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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 (156)
    9.4
    94%
  • Drill-down analysis (158)
    9.2
    92%
  • Customizable dashboards (165)
    9.0
    90%
  • Formatting capabilities (161)
    9.0
    90%

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.

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

8.7
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 9.4.

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

(2260)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(51-75 of 162)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
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
Alternatives Considered
In most cases, when we only want to look at the dashboard on a regular basis for monitoring KPIs, Tableau has always been the best option. It is easy to build charts, dashboards & even presentations with the Story Telling option. Although, I use Excel with javascript if I wanted any alerting system to be included. I would even go for Excel with Power BI if I wanted easy access to the data behind the charts.
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
Alternatives Considered
Microsoft PowerBI could potentially be a better fit for organizations on Office365, it's a close call though. Google Data Studio has potential but is still far behind Tableau on the "user-friendly" factor. Tableau still seems to dominate for the "recommended" analytics tool, but that could easily change in the next 12 months with now being a part of SalesForce. It's a chance for both Google and Microsoft.
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
Alternatives Considered
Tableau supports more data sources that both Amazon QuickSight and Microsoft Power BI. It also created a much more sophisticated dashboard which is important for leadership and others who use it. However, we use other products like Toad Data Point and Alteryx and tools that help augment the use of Tableau Desktop. For more power users, other tools are often preferred over Tableau.
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
Alternatives Considered
Tableau Desktop is the market leader when it comes to creating interactive and appealing graphs and charts. The beauty of the tool is that is can work with almost any kind of back-end source and in real-time take the data and present you with an amazing insight based on the data. The drag and drop functionality is very handy compared to other software which isn't that easy to get going.
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
Alternatives Considered
It is very easy to use, we can create numbers of charts through it which I think other tools lack in. Lots of online communities are there which have provided solutions to the basic issues. Its ODS(output delivery system) is also very effective. We can use SQL in it for processing the data.
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
Alternatives Considered
I've worked with Tableau and Power BI and would say that Power BI has come a long way in the past 2 years and is an equal matchup. Power BI pulls ahead with its integration with Office 365 and MS Power Apps.
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
Alternatives Considered
Excel has better-embedded coding functions, such as VBA developing environment, but cannot publish reports to an online portal and has limited visualization function. QlikView has fewer online resources and a small community to help you solve problems.
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
Alternatives Considered
When we first looked at getting a visualization software for analytics we looked into two options Microsoft Power BI and Tableau Desktop, and even though Power BI is more cost-effective we decided to go with Tableau Desktop as it had more options that we are looking for such as free reader and Tableau Server and offers a very comprehensive and simple interface that is easier to learn for new 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
Alternatives Considered
Tableau Desktop is far more capable than Data Studio but it should be since you're paying for that service. Datorama seems to be a closer rival with similar abilities and excellent customer service with a dedicated client success manager.
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
Alternatives Considered
Tableau Desktop has many more features than other competitors. Comparing Birst, the layout is much more efficient. Power BI and QlikView are as easy as Tableau Desktop. The price for Tableau is a disadvantage when compared to Birst and QlikView, but not against Power BI. Support from Tableau is superb, as opposed to others.
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
Alternatives Considered
Tableau is a lot easier to visualize data and the dashboards are more robust. We didn’t use WebFOCUS to its greatest extent but getting up to speed on Tableau was easy. Training is also better in Tableau and the user community is very knowledgeable. We selected it as our organization was using it, so moving to it was easy.
May 18, 2019

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

Verified User
Program Manager in Customer Service
Computer Software Company, 10,001+ employees
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Alternatives Considered
I'm a user that has many responsibilities, and one of them is setting up visuals for business insights. Because I'm not a daily user of Tableau, I find myself constantly having to re-learn certain functions because there are so many options it's very hard to find what I'm looking for. I have had a much better experience, as a non-analyst user, with another tool (Domo). I can see Tableau Desktop is a powerful tool, but I find the user experience very frustrating.
May 10, 2019

Easy to use and share reports

Tim Ryan | TrustRadius Reviewer
Tim Ryan
Senior Project Manager
PEMCO (Insurance, 501-1000 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Alternatives Considered
We are replacing a lot of homegrown, Excel and email-based reports that run off scheduled jobs. This is much better because you can pull data reports whenever you want and you don't have to wait for scheduled reports to kick off. Also, easier to share with co-workers when released.
April 25, 2019

Solid product but not cheap

Verified User
Program Manager in Corporate
Financial Services Company, 1001-5000 employees
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Alternatives Considered
It offers superior capabilities of visualizing information. Tableau's ability to convert unstructured statistical information into fully functional, interactive and appealing dashboards is pretty amazing.
QlikView and Power BI do not offer that level of dashboarding capability. Also, Tableau lets you analyze data in a way that drives decision making and not just information.
December 22, 2018

Tableau Desktop great for individual users

Verified User
Analyst in Marketing
Marketing and Advertising Company, 501-1000 employees
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Alternatives Considered
Tableau has a great community engagement, and it's really great to find and connect with other Tableau users. I think that really sets them apart from other tools, where Tableau has invested in empowering local user groups and supporting users online through the Tableau community forum.
December 19, 2018

Tableau Desktop - A Great BI Product

Verified User
Analyst in Information Technology
Computer Software Company, 5001-10,000 employees
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Alternatives Considered
Pentaho has fewer visualizations and they haven't been making a lot of improvements in their visualization space. You can't really add a lot of customized visualizations as well. If Tableau has 100 features then Pentaho Analyzer has 10 with no ray of hope for improvements. Their ETL tool is actually the best in market. Tableau wins this game.

I haven't used Qlik Sense a lot, but just evaluated it. It is a pretty good tool but not as good as Tableau really. Data source preparation is fancy in Qlik Sense but it is easier in Tableau. I don't know much about Qlik's visualizations.
October 19, 2018

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

Andres Meza | TrustRadius Reviewer
Andres Meza
Ingeniero de Homologación de Terminales Inalámbricos
Movilnet (Telecommunications, 1001-5000 employees)
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Alternatives Considered
Tableau Desktop was selected because it offers all the tools to design presentations of information of the results thrown by the process of execution of an activity, project, programs or plans. This gives staff, managers or clients the possibility of observing in an easy and simple way a lot of information (graphics, tables, and maps).

It is a tool that in comparison to other similar ones in the market have better options of work, considering the diversity of functions and applications of color, object, and method of work.
August 03, 2018

One of the best data visualization tools for established companies.

Verified User
Director in Marketing
Staffing and Recruiting Company, 11-50 employees
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Alternatives Considered
From our experience testing other products, I'd say Tableau is probably the best high-end data visualization tool out there. It's tougher to set up compared to programs like Zoho and Chartio, but the data is much better and you'll appreciate the reports. But if price is an issue, Tableau is more expensive than some of the other options out there.
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