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Tableau Desktop

Tableau Desktop

Overview

What is Tableau Desktop?

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…

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Recent Reviews

Analytics with Tableau

7 out of 10
February 27, 2024
We use Tableau to generate daily and weekly reports for our business module to generate our key performance indicators. These insights we …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 30 features
  • Report sharing and collaboration (157)
    9.3
    93%
  • Drill-down analysis (159)
    9.0
    90%
  • Formatting capabilities (162)
    9.0
    90%
  • Customizable dashboards (166)
    8.8
    88%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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Tableau Creator

$70.00

On Premise
Per User / Per Month

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttp://www.tableau.com/products/desktop

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Starting price (does not include set up fee)

  • $70 per month
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Product Demos

Tableau Desktop Tutorial | Tableau Desktop Training | Online Tableau Desktop Training - Youtube

YouTube

- Tableau Demo: Quick Tutorial to Getting Started with Tableau Desktop

YouTube

Tableau Desktop Naming Conventions Part 1

YouTube

Tableau Desktop Introduction Part 1

YouTube
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Features

BI Standard Reporting

Standard reporting means pre-built or canned reports available to users without having to create them.

8.5
Avg 8.2

Ad-hoc Reporting

Ad-Hoc Reports are reports built by the user to meet highly specific requirements.

8.8
Avg 8.1

Report Output and Scheduling

Ability to schedule and manager report output.

8.6
Avg 8.4

Data Discovery and Visualization

Data Discovery and Visualization is the analysis of multiple data sources in a search for patterns and outliers and the ability to represent the data visually.

8.6
Avg 8.1

Access Control and Security

Access control means being able to determine who has access to which data.

8.8
Avg 8.6

Mobile Capabilities

Support for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

8.4
Avg 8.0

Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding

APIs are a set of routines, protocols, and tools for used for embedding one application in another

8.7
Avg 7.9
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Product Details

What is Tableau Desktop?

Tableau Desktop supports data-driven decisions by helping users to answer questions more quickly, solve harder problems more easily, and uncover new insights.

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 analyses. Interactive dashboards, drag and drop functionality, and natural language queries help users of all skill levels quickly discover actionable insights, all from its visual interface. Users can ask deeper questions by quickly building calculations, adding trend lines and seeing statistical summaries, or clustering data to see relationships.


Tableau Desktop Video

In this video, the TrustRadius team will be discussing the top business intelligence tools available: Qlik Sense, Tableau, ThoughtSpot, and IBM Cognos Analytics.

Tableau Desktop Competitors

Tableau Desktop Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise
Operating SystemsWindows, Mac
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

Tableau Desktop starts at $70.

IBM Cognos Analytics, SAP Lumira Discovery, and Qlik Sense are common alternatives for Tableau Desktop.

Reviewers rate Report sharing and collaboration highest, with a score of 9.3.

The most common users of Tableau Desktop are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(2261)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(76-100 of 194)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
May 18, 2019

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

Verified User
Program Manager in Customer Service
Computer Software Company, 10,001+ employees
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
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.
Pros and Cons
  • 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.
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
May 15, 2019

Self-taught user review

Verified User
Analyst in Marketing
Automotive Company, 51-200 employees
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
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.
Pros and Cons
  • Data visualization
  • Data integration
  • Data clean Up
  • Sharing reports
  • Duplicating dashboards
  • Overall learning curve
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
May 10, 2019

Easy to use and share reports

Tim Ryan | TrustRadius Reviewer
Tim Ryan
Senior Project Manager
PEMCO (Insurance, 501-1000 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
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.
Pros and Cons
  • 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.
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
April 25, 2019

Solid product but not cheap

Verified User
Program Manager in Corporate
Financial Services Company, 1001-5000 employees
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Tableau is being used as a near real-time dashboard. We use it in specific business use cases as well as across the enterprise to provide visual access to critical data. It primarily serves as a dashboard for me by pulling data from different data sources - database, Excel, SharePoint- and putting it together in a view that is easily understood and communicated. I have used it to both to create reports and provide a nearly real-time view of data.
Pros and Cons
  • Real-time view.
  • Connects to database
  • Provides click-through analysis.
  • Visually appealing layout.
  • It is not intuitive to use.
  • Requires time and effort to create a dashboard.
  • Should offer out of the box functionality.
Likelihood to Recommend
Very well suited for dashboarding and presenting data and analysis visually; allows you to drill down into the intricacies from the top level view. It supports connections with many data sources. Also, there are a lot of good resources on using Tableau online.

It is not well suited for plain reporting as it is really expensive.
December 22, 2018

Tableau Desktop great for individual users

Verified User
Analyst in Marketing
Marketing and Advertising Company, 501-1000 employees
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Internally, Tableau is mainly used by the analytics team, but we have had some cross-department adoption. Externally, our clients use the dashboards our team produces across multiple business functions. It really depends on the client and how much they are dedicated to investing in the platform at an organizational level. It's mixed between companies with only 1 or 2 stakeholders that care about dashboards, to companies that use Tableau across the organization.
Pros and Cons
  • Tableau allows me to quickly explore a dataset and find meaningful visualizations and segments in the data. I find that it's the tool I turn to when I have a fresh set of data and need to quickly pick apart what's important to know about that data.
  • A lot of my business stakeholders can't understand data without being able to see a visualization. Tableau enables me to take structured data and build those visualizations much faster than something like Excel.
  • I enjoy the flexibility in being able to create calculated metrics within the tool. This saves several steps in creating those new metrics within the raw data. The calculated metrics are robust, allowing you to write logic to get at the data that you really need.
  • I spend a lot of time customizing dashboards for clients to match their branding and aesthetic. The one particularly annoying thing is not being able to change the font colors on the y-axis labels. It seems so simple, but there's honestly no way to do it!
  • I work from a laptop that is a few years old. Tableau software is not a light program and I often run into system memory issues when I'm running Tableau Desktop along with other programs. I probably just need a faster computer, but IT has budget constraints and I'm not sure when I'll get a PC upgrade.
  • Sometimes I could spend a lot of time just trying to find a feature in the tool. Like a lot of other Tableau users, I end up googling my question and finding the answer on a community post or YouTube channel. I know it's not just me, as sometimes formatting and customization are not very straightforward.
Likelihood to Recommend
Tableau Desktop is great for building dashboards that you use yourself. It gets a little harder to use when you want to share dashboards with others. The data that you use in Tableau should already be clean and structured, so if you don't have that or don't have support to get that, you'll need more than just Tableau to be able to use it. There is a bit of a learning curve if you're new to BI or data visualization, but with practice and training, it becomes a very valuable asset for analysis.
December 19, 2018

Tableau Desktop - A Great BI Product

Verified User
Analyst in Information Technology
Computer Software Company, 5001-10,000 employees
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
It is used across the organization. All kinds of departments inside our company use Tableau. It solves hundreds of business problems. Tableau users report on the sales, revenue, quotes, product development and lots of other business processes. Data Sources like SAP BW, and Salesforce are slow when it comes to reporting on millions of rows of data. Tableau makes it easier for us to report on all this stuff.
Pros and Cons
  • Scalability of Tableau is amazing. We have thousands of users who interact with the Tableau reports on a daily basis without any major issues. It is exactly like the bigger organizations like us need.
  • Ease of use is another thing that is very good about Tableau. With a very less training, a user can start creating basic reports. As there are many Tableau users around the world, we get a lot of materials, videos online very easily.
  • Beautiful visualizations are the best part of Tableau. Once you get the hang of Tableau, you can impress your boss by creating visually appealing dashboards. Many types of charts are available in Tableau, but if not, you will always find a way to create the visualization you need. Tableau never disappoint you.
  • When creating a data source that needs several tables to be joined together, Tableau does its thing by loading the metadata, executing a query and loading data for preview. It does it after each and every join condition. Basically, every time you add a join condition you wait for a minute to create another one. God bless you if you are joining ten tables. There has to be way to pause this data load or at least some part of it to make this process faster.
  • We had this issue of connection looping with Tableau. Even with a good connection, Tableau ask us to reconnect to the data source. This thing goes in an infinite loop until you hit "No" or "Cancel". And it doesn't exactly show in the log that why is it doing that. Logging needs to be improved.
  • Tableau doesn't like Star or Snowflake schema even with a columnar database. We have these big Star schema (some of them are a little snowflaked) that we tried to load in Tableau. But they were slow. We converted those to the flat tables and Tableau works great with it.
Likelihood to Recommend
Tableau Desktop is just for creating visualizations. You can't expect it to clean your data completely. Don't use it if data cleaning is your objective. It is best to give it a cleaned data. You can try Tableau's data prep tool. Use Tableau if you are not a pro SQL coder and you want beautiful visualizations.
October 31, 2018

Tableau: A robust solution for your reporting needs!

Aryeh Brickner | TrustRadius Reviewer
Aryeh Brickner
VP Marketing
Aryeh Brickner, management consultant (Management Consulting, 1-10 employees)
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Tableau is being used by an entire department. It addresses our need for real-time data and conversion tracking. It allows for all members of our team to tailor reports based on their individual needs.
Pros and Cons
  • Allowing users to export data and manipulate the data based on their needs. This means that although there are prepopulated reports, they aren't rigid and inflexible and they allow users to see the data in other prisms.
  • We are able to track users at various stages of the product lifecycle, which means we can see drop-offs, conversions, and other critical touch points.
  • Allowing for lay users to create individual reports. Currently, we need to request a Tableau data person to mold new reports for us.
  • A drag and drop interphase would be amazing for allowing users to mix touch points as they need.
  • The ability to copy and paste data into Excel as opposed to exporting. We don't always need an entire report.
Likelihood to Recommend
Tableau was great for tracking users through the entire user funnel, including connecting it with a Google Pixel. This allowed us to see true conversions based on campaigns, which in turn allowed us to optimize our revenue generating campaigns. One improvement would be the addition of real-time data streams--as it is, they often have a lag of 24 hours.
October 19, 2018

work tool for presentation of data in chart and professional quality table.

Andres Meza | TrustRadius Reviewer
Andres Meza
Ingeniero de Homologación de Terminales Inalámbricos
Movilnet (Telecommunications, 1001-5000 employees)
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Tableau is being used by a department of the company, specifically for the coordination of data analysis for decision making.

The systematization of the information in a single database was attended; analysis of the information was represented in easy-to-understand tables and graphs. Thus solving the problem of using other programs that do not offer as many professional quality options as a table. In the same way, it was allowed to solve the problem of the existence of several databases.
Pros and Cons
  • It has easy-to-use bar-type graph options that allow you to group a lot of content.
  • It offers the possibility of working with a database in order to position your exact location on your territory and display your information on a map.
  • It has options to superimpose information between two related variables.
  • It has the potential to work with ideal trend data for decision making.
  • Although it allows you to link variables, I consider that the presentation of the information is not ideal. I think the vendor can work on improving that tool.
  • It is difficult to use the tool for georeferencing data, because it asks you to check many options to apply the task. I think the vendor can work on simplifying the process.
  • They should review the process of linking data sheets with the tools from Tableau. On some occasions, I had to do the work again because I did not recognize the database. Work on simplifying the process please.
Likelihood to Recommend
Tableau is an excellent tool for the presentation of data in decision making, therefore, the tool is ideal to present graphs, maps, or tables of the result product of the application of descriptive and inferential statistics of complex character and hard to understand.

Inappropriate scenario: Using the tool for the design of thematic maps of professional quality and that is adjusted to the international standards of cadastre, geography, and cartography, I consider that it does not have the propitious tools to develop such activities.
August 03, 2018

One of the best data visualization tools for established companies.

Verified User
Director in Marketing
Staffing and Recruiting Company, 11-50 employees
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use Tableau as an all-in-one dashboard for our business analytics. Everything from our website metrics, to our sales funnel conversions, to email data, etc. We use Tableau to put that data into reports and charts that give us real insights. These insights help us understand how we're doing as a business.
Pros and Cons
  • Pulling data from multiple sources
  • Create beautiful charts and graphs
  • Saves time by creating reports we would normally have to do in Excel manually
  • It lacks support for certain data hierarchies
  • Too expensive for startups and SMBs
  • The constant updates are a bit annoying
Likelihood to Recommend
Tableau Desktop is great if you work for a large company with a large analytics budget. In fact most large companies need software like this, it's necessary to visualize your data, and large companies have a lot of it.

But if you're a startup or SMB, you probably don't need all of those functions. If price is an issue, then there are some other solutions that you can make use of until you have more of an analytics budget.
July 16, 2018

Tableau-the best

Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology
Information Technology and Services Company, 501-1000 employees
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Tableau Desktop is used for a team of 10 people for a project in the IT department. It is used to learn how to create dashboards for clients.
Pros and Cons
  • Data visualization
  • Quickly create interactive visualizations
  • Tableau can handle large amounts of data
  • Can use of other scripting language in Tableau
  • No Custom Visual Imports
  • Static and single value parameters
  • Screen Resolution on Tableau Dashboards
  • Custom formatting in Tableau
Likelihood to Recommend
Histogram plot helps a lot with visualization.
July 12, 2018

Our organization has benefited with Tableau Desktop. Excellent tool

Fran Maita | TrustRadius Reviewer
Fran Maita
Analista
Fondo de Compensación Interterritorial - Consejo Federal de Gobierno (Architecture & Planning, 501-1000 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
In our organization, we use Tableau Desktop to analyze strategic data and tables to better organize the way in which resources are assigned to other organizations. It is ideal for our workers who strive every day to learn new avant-garde technological tools. Each agency uses this tool to improve the performance in the weekly and monthly management.
Pros and Cons
  • You can upload files from the PC.
  • Work is an Internet connection.
  • Statistical report of project loads.
  • Daily summary of work volume.
  • Report to the day of project siatuacion.
Likelihood to Recommend
Tableau Desktop is characterized by improving the performance of the information that we previously made with other technological tools. Through it, we can ignore the format to obtain statistical squares and maps of works, where before we did not. We continue to bet on this useful tool for our organization and it deserves to update supplements that help us to better perform our work.
June 27, 2018

With Tableau Desktop I quickly analyze my data giving efficiency and speed to my work

Yusmelys Lopez | TrustRadius Reviewer
Yusmelys Lopez
Analista financiero
BANCA PUBLICA (Banking, 201-500 employees)
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
In my organization Tableau is used and it has been very useful, collecting data and information, we take it to graphs for its better analysis, helping to make decisions and better efficiency in real way of the situation that we want to show. We make the compilation of different data in relation to different tasks and different areas of the Organization that is carried in turn to graphics which shows us how the different daily tasks are evolving. Tableau is compatible with different systems such as Excel, MS Access, Teredata, Google Analytics, among others and it facilitates the creation of Dashboards by means of data extraction, modifications and quick updates.
Pros and Cons
  • With Tableau you do not need to have technical knowledge to do the data integration and you get a quick response of what you are looking for, being your visualization of high quality.
  • We can say that it is free software and it is not a limited version
  • Improvements in the fast analysis data engine were designed to make queries much faster
  • We can take more advantage of the capabilities of the source databases to run more queries at the same time; this being a new feature of parallel queries improving the performance of dashboards in Tableau Desktop and Tableau Server.
Likelihood to Recommend
We use Tableau when we want to obtain a fast and efficient result, since this option allows to work with data in real time or in memory, being able to extract massive data for a limited exploration quickly, using technology of database and computational graphics to analyze enormous sets of data and which is used in the different areas of the organization when we want to have quick results and easy to analyze according to the graphics presented.
June 01, 2018

Tableau Desktop: the best to present information

Jennifer Lamas | TrustRadius Reviewer
Jennifer Lamas
Analista
Fondo de Compensacion Interterritorial (Telecommunications, 201-500 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We are using it basically to analyze the data of the projects that the company has in different states of the country. It can be connected to any database of Facebook, Twitter and Google Spreadsheets and many more, which allows us to have the information in a In a fast and safe way, while managing to connect to any mobile device or distance. We can visualize the information through maps, charts, calendars, bar charts, among others, when presenting an information we can show it in a summary through a board, which is very visual and user-friendly. At the moment it is used in a single department of the company, but it is intended to be extended to all departments.
Pros and Cons
  • Unions between databases: combines data from different sources, such as Excel and Oracle, and creates a data source integrated in Tableau. You can also create a Tableau extraction from this data source and publish it.
  • Tableau Mobile for Android, came to Android phones.
  • Share dashboards on any type of screen, with Tableau you can design, customize and publish a single dashboard with views optimized for tablets and phones, managing to see the information wherever you are.
  • The company can consult data sources and with a single glance, it supervises the statistics of use of the data sources and it is labeled as the favorites that are used the most.
  • Excellent experience to analyze databases that help simplify and summarize jobs in the office.
  • Allows you to create enriched visualizations and control tables using an intuitive drag-and-drop interface that allows you to see each change as you make it
  • When the changes are made, in many cases the error that can be made.
  • The data and visualizations of the users are not completely private.
  • Without internet you can not perform any type of update.
Likelihood to Recommend
It is appropriate for the office when you can make the heads, summary presentation and you have a very broad database, with Tableau you can make a summary immediately, what is not that you can connect to the Internet can not perform any update.
May 18, 2018

Tableau Desktop Review

Maria Gabriela Hernandez | TrustRadius Reviewer
Maria Gabriela Hernandez
Analista
FCI (Accounting, 51-200 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Tableau allows you to work with multiple data sources at high speed, also offering an easy and intuitive designer of dashboards. In addition, it allows to analyze and connect to the data in real time or store them to access. It is a tool that allows you to analyze information easily, interact, filter and deepen the data used, it is an ideal solution for companies and organizations since the tool is designed with tables or graphs and easily published to the different responsible parties, facilitating access to the information they need at the right time
Pros and Cons
  • With Tableau, you can easily analyze information, interact, filter, drill down and graph data
  • Tableau allows you to work with multiple data sources, allowing you to convert them into visualized information in easy-to-analyze graphs
  • You can use unlimited amounts of data
  • It facilitates access to the information you need at the right time.
  • The information emptied by the users are not totally private
  • Improve the modality of granting permissions to access files
  • The files used for graphics must be updated constantly, it is suggested that this act be automatic
Likelihood to Recommend
With Tableau, you can create an infinite number of tables, of greater or lesser complexity, and be able to discover and analyze information with very visual graphics. You can use unlimited amounts of data, it is an ideal solution for companies and organizations. The additional information for the users is not totally private, it can be viewed by other users, although there is the modality of granting a permission to access. The files used for graphics must always be updated and must have access to the Internet to access the tool
May 01, 2018

Graphics Graphics Graphics!

Verified User
Engineer in Product Management
Construction Company, 51-200 employees
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
In my previous company we managed to streamline a number of financial tasks for our team. It was only used by a few employees but I expect it to be rolled out soon for the entire company. It just makes tracking product sales so much smoother!
Pros and Cons
  • Allows you to perform queries without the need to write any code.
  • Very useful for weather tracking data.
  • Allows you to utilize maps & data at the same time - very effective graphics.
  • Easy to share data with others both within and beyond your company limits.
  • Slightly better training facilities would help.
Likelihood to Recommend
It is well suited for anyone who is looking to get vast amounts of data down into a presentation format.
February 25, 2018

Tableau- The Data Visualizer

Chandra Bhanu Pratap Singh | TrustRadius Reviewer
Chandra Bhanu Pratap Singh
BI Developer
Cognizant (Information Technology and Services, 10,001+ employees)
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We are using Tableau Desktop for creating dashboards for MIS reporting. These dashboards are being used by stakeholders and managers for their decisions process. They can see the changes over time and graphs, top performing agents and several similar details which are shown geographically or by state. We usually get requirements to update the dashboards as per their need so that it is easily understandable and conveys more information.
Pros and Cons
  • Graphs and charts are built very easily.
  • Tableau is very good at showing data visually
  • Easily help make a decision by looking at the pattern
  • The ETL part is missing in Tableau.
  • For huge and ambiguous data-sets, Tableau Desktop is not good.
  • Before analysis data preparation is mandatory.
Likelihood to Recommend
Tableau is well suited for scenarios where we need to show data visually instead of tabular data. Because Tableau Desktop helps in summarizing the data, and summary data can be well presented in visual form only. If we have tabular data we need to first perform a few calculations and based on that we can create fields which will be used for creating graphs and charts.
February 22, 2018

Tableau Desktop a tool for BD and BI

Arlex Guzman | TrustRadius Reviewer
Arlex Guzman
Project Engineering
EYEMAR EXPRESS (Airlines/Aviation, 1001-5000 employees)
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
In my work we use Tableau Desktop to do graphical analysis of data associated with the operations of the services we offer, the unit that is responsible for using it is the statistics management, our business is air transport, in specific air traffic services which are required by airlines and airports, the studied data is processed with Tableau Desktop to make graphics that allow us to identify patterns and facilitate content for presentations, reports and operational reports. Tableau Desktop is a fabulous tool for the diversity of types and graphic formats, for the versatility to establish relationships with data from different databases, the interface is intuitive, queries are very easy to do, regardless of the origin of the data, has tools to do data mining and consequently business intelligence, in our case it is very useful to relate things such as the volume of route operations depending on the cost of fuel, or determine the profitability of a route or create different scenarios and study the sensitivity of the operation in its different dimensions.
Pros and Cons
  • the quality of its graphic tools.
  • the intuitive and easy in the elaboration of database queries.
  • I think Tableau should improve interoperability with document editors such as ms word.
  • Support in multiple languages is necessary.
Likelihood to Recommend
Tableau Desktop is a graphical analysis tool for Big data and business intelligence, these are areas where you can take advantage of a sognificativa, however I think there are others where it would not be so, for example it would be an opportunity for its developers to get into the field of technical analysis of financial markets, that is, developing tools that allow Tableau Desktop to be used for such applications.
January 12, 2018

Tableau Desktop

Verified User
Analyst in Corporate
Hospital & Health Care Company, 10,001+ employees
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Tableau is being implemented in several departments along with other Data Analysis and Visualization Tools.
Pros and Cons
  • Interactive Reporting
  • Easily prepare and present information in both table and graphical formats
  • Easily modify report and graph parameters
  • Limit table details to those related to specific chart/graph/table points/views
  • Better printing capabilities and more printable formats
  • More control for super users
Likelihood to Recommend
Well suited for presentations of graphics/charts/etc. Less suitable for 'burst' email charts, printable charts/tables
November 14, 2017

Tableau Review

Verified User
Employee in Product Management
Retail Company, 201-500 employees
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
I use Tableau to better help me merchandise our website. I can see which products are selling the best from each category and it helps me make decisions on what product to feature at the top of each category page. I also like having the option to see which SKUs (color or design) are selling better than others and I'm able to use this knowledge when deciding which option I show
as the main focus on the product page.
Pros and Cons
  • Filter by category & refinement to see which items are the best sellers in the particular field.
  • Able to break down each item number by SKU and see which one is performing better than others.
  • Able to see excess inventory and conversions.
  • There is no search option, if you are trying to find a certain item you will have to use the filters to find it.
  • Some of the category refinements do not match our website. For example, there's a "solutions hardline" category filter and we do not have this on our actual website.
  • You cannot check previous weeks/months of data. This would be helpful to have when comparing product performance.
Likelihood to Recommend
I use this platform whenever I'm choosing items to feature in our visual navigation. The visual navigation appears in each of our major categories, and we choose 1 item to represent the subcategories inside. Tableau helps me pick these items because I can see which item is the best seller for each subcategory and also which SKU is performing the best.
October 24, 2017

Tableau - Only BI Tool that you need

Verified User
Analyst in Corporate
Telecommunications Company, 10,001+ employees
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Tableau is used for all reporting purpose and tracking important business metrics across a few departments within the company. A few teams use, it some don't. Tableau does a great job of data visualization. Now all reports are easily shared using tableau server across teams and to executives, and they get automatically refreshed using live data connections and admins can restrict certain dashboards to be viewed by certain people. Building Tableau reports is fast and easy to learn. With just drag-drop feature even non-technical people can now build awesome dashboards.
Pros and Cons
  • Live data connections and making data blending is just a few clicks
  • Intuitive and fresh design compared to other BI tools
  • Filtering, aggregating data is very dynamic and fast
  • Maps for visualizing data by geographically
  • Number of data source options
  • Drag and drop functionality
  • Still lacks in statistical analysis features
Likelihood to Recommend
If you are considering BI tool for data visualization then Tableau is software you should buy. You can even do forecasting using tableau. It's a great tool for building organizational level dashboards in any industry provided you have clean and well-designed data. Creating summary report any dimension or by multiple dimensions like region, product line, store, gender etc is very easy with Tableau.
October 10, 2017

Tableau for Self-Service

Anuj Yadav | TrustRadius Reviewer
Anuj Yadav
Business Process Intern
Medical Devices, 501-1000 employees
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We just started exploring the power of self-service Business Intelligence. As part of that Procurement department, being the pioneer has started using Tableau.
Pros
  • Ad-hoc visualization and aggregation
  • Adding Map servers
  • Interactive dashboards using Activities and parameters
Likelihood to Recommend
It is most suitable for exploratory analysis and data discovery. Also, for presentations.
September 08, 2017

So much data coming in at the same time

Ryan Olsen 📱 | TrustRadius Reviewer
Ryan Olsen 📱
Digital Content Specialist
Sikich (Accounting, 501-1000 employees)
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
It is used as a dashboard for one of our vendors. It allows advanced visualization of performance
Pros and Cons
  • Pivoting information
  • Displaying different information
  • User interface
  • More design options
Likelihood to Recommend
You can use it for combining data sources but it is not so good for raw information feeds
August 09, 2017

Not bad

Ben Lowe | TrustRadius Reviewer
Ben Lowe
Senior Manager/Associate Director
Verizon Wireless (Telecommunications, 10,001+ employees)
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use Tableau as a way to visualize data, as well as, just display the raw tables. We have it connected to various data sources like Oracle, HANA, Kyvos, MemSQL. The tool is used across our department and used at many places across the organization. It is a great way to visualize the data on the desktop and with the recent upgrade to 10.3 on our server environment, we have hopes of using the mobile application.
Pros and Cons
  • Tableau is a good at visualization of data.
  • Fairly straight forward to use.
  • Good at pulling data from a single location.
  • Could be better at handling multiple data sets.
  • Launching Tableau on desktop can take a long time especially if the report has many filters.
  • It should strengthen its data discovery capabilities.
Likelihood to Recommend
Tableau is good when the data comes from a single source like Teradata or from a single data warehouse. For visualizing data in a semi-static form it is very good for general reporting. Where I find other tools have an edge is in the data discovery area, where Tableau is weaker. The interface is simple enough for a business user to use and with programming it can be adapted for many other graphics and dashboarding.
August 09, 2017

What a Tool

Wallace Hu | TrustRadius Reviewer
Wallace Hu
Sr. Director, Principal Big Data Architect
Leadership for Data Analytics & Big Data (Hospitality, 10,001+ employees)
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Tableau is used across all departments within the organization. It addresses the daily reporting needs, and the management dashboard for the performance monitoring. Tableau gives more visualized data for the end users to consume information directly and easily. It also enables the trend analysis, and helps the business to do the forecasting.
Pros and Cons
  • Dashboarding.
  • Visualization of data.
  • Trend analysis.
  • Rich graphic presentation.
  • Should easily include D3.
  • Server performance needs to be enhanced to handle a large volume of data.
  • It's high version needs to be backward compatible.
Likelihood to Recommend
For a straight forward dashboard, like a comparison of month to month, year over year, with filters are not more than 5; and summarized and aggregated reports, tableau is really standout. There are scenarios where Tableau is less appropriate, such very detailed reports which will load billions of records at a time; or there are more than 10 filters to condition the reports or dashboard.
July 27, 2017

Microsoft Power BI is cheap but Tableau has better functionalities

Verified User
Analyst in Marketing
Telecommunications Company, 10,001+ employees
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Tableau Desktop is used as a tool to display KPI dashboards. It addresses the business problem of getting timely visibility on business performance in supply chain. Tableau is used by the sales department and some sections of the marketing department but not across the whole organisation.
Pros and Cons
  • Data mapping: create quick data exploration by joining text file data with xls file
  • Gantt Chart: better Gantt Chart capability than Microsoft Power BI
  • Mapping: excellent mapping capability down to suburbs and post codes in Australia
  • Box plot: quick box plot creating
  • Colour scheme: currently only have limited control over default colour scheme
  • Scheduling dashboard creation and distribution via email currently not available.
  • Table format visualisation: difficult to control as Tableau tends to concatenate fields once it has more than many characteristics fields shown as one.
Likelihood to Recommend

Well suited for quick data analysis and dashboarding.

Less appropriate for report distribution via email.

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