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…
The gold standard in data visualization
A versatile platform that can make your daily work life easier!
Excellent tool for data visualization with simplicity
Tableau is a life saver for data analysis and visualization professionals,
Tableau Desktop: Best in business
Awesome BI/Reporting Tool
"Tableau Desktop is a powerful visual analytics tool that helps us understand our business."
Give your data a different form
Visual reporting gone right
"Efficient, Aesthetic And AWESOME Visualization Tool."
A powerful Business Intelligence tool for enterprises
A large amount of data analysis can be performed without stress
Tableau is widely used, but needs more support and functionality
Tableau Desktop is an excellent tool for visualizations
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
- Report sharing and collaboration (156)9.393%
- Drill-down analysis (158)9.292%
- Customizable dashboards (165)9.090%
- Formatting capabilities (161)8.989%
Reviewer Pros & Cons
Pricing
Tableau Creator
$70.00
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Starting price (does not include set up fee)
- $70 per month
Product Demos
Tableau Desktop Tutorial | Tableau Desktop Training | Online Tableau Desktop Training - Youtube
- Tableau Demo: Quick Tutorial to Getting Started with Tableau Desktop
Tableau Desktop Naming Conventions Part 1
Tableau Desktop Introduction Part 1
Features
BI Standard Reporting
Standard reporting means pre-built or canned reports available to users without having to create them.
- 8.3Pixel Perfect reports(138) Ratings
Pixel Perfect reports are highly-formatted reports with graphics and ability to preview the report before printing.
- 9Customizable dashboards(165) Ratings
Customizable dashboards are dashboards providing the builder some degree of control over the look and feel and display options.
- 8.3Report Formatting Templates(144) Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Ad-Hoc Reports are reports built by the user to meet highly specific requirements.
- 9.2Drill-down analysis(158) Ratings
Drill down analysis is the ability to get to a further level of detail by going deeper into the hierarchy.
- 8.9Formatting capabilities(161) Ratings
Ability to format output e.g. conditional formatting, lines, headers, footers.
- 8.3Integration with R or other statistical packages(121) Ratings
Integration with the open-source R predictive modeling environment.
- 9.3Report sharing and collaboration(156) Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration is the ability to easily share reports with others.
Report Output and Scheduling
Ability to schedule and manager report output.
- 9.2Publish to Web(148) Ratings
- 8.4Publish to PDF(148) Ratings
- 8.6Report Versioning(115) Ratings
Report versioning is the assignment of version numbers to each version of a report to help in tracking.
- 9.1Report Delivery Scheduling(122) Ratings
Report Delivery Schedule is the ability to have reports delivered to a destination at a specific data and time.
- 8.5Delivery to Remote Servers(72) Ratings
Ability to deliver reports to remote servers
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.
- 8.9Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)(153) Ratings
Pre-built visualization formats are canned visualization types that can be selected to visualize different kinds of data.
- 8.8Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization(148) Ratings
Location analytics is the visualization of geographical or spatial data.
- 8.7Predictive Analytics(125) Ratings
Predictive Analytics is the ability to build forecasting models based on existing data sets.
- 8Pattern Recognition and Data Mining(2) Ratings
Pattern recognition and data mining mean the ability to recognize hidden patterns in large quantities of data.
Access Control and Security
Access control means being able to determine who has access to which data.
- 8.8Multi-User Support (named login)(138) Ratings
Named model access means that users have access based on name and password.
- 8.4Role-Based Security Model(118) Ratings
Role-based access means that access to data is determined by job or position in the corporation.
- 8.7Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)(128) Ratings
Multiple access permission levels means that different levels of users have different rights.
- 9Report-Level Access Control(2) Ratings
Report-level access control means that the type of report determines who has access to it.
- 8.9Single Sign-On (SSO)(76) Ratings
Allows users to use one set of login credentials to access multiple applications
Mobile Capabilities
Support for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.
- 8.6Responsive Design for Web Access(123) Ratings
Web design aimed at producing easy-to-read sites across a range of different devices.
- 8.3Mobile Application(96) Ratings
A dedicated app for iOS and/or Android.
- 8.7Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile(116) Ratings
In-app dashboard reports and data visualization.
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
APIs are a set of routines, protocols, and tools for used for embedding one application in another
- 8.5REST API(55) Ratings
REST is an architecture style for designing networked applications
- 8.3Javascript API(50) Ratings
A Javascript API is a type of API
- 8.8iFrames(48) Ratings
An iFrame is an HTML document embedded inside another HTML document on a website
- 8.7Java API(45) Ratings
A Java application programming interface (API) is a list of all classes that are part of the Java development kit (JDK)
- 8.4Themeable User Interface (UI)(52) Ratings
A themeable user interface means that a specific visual them can be applied to it
- 8.8Customizable Platform (Open Source)(45) Ratings
A customizable, open source API Gateway is a fast and scalable type of API
Product Details
- About
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
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
Tableau Desktop Competitors
Tableau Desktop Technical Details
Deployment Types | On-premise |
---|---|
Operating Systems | Windows, Mac |
Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
Comparisons
Compare with
Reviews and Ratings
(2271)Attribute Ratings
- 8.9Likelihood to Renew39 ratings
- 8Availability10 ratings
- 6.1Performance9 ratings
- 8.6Usability63 ratings
- 6.9Support Rating56 ratings
- 8Online Training4 ratings
- 9.4In-Person Training4 ratings
- 8Implementation Rating34 ratings
- 8.1Configurability2 ratings
- 7Product Scalability3 ratings
- 10Ease of integration1 rating
- 10Vendor pre-sale1 rating
- 10Vendor post-sale1 rating
- 9.2Data Visualization10 ratings
- 7.9Data Sources115 ratings
- 8.4Data Sharing and Collaboration115 ratings
Reviews
(151-175 of 193)- Data loading is really powerful.
- A lot of data sources are available. For us the connection to SQL Server Analysis Services is really cool.
- Powerful customization of graphics and dashboards.
- Analysis functions, like forecast and so on.
- It's not so easy to understand.
- They should have a more intuitive data load editor.
Your business NEEDS Tableau
- Very easy to set up, install, configure and use.
- User community is extremely active - posting questions on their forums usually results in an answer in under an hour!
- Tableau has hours of free training videos on demand and many more free live training sessions.
- Cost is a little high for some businesses.
- ODBC is not really supported. I understand why since there could be thousands of drivers 'in the wild'.
Tableau is awesome!
- The graphs are very easy to create!
- Easy to design workbooks and graphs.
- You can quickly see trends and anomalies in your data!
- Add functionality to put a dashboard in a dashboard. Currently not available.
- Add settings to help in the joining of tables. (IDs only, etc).
- More work on extracts! They can still be slow and cumbersome.
- We have used several data visualization tools, but like Tableau for its unique features like.
- Ease of building, i.e the effort spent is minimal in comparisons to other tools as there is no bulky middle/symantec layer in between the front end and the source systems.
- You can use all types of databases, text files, CRM applications, advance analytics tools and Hadoop like big data technologies.
- The inbuilt map features available and the ease of building make it again unique.
- Tableau works more like a dashboard tool and lags the reporting Tool's features.
- Creating Financial Reports with complex formulae with horizontal or vertical table structure is not so comfortable like with SAP, Oracle and MicroStrategy tools.
- Tableau's conditional formatting and limited 16 column table, disappoints the users who are comfortable with Excel.
- Tableau has weak semantic modeling and Data modeling.
- Fetching data from multiple different types of sources
- The built time is less
- Your end users are techno-functional and they are comfortable with building their ad-hoc reports rather than requesting the developers to do so
- Is simple to manage, and the learning curve is easy.
- Deployment made easy and included.
- Interaction with the data is the most powerful feature you can give to an user, and Tableu exceeds on this.
- Multiple devices ready.
- No need of advanced reporting skills.
- Printed reports is not as good as other tools, but who needs this nowadays?
Data visualization made easy!
- Data visualization
- Publishing data visualization
- Interactive data visualization
- Robust/Fact calculation
- Although Tableu supports R, this support is still limited. It would be great if there was some interface where Tableau could connect to R directly.
- Exporting/printing multiple view as file/output.
Oj's Review of Tableau Desktop
- Powerful visualization skills
- Easy to implement Tableau Calculations to achieve complex BI level analysis and reporting
- Integration with R
- Fast report render speeds across multiple data sources, agnostic of the data source technology
- Copy DS with Calculated Fields
- Easier Edit of Custom Colors
- Ability to Format Parameters and Filters individually
Tableau - Analytics Leader
1. Reducing IT overhead
2. Increase flexibility in data analysis
3. Promote self service
- Biggest strength of Tableau desktop is its abundant availability of visualization charts. This makes it easy for users/analysts for decision making rather than going through Raw data.
- Ease of Use: This helps in a homogenous user interface.
- Support: This tool supports all kinds of users from basic to advanced. No coding required thus reducing the IT overhead.
- Data Integration: Tableau works well in merging third party data sources with the existing. This gives users flexibility in analyzing multi sources of data in a single place.
- Column limit: There is a limit in displaying the number of columns to no more than 16 in the layout.
- Initial Data Preparation: Users need to have some technical knowledge in order to prepare/massage the data for the analysis.
- HANA Connectivity: Though Tableau connects to HANA well, the integration provided is not flexible at an enterprise level.
- OLAP Connectivity: Integration with SAP BW is poor.
- Self Service - Reducing the dependency on IT thus increasing the flexibility to slice and dice the reports
- Ease of Use - No technical knowledge needed to start with. But, also supports SQL for advanced users
- Contemporary Visualizations - Rich and modern visualizations make users feel comfortable in data analysis
- Integration with third party data sources - epecially where the planning data is maintained in one system and actuals are maintained at another source
Tableau Geek & Proud!
- Tableau Desktop helps end users create data visualizations quickly and with little knowledge of the product. The simple user interface and the ability to “drag and drop” measures and dimensions isn’t found in any other analytics tool.
- Multiple data types and sources can be connected to Tableau. From organizations using Excel to house data or large institutions using Vertica and Hadoop, anyone can use Tableau for analysis.
- The ability to create dashboards and create a smooth end user experience is exceptional. Tableau allows an individual with no prior knowledge of the tool to navigate the dashboard and gain data insights.
- Tableau should add navigational buttons. There should be an easier way to jump to multiple tabs within a dashboard.
- Dynamic parameters. There should be a way to tie a parameter to a column and if new variables are placed in the column, the parameter should update as well.
- The background shading (or coloring) of quick filters and parameters should be individualized. Currently if one parameter’s color is changed, all of the parameters on the dashboard change as well.
Perfect analytics tool
- Tableau is being used to retrieve data from multidimensional relational databases, spreadsheets and from cloud databases and then to present the data in visual format to the users in Sales, Marketing, Operations and Finance.
- Tableau is being used for analyzing sales metrics, capturing web data from customers and used for marketing analytics, reporting financial analysis data to senior management to visualize the performance of the company within a few minutes, instead of tedious report generating processes from other third party applications.
- We started using the latest version 8.0 and many of the features that we would be using were included in the latest release 8.0. Did not come across any areas that the product does less well, but we are somewhat new to Tableau and still trying out many features.
- Time-to-value. Allows you to quickly and easily gain insight into your data visually.
- Ease of use. For novice users and experts alike to utilize. The interface is fairly straight forward and non-complicated.
- Many data sources are available, and the ability to bring together disparate data sources is a plus.
- Value. The price does not constitute the value.
- Although it is marketed as a business intelligence tool, its function is niche as in it is a visual data discovery / self-serve dashboard tool.
- Accessing data details. Users want to see and export the data behind the visualizations which is not a strong function of this product.
Sometimes it Tableaus you away
- Tableau creates visuals based on the data provided. It automatically chooses which visual works best and its often right.
- Tableau allows for an easy pivot-like approach to analyzing data.
- Tableau provides unique analysis, such as geo-mapping based on address data, which allows for a different perspective when looking at restaurant data.
- Tableau can be difficult in the way it automatically designates certain fields. It may not recognize a certain field as a date field even though it is.
- Tableau is still missing some of the Excel functions that are helpful or it just may not be intuitive in how to incorporate them if you're familiar with Excel.
- While the Tableau map is a great visual option, it can be buggy and still needs some work.
Big Promises but Lousy Delivery
- Tableau Desktop has pretty colors but is not very well constructed for beginning users of the product.
- Support is nowhere near where it should be for allowing a first time user to learn how to use the product.
- Pricing was presented to me by Tableau sales with the understanding that Tableau provided excellent training. Not true.
- Tableau Desktop needs to provide a comprehensive training program for first time users
- Training that is currently provided does not allow for any user interaction so it becomes just a lecture without allowing the user to develop muscle memory with the product.
- Tableau Desktop does not provide any phone support which means that once a user buys the product, he is on his own.
Tableau: a concise review from the trenches
- Ease to connect to various types of data sources, hosted locally and in the cloud: almost "plug-and-play"
- Support to quickly create compelling dashboards that can be used by various analysts across the organization: I meet with the stakeholders who pose the questions and we brainstorm together so they lead me through the construction of the right set of assets. At any step, I am able to show them the current stage of the visualizations being built, until we reach a point at which what is left to be done is the finessing of the final assets.
- Ease to blend heterogeneous data sources: this "point-and- click" feature has been useful when we need to combine heterogeneous data sources in the creation of dashboards
- Easy sharing of visualization assets among peers: we create versions of the visualization assets under construction using extracts, which makes the sharing of the resources particularly easy since stakeholders focus on analyzing the data and not on issues related to the underlying data infrastructure
- Since I am a senior software engineer, I wish Tableau had a more robust underlying programming language with clearly defined semantics. To be fair, the ability to connect Tableau with R helps in this direction.
- I believe the quality and quantity of the official documentation maintained by the company could improve. Fortunately, there is a thriving community on which I have relied heavily. However, given the current level of maturity of Tableau, this should naturally prompt the company to document well-known solution patterns for recurrent visualization questions/problems.
- I would appreciate the ability to easily access data inherent to some "out-of-the-box" analyses available in Tableau. For instance, it would be nice to programmatically have access to parameters that are calculated in connection with linear trends such as the slope, the independent term, etc.
Ease of use and heterogeneous data sources
The UX in Tableau's software is made to facilitate the usage. In less than 20 minutes I was able to make my first dashboard with log data. When using other BI solutions this wasn't the case.
I could use different databases from many extensions in this solution. And the best part was the mapping widget included in the software. It enabled me to use single point and linear symbols which is great for geomarketing reporting (maybe it could be improved by adding some basic geo processesing tools such as geocoding and routing).
The dashboard could be shared via a full web interface which was appropriate for my usage.
- Mapping widget
- Charts and pies are well designed
- Mutual dependence between components
- Ease of use
- Variety of data that can be integrated (xls, dbf, Oracle, SQL, cube .... and many other DB sources )
- Clear and intuitive dashboard
- In mapping extension - could add some basic geoprocessing tools
- Adding charts and pies directely of the map
- Using shapefile could be useful too
- Connecting to multiple data sources seamlessly
- Easy to create visualization report / portal
- Fast generation of reports
- Easy to learn
- The dashboard is more desktop based, and needs more enhancement on web-based
- Sometime changing the format is very challenging
- Need more geographical / map-based templates
"Tableau Desktop - Driving Organization Analytic Efficiency Engine"
- Good analytic Platform
- Versatile tool for visualization
- Very easy to create diverse visualization
- Flexible in terms of data source option from Excel to Microsoft cube
- No predictive analytical capabilities
- Statistically challenged and provides limited statistics functionality as compared to Microsoft Excel
- No version control, governance and other commonly desired enterprise features
Tableau - Tab-yes!
- Tableau Desktop is a very intuitive platform. Its smart tools help you clean and organize your data before you go and start dragging and dropping your data to build your visual dashboard.
- Tableau Desktop is very user friendly, it has a nice user interface and is easier to learn/pick-up than most business intelligence tools out there.
- Tableau Desktop has an open API so it's easy to connect to other systems, such as an HRIS system, so you can do real time reporting and information gets updated immediately.
- Great analytic tool.
- Pricing.
- Predictive analytic tools.
- Specific tools or suggestions for different business units. For example, I do people analytics, maybe a list of recommended analytics for my area (HR)?
Tableau overview analysis
- Sorting.
- Filtering.
- Choose the data.
- Integration with third party tools.
- With Web Services Layer.
Visual Intelligence and Analysis (VIA) that is the name of our company & what you can expect from Tableau
VIA is a Tableau Training and Consulting firm with eight (8) years of experience with Tableau Desktop. Having published the first Tableau Training Manual in the world which is now current with version 9.0. This version has greater appeal for the user who is more of an analytical person. With the addition of Level of Detail Expressions and In-line calculations, Tableau continues to add more user classifications than in the early days. At one time the by line was " Tableau - a product for the under-served business user". While that tag line is still true, the fact is that Tableau's addition of connectors to R and other sources along with 9.0 additions, more sophisticated users are signing on as customers
One slightly nagging question is what will become of Tableau Desktop users who find versions 8.2 or 8.0 sufficient for the the data and the analysis required? Having authored and published manuals in both hard copy and digital formats, these manuals are now in use in 55 countries. There will be a version 10 one day - but will we see the product line bifurcated so there are two tiers and both have access to support?
- Tableau is as popular today as it was 5 years ago for use by the average and under-served business user. Richer analytic capabilities now open doors for the audience that requires "R". Smartly, Tableau is not wondering into the space that a SAS dominates.
- TCO - total cost of ownership - Our firm created a 150 question survey for a client that wanted to contract with one of the top three data visualization and analysis vendors for an OEM contract. Written with total objectivity the three vendors were: Spotfire, Qlik-View and Tableau. All the questions were weighted - The outcome and contract went to Tableau - among a number of reasons for the award was the lowest cost of ownership which is often not considered.
- Future Direction of the product - This is a challenge for this writer and contributor. Tableau does need a process that enables it to deal with data blending in a more complete and simple manner with emphasis on simplicity. I would eliminate the waste of space and thus clutter with repetitive instruction sets - example - there are five ways to create a new sheet. We also hear from clients and they ask for easier ways to connect to SAP
- Support - Tableau support has now gone the extra mile. We now get telephone calls directly from support on the same day that a case is submitted. Further, case escalation is rapid if the first person cannot provide the fix.
- There is no need to to have small features like "create new page" enabled in five ways. It results in clutter for the new user who seeks to grasp fundamental features in one or two places max.
- Time series data - The options for rendering time series date are confusing for the new user. Once the time dimension is placed on the columns, the options for how time is rendered are confusing for the new user. Time options are shown in classic time options (Year - Qtr - Mth) but the user can see time in a more continuous for (green) with the options below a poorly marked line. Tableau should render the continuous options in green to provide a visual clue and some text to tell the user
- Story Points is a nice feature - In this world of PowerPoint addiction, it is not a knock-off and I am sure it was not intended to be such. It does help the user who is faced with presenting content in a process to the inevitable Friday, 9AM senior staff meeting.
- Presentation of the calculations backing up quick table calculations
- An abbreviation list for states in the US and countries when using geo coded data
Tableau Server has emerged as a true enterprise enabler - that brings with excellent collaboration functionality and a question. What role does governance play when sensitive information is published? How are workbooks vetted? How are data sources systemically reviewed? How are charge backs managed when thousands of Interactors are in play? Much more to hear on this.
Need to visualize data? Look no further.
- Ease of use. It is extremely easy to drag and drop fields and create a quick dashboard in minutes. After loading data, you can quickly adjust fields to figure out which formats offer the best insights into your data.
- Powerful mapping and charting abilities. There are a wide variety of options available for displaying data, from geographic maps, heat maps, word bubbles, line graphs, bar charts, histogram, bubble chart, scatter plots, area chart, pie charts, etc.
- Customization. With the simple click of a button, you can adjust the colors, sizes, text, and formats of your worksheets. This is especially useful when comparing information on multiple levels of detail, from geographic region, to company type, etc. Its also a great way to customize your reports for you customer, and utilize their specific color scheme.
- There are a few things Tableau could do better, I would like to see even more mapping options, including web or spider maps. I have clients who would be very interested in that view of data, however tableau does not currently offer an easy way to represent the data accordingly.
- It is very easy to add data into Tableau, and for the most part easy to manipulate data within the program, however some fields must be in the proper format to be read correctly. For example, date fields must be in the excel data format (ex:36892 is the value for 1/1/2001), and it will not just read a 4 digit year as a year. Its not the hardest thing to deal with, but can be frustrating needing to return to the original data source to modify date values.
Tableau Desktop 8.0.4
- Easy to access and transform all data store types.
- Tool is easy to navigate.
- Data visualizations are appealing to end users.
- Large statistical analysis (this is changing in the next version with integration of R).
Tableau for Business Intelligence
- Easy for a business user with little or no data knowledge to access and understand their data. Hence you can connect straight to your accounts or operational data and start gaining insights to aid good decision making.
- A great combination of entry level BI all the way to expert. The user interface is so friendly and intuitive that you can see results almost immediately. I was able to pick it up and make new discoveries about my business within a couple of hours from first opening the software.
- The software is very affordable and also scalable so you don't have to make a huge investment up front you simply add licenses as you need them. The setup is instant too.
- The main downside for me is that it is currently not available for Mac so I have to run it on a VM.
Tableau Desktop Drives Analytic Efficiency
- Data Connectivity. Tableau Desktop supports an incredibly vast array of data sources, and does so very efficiently. Everything from Excel Data Sheets, to advanced databases to your online Google Analytics account.
- Data Visualization. Tableau's built in data visualizations follow and even suggest best practices for all kinds of data types and cuts. It also has a superb dashboard capability which becomes more versatile with each release.
- Data Filtering. With the simple use of consistent data points and parameters, Tableau allows for a report to be filtered based on any data dimension. This allows for efficient and easy report automation and duplication.
- Dashboard Formatting - while the dashboard capability is robust and easy to use, it can be difficult at times to do some of the finer detailing, like formatting, coloring and highlighting. Once mastered, it is again very versatile, but is not as intuitive and there is a learning curve.
- An Undo Button! Tableau current does not include an 'undo' button which can be extremely irritating if you make a mistake that is difficult to reverse.
- Table Joining - the interface/wizard used when attempting to join tables and connect different data sources is not as intuitive as it could be, which makes it difficult to perform some of the incredible data connectivity that is available.
- An organization or team with a skilled data architect, that has a strong collection of clean and well built databases and data sources
- A client who is open and excited to utilize Tableau Server to view reports electronically, as this allows for the analyst to utilize the tools fantastic drill down, filtering, interactive dashboard capabilities.
- Somewhere where high volumes of reports that require large amounts of data - small scale reporting may not justify the investment
- Organizations focused on analytic and data visualization best practices
Tableau leads to data analysis capabilities to a new level.
- Tableau is very flexible and generates analysis with graphics quite easily.
- It is very easy to install and use.
- Its cost is not absurd as others in its segment tools.
- We are doing a proof of concept for the procurement planning and inventory processes of a medium-sized retail company. In this case, the tool cost and flexibility make a difference.