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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

(51-75 of 194)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
February 11, 2020

Good for a lone wolf

Verified User
Analyst in Quality Assurance
Entertainment Company, 1001-5000 employees
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We used Tableau to analyze billing and pushed through several million dollars that were stuck because it wasn't visible to management until I created the Viz. We also analyzed quality and security.
Pros and Cons
  • Instantly changes views of data to slice and dice depending on need.
  • Map feature is fantastic.
  • Tableau is very customizable, which means that a lot of simple analytics tools have to be built from scratch.
  • Importing data is not always intuitive to a lay person like me.
Likelihood to Recommend
Tableau Desktop can rescue millions of dollars in missing revenue. It can point out trends that nobody knew about. It can give you feedback that allows you to tweak business processes or online learning to better serve the organization. Tableau Desktop doesn't work with databases directly like Tableau Server, so it's not good for real-time applications. Data must be extracted, transformed and loaded.
January 24, 2020

Tableau Desktop in education

Verified User
Team Lead in Other
Civic & Social Organization Company, 11-50 employees
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
I use Tableau Desktop to organize data from student feedback surveys. We have recently implemented a lot of student feedback and need a centralized system to analyze it. Tableau Desktop helps a lot, and I have led the charge in getting it up and running and teaching other teachers to use it.
Pros and Cons
  • Visual charts are very clear
  • Easy to use
  • It has worked great I have nothing negative to say about Tableau Desktop.
Likelihood to Recommend
Our situation is unique being in a small school environment so I am not sure how this review would help businesses.
December 09, 2019

Tableau Desktop - The nuts and bolts of it.

Ron Rothstain | TrustRadius Reviewer
Ron Rothstain
Assistant Director, Master of Science in Entrepreneurship and Innovation
USC Marshall School of Business (Higher Education, 10,001+ employees)
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We are transitioning all of the data from my department into Tableau so that it can be stored all in one place and visualized. I work for a university IT department that runs a helpline. Our organization collects data on the individuals that call for help. I am able to use Tableau to analyze the caller demographic data. In doing this I am able to get data-driven answers to questions like "what areas are most in need?", "are there certain populations that seem to be disproportionately impacted by our IT rollouts?", and "are there any trends in this caller data that would suggest we focus our resources on specific issues?".
Pros and Cons
  • Love the interface. It's very smooth and easy to connect multiple numbers of data points
  • Provided a lot of self-learning tutorials which are easy to follow
  • You can display info in different ways (categorical versus numerical)
  • User friendly and has clean display
  • Sometimes takes a while to refresh
  • A bit expensive
  • Pullind data, particularly if you are not familiar with SQL or other query languages, can be a bit challenging
Likelihood to Recommend
It helps us to visualize and understand data. Helps in business analysis, predict market trends. Caters to the needs of an organization. Can be integrated with different kinds of data sources like Excel, CSV, different kinds of databases like Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle. On the other hand, need some understanding of statistics to use this software, cannot retrieve previous versions of the same file created. So, version management is a problem. Left joins cannot be created during data loading. These need to be created separately using blends.
December 09, 2019

Data management and visual precedence!

Simol Shah | TrustRadius Reviewer
Simol Shah
Quality Control Engineer
Amazon Web Services (AWS) (Consumer Services, 5001-10,000 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Substantiated training is required to use Tableau Desktop, so most of the incoming associates working with our company have already a well-versed background or at least some certification recognized by the Tableau Desktop enterprise. Tableau Desktop is second only to Windows and consists of enormity in the amount of data connections and visualizations. We use this platform to pose as a processing engine to work with mega data bits to produce displays using queries of non-coded language.
Pros and Cons
  • Pull-down menus and/or split commands for sorting and data manipulation.
  • Great pricing for the desktop version, online is still less preferable though.
  • Automatically connects .csv files instead of a browser.
  • Four-phase implementation training in order to understand all the processes to ensure literacy of the software could facilitate a better process.
  • To match queries it takes a lot of effort in data manipulation.
  • Courses and annual fees leave a strenuous bill burden on those who are beginning to implement the quota into their startup.
Likelihood to Recommend
Tableau Desktop is for the eager-minded intellect and those who have advanced data analytics expertise as the functions are almost mundane for them. The versatility of this platform is wide though, and accompany any seeker who wises to enhance their abilities and procure data in a more nuanced and specific fashion that may progress their data collection
October 23, 2019

Great for Data-Viz-Wizzes, Painful for Others

Verified User
Analyst in Marketing
Telecommunications Company, 201-500 employees
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
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.
Pros and Cons
  • 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.
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
October 07, 2019

Turn Tables Into Vistas of Visualization with Tableau Desktop

BP
Benjamin Plotkin
Technical Project Manager
California State University, Northridge (Education Management, 1001-5000 employees)
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
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.
Pros and Cons
  • 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.
Likelihood to Recommend
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!
October 03, 2019

Still the Industry Standard for BI

GH Powell | TrustRadius Reviewer
GH Powell
Consultant
Zuar LLC (Computer Software, 51-200 employees)
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
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.
Pros and Cons
  • 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
Likelihood to Recommend
Well suited to quick analysis and suite of KPI dashboards. Not so good with Live streaming (big) data.
September 19, 2019

The best tool for visualization and storytelling

Verified User
Partner in Product Management
Information Technology and Services Company, 51-200 employees
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
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.
Pros and Cons
  • 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
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
September 18, 2019

Tableau is a sophisticated BI platform that's constantly improving

Verified User
Analyst in Finance and Accounting
Retail Company, 5001-10,000 employees
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
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.
Pros and Cons
  • 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
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
September 16, 2019

Tableau Desktop - iReviewed

Verified User
Analyst in Information Technology
Financial Services Company, 1001-5000 employees
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
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.
Pros and Cons
  • 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.
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
September 13, 2019

The Dominant Tool, But Will It Stay That Way?

Verified User
Manager in Information Technology
Higher Education Company, 51-200 employees
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
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.
Pros and Cons
  • 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.
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
September 13, 2019

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

John Rome | TrustRadius Reviewer
John Rome
Deputy CIO and BI Strategist
Arizona State University (Higher Education, 10,001+ employees)
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
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.
Pros and Cons
  • 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.
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
August 09, 2019

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

Rahul Malik | TrustRadius Reviewer
Rahul Malik
Senior Team Lead
Wipro Limited (Information Technology and Services, 10,001+ employees)
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
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.
Pros and Cons
  • 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.
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
August 02, 2019

Tableau is a great data tool!

Aditya Gollakota | TrustRadius Reviewer
Aditya Gollakota
Consultant
Deloitte Digital (Management Consulting, 5001-10,000 employees)
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
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.
Pros and Cons
  • Dynamic visualization.
  • Easy data entry.
  • Easy data correction/cleaning/modification.
  • Steep learning curve.
  • Not very user friendly to navigate.
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
July 18, 2019

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

Akshaya Bhardwaj | TrustRadius Reviewer
Akshaya Bhardwaj
Consultant
WNS Global Services (Outsourcing/Offshoring, 10,001+ employees)
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
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.
Pros and Cons
  • 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.
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
July 15, 2019

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

Verified User
Professional in Information Technology
Construction Company, 10,001+ employees
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
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.
Pros and Cons
  • 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?
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
July 02, 2019

Tableau Desktop For Large Data Driven Company

Verified User
Employee in Information Technology
Automotive Company, 10,001+ employees
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Tableau is being used by our business analysts as well as members in our IT department. We are using it to generate reports and do cross functional analysis.
Pros and Cons
  • Visualization of Data
  • SQL Capabilities
  • Report Generation
  • Connection to External Data -Snowflake, MS Access, etc
  • Slow Connection when running Reports
Likelihood to Recommend
For companies of any size, the tool is very scaleable and compatible with nearly any data visualization use case.
June 30, 2019

Tableau Review

Jason Xiao | TrustRadius Reviewer
Jason Xiao
Senior Analyst, Fraud Data Science & Analytics
RBC (Banking, 10,001+ employees)
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
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.
Pros and Cons
  • 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.
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
June 20, 2019

Visualization made simple, and complex!

Clinton Shields | TrustRadius Reviewer
Clinton Shields
Health Information Analytics Analyst
Kings View Community Services, Inc. (Hospital & Health Care, 201-500 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
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.
Pros and Cons
  • 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
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
June 07, 2019

A Great BI Tool for those that love customization

Verified User
Analyst in Marketing
Marketing and Advertising Company, 51-200 employees
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Tableau Desktop was being utilized internally to automatically process monthly reports and create PDF exports for client delivery.
Pros and Cons
  • Data Visualization
  • Data Importing
  • Data Blending
  • Providing login-free dashboards for client/stakeholder visibility
  • Definitions for tooltips
  • Custom color schemes
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
June 03, 2019

Best solution for BI (features + price)

Verified User
Team Lead in Information Technology
Machinery Company, 10,001+ employees
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
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.
Pros and Cons
  • 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.
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
June 02, 2019

Great data tool if you know how to use it

Verified User
Analyst in Marketing
Hospital & Health Care Company, 501-1000 employees
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use Tableau as a way of combining a large number of data sources to create one cohesive story, which guides our business decisions.
Pros and Cons
  • 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.
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
May 29, 2019

Basic desktop data science and analytics are now awalaible

Michael Sadofyev | TrustRadius Reviewer
Michael Sadofyev
Data Management & Blockchain Senior Manager
PwC (Accounting, 10,001+ employees)
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
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.
Pros and Cons
  • 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.
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
May 22, 2019

Visualization is the Future

Maddie Cheasick | TrustRadius Reviewer
Maddie Cheasick
Senior Sales Partnerships Specialist
Sojern (Marketing and Advertising, 201-500 employees)
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
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.
Pros and Cons
  • 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.
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
May 21, 2019

Great visual tool for sharing data with others

Verified User
Analyst in Information Technology
Financial Services Company, 10,001+ employees
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
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.
Pros and Cons
  • 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
Likelihood to Recommend
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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