Skip to main content
TrustRadius
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…

Read more
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 …
Continue reading
Read all reviews

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 (156)
    9.3
    93%
  • Drill-down analysis (158)
    9.2
    92%
  • Customizable dashboards (165)
    9.0
    90%
  • Formatting capabilities (161)
    8.9
    89%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

View all pros & cons
Return to navigation

Pricing

View all pricing

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
Return to navigation

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
Return to navigation

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.

8.9
Avg 8.1

Report Output and Scheduling

Ability to schedule and manager report output.

8.8
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.

8.7
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

8.6
Avg 7.9
Return to navigation

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 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).
Return to navigation

Comparisons

View all alternatives
Return to navigation

Reviews and Ratings

(2270)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 76)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
February 27, 2024

Analytics with Tableau

Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Tableau to generate daily and weekly reports for our business module to generate our key performance indicators. These insights we use in our business review meetings to understand the business performance with our target baseline. Through this, we can able to identify the areas of improvement and contribute to decision-making.
  • Easy to import the data from various external sources and transform them as per the business requirements.
  • Through Quick analysis tool bar option, we could easily calculate certain metrics and boost productivity
  • We use set and parameters in Tableau to generate business insights required for our process.
  • It has poor performance while handling large data sets and takes a longer time to complete certain tasks.
  • Their customer service assistance is not good which should be improve for better experience.
  • They have limited options to export the data from Tableau that should be improved.
We have to import multiple data sets from different sources and Tableau has the option to connect with them which saves a lot of time.

It has limited features available via using Tableau on a mobile application which does not allow us to perform certain task and Tableau has performance issues while using it through the mobile.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use Tableau to create interactive dashboards from individual charts and graphs. It helps visualize complex data and share reports cross functionally with the click of a link. The fact that dashboards are connected to live data sources that refresh periodically ensures accurate and efficient reports. Tableau offers limitless features and is highly customizable. It is truly the gold standard in data visualization.
  • Data visualization.
  • Data sharing/collaboration.
  • Report building.
  • Analytics.
  • Expensive pricing.
  • Slow performance for large data files.
  • Poor customer support.
Tableau is valuable in its ability to allow viewers to filter and manipulate data to find answers to their own questions. Having the data connected to live source keeps all stakeholders up to date with the relevant data. However, sometimes large data files can take a considerable amount of time to load. Tableau's lack of an auto-save feature is also inconvenient.
Shubham Tiwari | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Tableau provide platform where people can create dashboard and do data analysis in simpler way.The visual capabilities and features available to users contribute to a better understanding of how different activities are carried out.Exploring data with tableau desktop encourage users to ask as many questions as they can about the data.Data analytics with tableau desktop is transformed into an important resource for identifying problem and solution for them.
  • Data visualization
  • Data analytics
  • Merging two or more than two tables
  • Exploring multiple tables
  • Need multi value parameters currently it is static and single value parameters
  • No custom visual report
  • Custom formatting in Tableau
  • Limited data preprocessing
In Tableau we can make different types of dashboard a few of them listed below
1-Patient Risk Healthcare Dashboard
2-Sales forecast analysis dashboard
3-Marketing campaign dashboard
4-Product availability dashboard
5-Flight price analysis dashboard
6-Crime analysis dashboard
7- Air quality and pollution analysis dashboard
I would recommend industry to use tableau for below reason
1-Less time required to pull and prepare data
2-Flexiblity to explore and try new things
3-Share up-to-date dashboard
There is some disadvantage in using Tableau
1-Tableau focus primarily on visualization and can't work with uncleaned data.
2-Lack of data modeling and data dictionary capabilities for data analytics
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Tableau for data visualization of our premium healthcare stats. Tableau offers us the power to present large data sets in beautiful interactive charts. I love the storyboarding feature with Tableau that helps in weaving a story from all the data that one has.
  • Handles large data sets very well.
  • Powerful visualization tools.
  • Customization and Collaboration.
  • Drag and Drop functionality for some complex charting would be very helpful.
Tableau handles large data sets, and drag and drop is easy to learn - so the learning curve can be very fast; a collaboration of the canvas is a wonderful feature since we are all working remotely. In my opinion, data analytics in life sciences needs a platform like Tableau. I am sure it's useful in consumer goods and other industries as well.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
With the ever-evolving data needs and usage of advanced analytics, it is of prime importance that we use the right tool for the requirements. Tableau Desktop is one such tool at this juncture that is widely used across organizations and widely famous among business leaders and C-suite members. It addresses a diverse range of business use cases, especially to summarize and synthesize the findings.
  • Tableau Desktop allows people to make data-driven decisions
  • Uncover new insights more frequently
  • With a couple of clicks, Tableau Desktop connects directly to thousands of data sources, both on-premises or in the cloud, making it easier to start an analysis
  • Pricing should be more user-friendly and usage-driven
  • Making edits to the production reports is fairly tough and has a vast scope of additional capabilities
  • Tableau Desktop should be able to differentiate itself from the Tableau server else there is no major meaning of two different products being offered
Tableau Desktop is one the finest tool available in the market with such a wide range of capabilities in its suite that makes it easy to generate insights. Further, if optimally designed, then its reports are fairly simple to understand, yet capable enough to make changes at the required levels. One can create a variety of visualizations as required by the business or the clients. The data pipelines in the backend are very robust. The tableau desktop also provides options to develop the reports in developer mode, which is one of the finest features to embed and execute even the most complex possible logic. It's easier to operate, simple to navigate, and fluent to understand by the users.
Tohidul Islam | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Tableau Desktop is capable of quickly and easily visualizing large amounts of data from various sources. It generates visualizations and provides a dashboard for use in presentations, among other things. No programming knowledge is required, and it can handle large data sets like spreadsheets and other tools. The system can create many different types of charts, and it can automatically determine the best way to fit data into each one. We can import data from Excel or CSV files with ease. In addition, the plots can be tailored to our business and effectively convey information. In terms of the user experience, Tableau Desktop is a straightforward data analytics tool that can be scaled and integrated with a wide range of other applications to provide insights into data.
  • In the BI/analytics platform, it's a popular reporting tool.
  • Includes graphs, maps, and plots that easily integrate with data.
  • Intuitive data representation and handling of large amounts of data attracted it.
  • Downloading large datasets can be time-consuming.
  • To use it effectively, users must be knowledgeable about it.
Tableau Desktop is straightforward business intelligence (BI) tool that allows non-IT users to create dashboards. One feature I like about it is its flexibility in creating custom views and the ability to use sets and parameters. It's compatible with any database type. Drag and drop to create interactive graphics that fit your desired format. If you're looking for an ETL engine, Tableau Desktop isn't what you want. When used with your existing data, it can help you find any gaps or inaccuracies. The software is pricey, and downloading large datasets can be time-consuming.
Mayur Garg | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Tableau Desktop helps my organization in different ways as mentioned below.<br>1) It helps my organization to analyze company data which helps our Marketing team to increase sales every month.<br>2) It help to create report in different form which helps to see data in visual forms.<br>3) It helps to connect to different database lie spreadsheet Cloud Database etc.
  • It helps to analyze big data and data can be in any form
  • It helps 5 tools to analyze and create report
  • It helps to create different type of charts
  • As I user I dont find any missing feature because as a part of marketing team we are satisfied with the feature we are using
The specific scenarios based on our experience where Tableau Desktop is that we have data in Excel and cloud data so Tableau helps create different report as well as analyze large data easily and in today world I believe data play a important role. It create different graph form as well.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
This has got to be one of the coolest ways of displaying and viewing reports! I really love how everything integrates with the systems that we already use and it all seamlessly works together! The real time updates are also huge! I highly recommend Tableau Desktop especially if you haven't tried it yet!
  • Real Time Reporting
  • Team Access
  • All in one place
  • filters
  • accessibility
  • customization
From data prep to dashboard consumption, Tableau Desktop 2022.1 makes data analysis easier at every stage. It is an excellent data visualization and business intelligence tool used for reporting and analyzing vast volumes of data. It helps users create different charts, graphs, maps, dashboards, and stories for visualizing and analyzing data, to help in making business decisions.
Orin Mamun | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Tableau Desktop has proven to be an invaluable resource for us. It can collect data like no other system. We use it almost every day to gather data and handle large datasets online using spreadsheets or other tools without programming skills. We solved our business problems, analyzed and shared data within teams, and identified trends. It gives us a glimpse into the future of the market. Tableau, a business intelligence (BI) tool for non-IT users, enables them to create dashboards. It provides a variety of graphs, charts, maps, and plots that are integrated into our data. It can connect to a server and import data from it. We use Tableau Desktop to enhance our analysis because it has a beautiful aesthetic.
  • It serves as a central repository for all of the company's data.
  • Intuitive and uncomplicated data management is the norm here.
  • With this tool, it is simple to discover and explore information.
  • Tableau's impressive data visualization capabilities allow it to deal with large data sets.
  • Data visualization of a million rows is possible without affecting the dashboard's performance.
  • There are times when the visualization is a bit dull.
  • The creator determines the user-friendliness of data boards.
  • It would be greatly appreciated if the refresh timer could be increased.
  • In terms of user experience and interface design, I'm not convinced.
Tableau Desktop is an excellent tool for visualizing data. It helps businesses collect and analyze data from spreadsheets and cloud applications like Salesforce and Google Analytics, among separate sources. It makes complex data other reachable to understand by visualizing it. If the company is interested in embracing a self-service culture, it is not convenient. Insufficient useful for economic data extraction and analysis, such as reconciliation and cash transactions, Tableau is less relevant.
Issac Paul | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Tableau is used for data reporting and dashboard creations. Since we have a huge amount of data stored in SQL servers it is really hard to use excel for data reports creation. Thus we use Tableau for the generation of reports directly from the SQL database. We use it across various departments such as sales, finance, and Production for KPI monitoring Project cost monitoring, etc.
  • Dashboard Creation.
  • Fast connection to SQL, Oracle Databases.
  • Automatic Data Refreshing.
  • Report refresh rate needs to be improved.
  • Support for more visual graphs.
  • Cost of the license should be reduced.
Highly suitable for data already available in databases Suitable for handling large volumes of data Can handle multiple tables smoothly without any lag in loading Not suitable if source data is unstructured without clear headers and wrong data formats. Not suitable if data sources are excel copies saved in local machines.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We have used Tableau Desktop to analyze development efforts. Until now, the work man-hours of each person in charge were collected in detail, but it took a lot of man-hours to find improvement points. We used Tableau Desktop in the scope of development man-hours management.
  • The user interface is easy to understand, so it doesn't take long to learn how to operate it.
  • Even if you handle a huge amount of data, it will not slow down.
  • It is easy to extract data from various points of view.
  • Creating a diagonal reference line requires a lot of steps.
  • In many cases, if you're used to working with Excel, you'll find that simple things can't be done easily with Tableau Desktop.
Tableau Desktop can handle a large amount of data lightly, but when dealing with a small amount of data, it may be easier to obtain results using Excel. If you experience stress using Excel, I recommend trying Tableau Desktop.
Jeremy Pierce, MBA | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Tableau Desktop to prepare data sources and dashboards in our organization. We are able to solve simple business problems & use cases with Tableau Desktop. We are able to analyze & share our data points both within teams and with external teams. We are able to monitor data as it comes in and analyze trends quickly & easily.
  • Nearly pixel perfect graphs
  • Easily switch from visualizing data to presenting just numbers
  • So many data point connectors. If you have data, it'll connect to it.
  • So many moving points to make a detailed graph.
  • The visualizations are very rudimentary which leads to analysts creating multiple visualizations to overlay over each other in 1 dashboard.
  • Data is a full truncate & reload, or you can use an API but it is an append only data flow.
Tableau Desktop is great if you use "Live Connections". Trying to use data sources is a nightmare. When consuming data for dashboards, it is either a full truncate & reload overnight which can take a long time depending on your data warehouse. Or you can use their Hyper & Rest APIs to automate grabbing new data, but it is append only. This means that if you have data that has changed, if you try to use these APIs you will then get duplicate primary keys in your data. So then you are forced to use the live connection or truncate & reload. So you can't source all of your data in 1 data source as that's too large, so then you are left with several small disparate data sources that you then have to support.
Al Mubassir Muin | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Tableau Desktop enables us to connect to our various data streams within the company. Its best feature is its ability to link data from multiple sources together in meaningful ways. It is cloud-based, which makes it simple to add new plugins. Organizing and scalability are simplified. Tableau Desktop is essential to use data visualization to analyze our business performance and help it meet its objectives. Excel reports offer a data summary to make visuals for presentations and sales reporting more efficient. With these features, we can create a data-driven presentation. It provides the ability to convert between different formats and supports multiple data sources. We can use identical data sources to create multiple sheets, such as Amazon Redshift/Google Sheets.
  • Simplicity and dashboard
  • Low cost and scalability
  • An easy-to-use interface
  • Real-time dashboard options
  • Numerous visualization options
  • Integration of large amounts of data
  • Downloading, accessing, and using it is simple
  • Enhanced customization
  • Offers limited product support
  • Cost-effective for a small business
Tableau Desktop is better for data analysis and visualization. Its advanced visualization features helped us better understand our business and customer demographics. We use Tableau Desktop to track our team’s progress. Real-time analyses and interactive dashboards are helpful for monitoring data. We can now create and share insights in ways we couldn’t before. It’s easy to put faith in and use these insights. Tableau Desktop can compare data from previous years with weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual comparisons. It assists businesses in identifying the best and least-sold products. However, this requires expensive licenses and skilled personnel, which small businesses cannot afford.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Tableau Desktop is currently being used in my project. The most common implementation of Tableau is to create complex data visualizations to extract meaningful business insights, and thus it caters to all audiences. This helps us to create interactive dashboards with a sequence of visual graphics called stories. Recently we have also integrated Tableau with R and Python to easily map data insights to dashboards in real-time. Since Tableau can handle large amounts of data, complex statistical computations also help in providing dynamic variations to the dashboard.
  • It can handle very large amount of data
  • Drop-down options in dashboards allow users to analyze the impact of clusters within the dataset
  • It integrates well with Python and R
  • It is strictly a visualization tool, hence no data preprocessing is possible
  • Non-coding Tableau users will find it difficult to preprocess data using Python/R and then push the preprocessed data to Tableau
  • The reports generated has to be updated manually since Tableau does not allow automatic refreshes
Tableau Desktop is well-suited in projects where large datasets are used to gain business insights. A simple use-case for me is creating machine learning models and predicting outcomes and creating interactive dashboards using these predicted values and other accuracy metrics. The only limitation faced is preprocessing the data at an early stage (either in Python or R) and feeding this preprocessed data to Tableau.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We have chosen Tableau [Desktop] to teach students a tool that makes it easy and intuitive to extract value from big data sources. Tableau [Desktop] is our main tool in the Postgrad Masters and Programs to teach visualization, storytelling and dashboards.
  • Live connect: direct query to data sources with seamless efforts
  • Drag & Drop UI: build easy and faster great visualizations
  • Big Data ready: simplest way to get data from data lakes
  • Fastest to deploy simple data models, slowest to deploy complex data models
  • Data Prep is not an out-of-the-box feature, but a separate tool
  • Pricing compare to Power BI, still remains expensive
Tableau [Desktop] is the suitable table when you have a data warehouse or a datalake deployed and you want business users to get value from it. Also it's a great tool for data analyst and data scientist to discover and dig into the data.
When you want to deploy a guided analytics use case (dashboard or an analytics app), Power BI and Qlik Sense are better tools as long as they have ETL tools included.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Tableau is currently being used in several different departments to display trending data related to patient safety and status, financial and claims highlights, tracking patterns related to inpatient flow through the hospital. The flexibility of data sources and display options had made it a popular tool for analysts in financial and clinical areas.
  • Displaying complex trending data in simplified format
  • Creating stories to use as presentation materials with data highlights
  • Customized statistical models with trending predictions
  • Formatting the data to work correctly in graphical presentations can be time consuming
  • Daily data extracts can run slowly depending on how much data is required and the source of the data
  • The desktop version is required for advanced functionality, editing on [the] Tableau server allows only limited features
Tableau has been extremely useful at our organization due to the flexibility it allows for data sources and displaying data. We have multiple types of databases, Tableau is compatible with all of them. The advanced functionality such as using scripting languages and the R open source language for statistical analysis allows for a large range of capabilities.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is widely being used by my organization before making any business decisions. Complete Analysis is done with the banking data provided, as you can import data directly from the database management systems like SQL, do data cleaning and then visualize and extract a lot of insights from the data which is helpful to higher management and client to come to common grounds and make better business decisions. Also the data can be presented using its nice storytelling feature.
  • Storytelling.
  • Data visualization.
  • Data analysis.
  • Pricing.
  • Poor support.
  • Lags sometimes.
Tableau is a highly useful Business Intelligence software where you want to extract insights from a large chunk of data and present data in a storytelling way. It has a very high learning curve as you can do almost anything you can think of with it in terms of visualization and data analysis with a lot less clicks. Also you can do all of this either on your local machine using their Tableau Desktop or even on cloud.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Tableau is being used by our organization across all levels. From shop floor to the chefs office. We visualize quality data as well as sales figures. It's the most used BI tool in our organization.
  • Nice UI for designers and users.
  • Easy to create new dashboards.
  • A wide range of connectivity.
  • Handling large data sets.
Tableau is good with getting an overview over your data. Load the data and drag'n'drop your data to build nice charts. You see at a glance where you're missing data or [where] the data quality is bad.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Tableau [Desktop] is used across the entire organization and in my specific case, I am using it for quarterly monitoring. It has been a fairly good tool to use once you have the graphs set up and for monitoring you just need to provide the data in the requested format to update.
  • Quick
  • Easy
  • No code
  • Costly
  • Non-transferrable knowledge
  • Have to work locally
[Tableau Desktop] is suited like in my situation that the legacy tools have been set and the work will not last for too large so that there is no point for you to reinvest the time and energy to recreate the graphs in other tools and have to validate the result is the same.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Tableau Desktop is used by multiple departments in my company. Our main use case is to share better data visualized reports to higher management and clients. Also a handy tool for creating sales reports and sales data visualization for better analytics.
  • Easy integration with multiple sources like MSExcel,Oracle etc
  • Small learning curve.
  • Many inbuilt chart options available.
  • Executive view option
  • Error messages are not self explanatory .I was doing integration with oracle data but seeing different errors with same query in two systems.
  • Bit expensive .
  • Sometimes is slow and behave weirdly with large datasets.
Within our company [Tableau Desktop is the] only available tool and best suit for our needs.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It was tested as one of the candidates for choosing the Business Intelligence solution. major needs we were expecting to be addressed were the ability to produce BI reports, dashboards on the fly and be able to provide real-time data and stats to our large base of users. Another important aspect was the cost of implementation and usage.
  • Very rich set of features
  • A large set of connection options
  • Attractive UI
  • Tableau UI is very attractive but at the same times looks a bit intimidating for the new user
  • For settings where you may need to cater to a large set of subscribers, Tableau is cost-prohibitive
I would strongly recommend Tableau to somebody who is looking for a robust BI solution with all the bells and whistles. Tableau is very well-equipped and is capable of handling the majority of the needs out there. In the same vein, if the requirement is to cater to a large set of users or subscribers Tableau is not the best choice as it gets quite expensive.
April 27, 2021

Get your data to talk

Karan Gupta | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our [organization] uses [Tableau Desktop] in some of the departments to create dashboards for senior leaders as well as to improve team's overall processes. From understanding the sales across regions and clients to providing a breakup of workfront's tasks and due dates, Tableau [Desktop] is helpful in communicating the vast data into easy to understand and interactive visuals.
  • Clear Presentation
  • Easy to use and learn
  • Good repository of learning materials online
  • Connection to Microsoft apps
  • Easier access for users who dont have a license
Tableau [Desktop] is suited to derive quick insights from large sets of data (organized) to create good visuals to tell a story. It helps in quick communication of complex data and makes it easier to interpret it.
Tableau [Desktop] is not suitable if the data is very unorganized and needs human understanding and manipulation before it can be used. Though Tableau can be used to manipulate data, but if the data needs to be in a certain shape in order to be read by Tableau
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Tableau Desktop is used in conjunction with Tableau Server to provide reporting and analytic content to end users across the company. Desktop is primarily used as a development vehicle by IT to share via on-prem server. However, there is some use of desktop by power users in the business to create ad-hoc analytics.
  • Excellent visualizations.
  • Initial entry to the tool is intuitive.
  • Large number of sources supported.
  • Once getting past the basics, creating more complex structures and calculations can be more challenging and less intuitive than other reporting tools.
  • Maintaining version synchronization between server and desktop is annoying. Would be better if the server compatibility could be specified in the desktop.
  • Support for 3rd party olap technologies could be better.
Tableau is a useful tool for anyone looking to provide analytics with good visualizations. It used to be the best tool on the market, but now other competitors have hit parity, or in some areas have surpassed. Spotfire and Power BI both also provide similar feature functionality. Both should be seriously considered when considering a purchase of Tableau. Power BI is probably the best bang for the buck, particularly if just using the desktop version.

Tableau's relatively recent acquisition by Salesforce does potentially make it a good fit for organizations with an existing Salesforce presence. This may become more relevant as time passes and Salesforce integrates Tableau more with their platform.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Tableau Desktop is being used across the organization as our main Dashboard reporting tool. We, as department create tableau reports, which are then accessed and used by the organization as a whole. The main problem it addresses is providing accurate, on-time reporting on our KPIs, which users can filter on to just get the data they need.
  • Dashboard and Tile creation
  • Having various data sources connectivity
  • Support for various way of displaying the data
  • Good documentation support
  • Dashboard display speed once user selects a filter can be super slow depending on how much data the dashboard is displaying
  • Not all the data sources are supported natively, for some others we have to find work-arounds
  • License is expensive
Tableau Desktop is well suited for a large organization with a sizeable budget, since it's a fairly expensive tool. It's not suited for a lean start-up which is worried about costs. Also, IT support can be required for some of the larger projects, which means extra stuff. Also, if the company has one type of data source, other cheaper alternatives can be explored.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Tableau Desktop is being used by our entire department across multiple agencies. It is our standard enterprise data analytics solution. We have so many silo solutions within our department for data analytics and business intelligence. Based on the department OCIO's evaluation, Tableau Desktop dashboards became the standard for the department and all agencies will migrate their dashboards to Tableau Desktop progressively.
  • Ease of use
  • Nice visualizations
  • Strong in geospatial capabilities
  • Flexible to deploy
  • Performance in large datasets
  • Needs more advanced analytics capability
  • Needs adaptors for migration from other BI platforms
The Tableau Desktop is very easy to use and build dashboards without any technical background. It is flexible to save in many formats and accessible to other external users. However, the Tableau Creator licenses require keys to operate. This is too troublesome to manage and requires a lot of manpower to maintain and operate.
Return to navigation