tools to show the user how to analyze the data. Even someone who is not visually inclined can create stunning reports that "wow" upper management.
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May 15, 2019

Great for Data-Viz-Wizzes, Painful for Others

Verified User
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Tableau Desktop is used at our organization by most of our analysts, who then publish the reports to Tableau Server for distribution to everyone else in the organization to consume the information. This enables our analysts, myself included, to use Tableau Desktop to create helpful insights which can then be used by anyone at any technical level.
  • Allows for complex dashboards to be made and then presented to less-technical audiences
  • Stories help highlight important information in the information, allowing a presentation to stand on its own without having to be explained in person
  • Recommends different visualizations based on the type of data inputted
  • Very steep learning curve for those who haven't used it previously.
  • Because it's a powerful tool, getting it to do simple things can be extremely difficult.
  • A jack-of-all-trades solution, sometimes it's hard to find or create industry-specific visualizations, such as NPS gauges.
Tableau Desktop is well-suited to those who are very familiar with it. That sounds obvious, but truly it can work magic for those who know the ins and outs of it, more so than any other data-visualization tool I've seen. However, when you're not a viz-wiz, it can be extremely painful and very hard to learn how to work this beast. Getting from casual user to viz-wiz seems like an impossible task, even with the meager trainings that Tableau makes available.
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July 15, 2019

Tableau is a good tool for those willing to invest the time

Verified User
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
While working for a large defense contractor, Tableau was adopted and implemented on a large scale and enterprise-wide. We used to Tableau to roll up and display data in charts that were used for decision making. We started using Tableau desktop to build models on top of datasets where inputs could be added to see what happens when certain variables are changed.
  • Can process large amounts of data.
  • Has lots of data connections to feed data.
  • Easy to set up basic reports and dashboards.
  • The Online and Server products make Tableau easy to use and share work with large groups (or small groups).
  • Now has the backing of Saleforce and that admired company culture.
  • The cost for Desktop and Server is extremely cost prohibitive.
  • Tableau is quick to blame the users when performance and processing speeds are poor, but in reality, Tableau needs to work on making the application lighter and more powerful. There is a tool to evaluate performance on each workbook.
  • Needs more data connectors.
  • It takes advanced training/knowledge to create advanced reports and dashboards. If you use it every day you can become advanced in a few months.
  • Training documentation and access to trading materials are lacking. Maybe they want youtube to be the main source of training?
I would recommend Tableau be used in cases where there is a data connector if data is stored in a cloud. I wouldn't bother with Tableau if you use Microsoft Office 365, Azure, Dynamics as Power BI is becoming a complete equal at a lower cost.
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June 07, 2019

A Great BI Tool for those that love customization

Verified User
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Tableau Desktop was being utilized internally to automatically process monthly reports and create PDF exports for client delivery.
  • Data Visualization
  • Data Importing
  • Data Blending
  • Providing login-free dashboards for client/stakeholder visibility
  • Definitions for tooltips
  • Custom color schemes
I feel that if you're wanting to use a tool with a great, capable community and don't mind setting up a system from the ground up with little help then Tableau will be perfect.
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June 02, 2019

Best solution for BI (features + price)

Verified User
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Today it is used to create/show dashboards for a specific product that we sell to customers. It is a fundamental tool to this application because it shows all data related to Industrial Internet solutions, and has many features that are awesome. It is used worldwide and it improves our solutions.
  • It is easy to use.
  • It has many data connections (data sources).
  • It is multilanguage.
  • Tableau is easy to learn.
  • It is difficult to configure page layouts.
  • Complex data sources correlations are difficult to create.
  • The price could be better when compared to competitors.
It is great for use as a data analysis tools in many domains, like Machine Learning and Data Warehouse. It is difficult to create complex scenarios, but when created they work very well. Tableau has good performance to generate graphics. For low-difficulty scenarios, the main problem is the price when compared to competitors, but if you have both cases inside the company it is a better tool than others.
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June 02, 2019

Great data tool if you know how to use it

Verified User
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use Tableau as a way of combining a large number of data sources to create one cohesive story, which guides our business decisions.
  • Pulling data from multiple sources.
  • Can handle large data sources, unlike Excel.
  • Pivoting data in more dimensions than Excel.
  • Difficult to learn and use.
  • Requires a lot of skill to create more developed visualizations and automated reporting.
  • An extremely expensive and over the top solution for small businesses.
If you are a large company that is focused on providing data solutions to the market, Tableau may be the best option on the market for you. If you're a small company or agency, you might be able to find a solution available with Excel and save some money.
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September 16, 2019

Tableau Desktop - iReviewed

Verified User
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use Tableau Desktop mainly for creating dashboards that are live and easy to refresh when required. It helps in monitoring KPIs of our business that may go up or down on a daily bases. We also use Tableau Desktop for ad hoc analysis where we want to look at any trends & patterns that may be helpful to provide insights for the broader audience.
  • Very user friendly, even a beginner would not have problem in understanding how to use it.
  • Various types of charts are available.
  • Sharing the dashboards is easy.
  • Creating a dashboard is pretty easy and only Tableau has storytelling options which have helped me in my presentations.
  • Raw data downloading behind the dashboard - The format of the data that we download would be in a very confusing format.
  • Format matching is pretty much manual for various charts that we create.
  • Data cleaning, wrangling & formatting has a lot of room for improvement.
  • Alerting system from the dashboard is not available yet.
Tableau Desktop is well suited for dashboards that are real-time/near real-time or for weekly reporting purposes. If your business/team has some Key Performance Indicators that you want to monitor, Tableau Desktop is the option.

If you want to manipulate the data a lot, you may want to clean up the data before adding to the Tableau. Also, if you want any alerting system when any KPIs change a lot, Tableau may not be a good option.
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May 21, 2019

Great visual tool for sharing data with others

Verified User
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Tableau is used across the organization to solve business problems. In our business unit, we use it to view data quality and staffing requirements for projects. In addition, we use it to perform data exploration on data to see what needs to be addressed. Other groups use it for all kinds of reporting needs.
  • Multiple data connections and blending
  • Ability to see recommendations for graphs
  • Ability to use API to create custom applications
  • Extension gallery needs more options
  • I think having the ability to use libraries like D3 into graphs
  • Hyper being able to handle multiple joins better
I think Tableau Desktop is well suited for data exploring to put a picture to data. Seeing data in a table doesn’t allow you to see outliers in the data. I think Tableau Desktop isn’t appropriate for having the ability to prep data for use in Desktop, but it integrates well into other tools.
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May 18, 2019

Very robust BI tool, but a steep learning curve. Be sure to dedicate enough time to learn it well!

Verified User
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Tableau Desktop is being used as the primary business insights tool in our organization, so Tableau Desktop is used by our power users to build visualizations.
  • It's a highly flexible for building dashboards. Once you know how to use the tool, you can design a dashboard to look exactly how you want.
  • Has a broad range of data connection options.
  • An easy UI for joining datasets.
  • The learning curve is really steep. Even with online self-help resources and training modules, it takes a long time to learn fairly basic operations compared to other tools I've used. Basic operations in Tableau Desktop should really be simplified to acclimate new users.
  • I experience lots of unexplained connection errors and the error messages are really ambiguous. I've learned to keep retrying multiple times and that often resolves the error, but sometimes if a workbook has been inactive for a while, the only way to resolve the connection error is to restart Tableau Desktop. That is really buggy behavior, and I have wasted a lot of time (as have many colleagues of mine) trying to decipher these errors. This really needs to be fixed.
  • The application runs really slowly. I have a powerful PC, but Tableau Desktop really saps its resources. The previous BI tool we used was cloud-based, so this was a big adjustment moving to this resource-intensive thick client. I think it should be optimized to run faster. I spend too much time waiting.
Tableau Desktop seems best suited to organizations that have dedicated data analysts with the time to spend significant time learning the product. My organization has a lot of "business users" who need to use the tool to produce dashboards but are not dedicated analysts (myself included), so the steep learning curve is frustrating and I am constantly reminded that I need to spend more time (that I don't have) learning the tool just so I can use it effectively. If your organization has lots of "jacks/Jills of all trades" that need a BI tool with easy user experience, there are better tools out there. If you have dedicated personnel with deep technical knowledge on data structure and analysis, Tableau Desktop could be a great tool for you, because it definitely has robust capabilities once you spend the time to learn them.
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May 14, 2019

Self-taught user review

Verified User
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Tableau Desktop was initially going to be used across the whole organization for internal and external purposes. It was going to help automate much of the reporting so more time could be spent on analyzing the data.
  • Data visualization
  • Data integration
  • Data clean Up
  • Sharing reports
  • Duplicating dashboards
  • Overall learning curve
If you have a dedicated team that can get up to speed with little to no distractions and it can 100% be used for client delivery then it'll be great as the entire reporting process becomes streamlined.
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May 14, 2019

Robust analytics tool for analysts and business users

Verified User
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
It is mainly used by the Analytics department in order to solve business problems but there are some savvy business users. It helps to find possible reasons for business performance spikes or drops by slicing and dicing the data. Also, it is generating automated daily reports to key business stakeholders and senior executives.
  • Diverse options for data visualization
  • Intuitive user interface
  • Robust built-in analytics
  • Needs more sophisticated data governance options.
  • Needs more smooth connection with other tools (such as Adobe Analytics).
Tableau Desktop is well suited where data is already well organized within the company data warehouse. Also, there should be competent data engineers who can ensure that data quality is always reliable. If the data quality is bad, it is of no use to business stakeholders and executives. Please remember, "garbage in, garbage out!"
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Tableau Desktop Scorecard Summary

Likelihood to Recommend (1436)
8.3
Likelihood to Renew (39)
8.9
Usability (23)
8.8
Availability (10)
8.0
Performance (9)
6.2
Support (16)
9.0
In-Person Training (4)
9.4
Online Training (4)
8.0
Implementation (34)
8.0
Data Sharing and Collaboration (110)
8.1
Data Sources (110)
8.3
Product Scalability (3)
7.0

Feature Scorecard Summary

Pixel Perfect reports (96)
8.3
Customizable dashboards (115)
9.1
Report Formatting Templates (100)
7.7
Drill-down analysis (111)
8.4
Formatting capabilities (114)
8.5
Integration with R or other statistical packages (82)
7.7
Report sharing and collaboration (109)
8.1
Publish to Web (100)
8.6
Publish to PDF (102)
8.6
Report Versioning (73)
8.0
Report Delivery Scheduling (77)
8.5
Delivery to Remote Servers (32)
8.1
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.) (106)
8.4
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization (105)
8.5
Predictive Analytics (81)
7.5
Multi-User Support (named login) (93)
8.4
Role-Based Security Model (76)
8.4
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete) (84)
8.2
Single Sign-On (SSO) (33)
8.0
Responsive Design for Web Access (82)
8.3
Dedicated iOS Application (58)
7.6
Dedicated Android Application (51)
7.4
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile (75)
8.3
REST API (26)
8.0
Javascript API (25)
7.7
iFrames (23)
7.1
Java API (22)
7.6
Themeable User Interface (UI) (24)
7.9
Customizable Platform (Open Source) (20)
7.3

About Tableau Desktop

Tableau Desktop aims to allow people to make data-driven decisions with confidence, by helping them answer questions more quickly, solve harder problems more easily, and uncover new insights more frequently.

The vendor says that with a couple of clicks, Tableau Desktop connects directly to hundreds of data sources, both on-premises or in the cloud, with the goal of making it easier to start analysis. Interactive dashboards, drag and drop functionality, and natural language queries help users of all skill levels quickly discover actionable insights, all from an intuitive and visual interface. Users can ask deeper questions by quickly building powerful calculations, adding trend lines and seeing statistical summaries, or clustering data to see relationships.

Tableau's goal is to help people and organizations become more data-driven. With an integrated platform that is strives to be easy to start and scale, Tableau aims to support the entire analytics journey, from data preparation, to deep analysis, to the shared insights that drive the business forward.


Categories:  Data Discovery and Visualization,  Business Intelligence (BI)

Tableau Desktop Competitors

IBM Cognos, SAP Lumira Discovery, Qlik Sense, Microsoft Power BI, MicroStrategy Analytics, SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

Pricing

Has featureFree Trial Available?Yes
Has featureFree or Freemium Version Available?Yes
Has featurePremium Consulting/Integration Services Available?Yes
Entry-level set up fee?No

Free trials are available for both editions.

Tableau Desktop Technical Details

Deployment Types:On-premise
Operating Systems: Windows, Mac
Mobile Application:No