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Tableau Server

Tableau Server

Overview

What is Tableau Server?

Tableau Server allows Tableau Desktop users to publish dashboards to a central server to be shared across their organizations. The product is designed to facilitate collaboration across the organization. It can be deployed on a server in the data center,…

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Tableau Server has become an essential tool for organizations across various industries, offering a wide range of use cases that have …
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Tableau to the rescue

8 out of 10
October 05, 2021
Incentivized
It is being used across the organization. It helps us visualize business trends in a nicely presented format which can be easily used by …
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Tableau Server Review

8 out of 10
May 17, 2019
Incentivized
Tableau Server is used by our organization to create and use real-time dashboards and reports. It is used across the entire organization. …
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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 28 features
  • Customizable dashboards (94)
    9.4
    94%
  • Drill-down analysis (95)
    8.7
    87%
  • Formatting capabilities (93)
    8.5
    85%
  • Multi-User Support (named login) (93)
    7.4
    74%
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Pricing

View all pricing

Viewer

$12.00

On Premise
Per User Per Month

Explorer

$35.00

On Premise
Per User Per Month

Creator

$70.00

On Premise
Per User Per Month

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

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

Tableau Server | How to Restore a Backup

YouTube

Tableau Server | How to Backup Server

YouTube

How Tableau Works | Tableau Tutorial for Beginners | Tableau Server Online Training | Intellipaat

YouTube

Installing Tableau Server 10.5 on Linux

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.

9.3
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.

7.9
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.

8.4
Avg 8.1

Access Control and Security

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

7.4
Avg 8.6

Mobile Capabilities

Support for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

7.7
Avg 7.9

Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding

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

7.2
Avg 7.9
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Product Details

What is Tableau Server?

Tableau Server is an enterprise self-service analytics platform that supports data-driven decision making throughout the user's organization.

Customers can deploy the way that makes the most sense for their organization - on-premises or in the cloud, on Windows or Linux, while integrating with their existing security and authentication protocols. Customers can provide governed data access while promoting sharing and collaboration with data, dashboards and insights. It includes automated processes and workflows, and users can define access for individual users and groups.

Tableau Server Features

BI Platform Features

  • Supported: Administration via Windows App
  • Supported: Administration via MacOS App
  • Supported: Administration via Web Interface
  • Supported: Live Connection to External Data
  • Supported: Snapshot of External Data
  • Supported: In-memory data model
  • Supported: Multi-Data Source Reporting (Blending)

Supported Data Sources Features

  • Supported: MS Excel Workbooks
  • Supported: Text Files (CSV, etc)
  • Supported: Oracle
  • Supported: MS SQL Server
  • Supported: IBM DB2
  • Supported: Postgres
  • Supported: MySQL
  • Supported: ODBC
  • Supported: Cloudera Hadoop
  • Supported: Hortonworks Hadoop
  • Supported: EMC Greenplum
  • Supported: IBM Netezza
  • Supported: HP Vertica
  • Supported: SAP Hana
  • Supported: Teradata
  • Supported: Salesforce
  • Supported: SAP
  • Supported: Google Analytics

BI Standard Reporting Features

  • Supported: Customizable dashboards
  • Supported: Report Formatting Templates

Ad-hoc Reporting Features

  • Supported: Drill-down analysis
  • Supported: Formatting capabilities
  • Supported: Predictive modeling
  • Supported: Integration with R or other statistical packages
  • Supported: Report sharing and collaboration

Report Output and Scheduling Features

  • Supported: Publish to Web
  • Supported: Publish to PDF
  • Supported: Output Raw Supporting Data
  • Supported: Report Versioning
  • Supported: Report Delivery Scheduling

Data Discovery and Visualization Features

  • Supported: Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
  • Supported: Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
  • Supported: Predictive Analytics
  • Supported: Support for Machine Learning models
  • Supported: Pattern Recognition and Data Mining
  • Supported: Integration with R or other statistical packages

Access Control and Security Features

  • Supported: Multi-User Support (named login)
  • Supported: Role-Based Security Model
  • Supported: Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
  • Supported: Report-Level Access Control
  • Supported: Single Sign-On (SSO)

Mobile Capabilities Features

  • Supported: Responsive Design for Web Access
  • Supported: Mobile Application
  • Supported: Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile

Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding Features

  • Supported: REST API
  • Supported: Javascript API
  • Supported: iFrames

Tableau Server Screenshots

Screenshot of Tableau Server interface and administration view 1.Screenshot of Tableau Server interface and administration view 2.Screenshot of Tableau Server permissions view.Screenshot of Tableau Services Manager (TSM) view 1.Screenshot of Tableau Services Manager (TSM) view 2.

Tableau Server Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsWindows, Linux
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS, Android, Mobile Web
Supported CountriesWorldwide
Supported LanguagesEnglish, French, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Chinese

Frequently Asked Questions

Tableau Server allows Tableau Desktop users to publish dashboards to a central server to be shared across their organizations. The product is designed to facilitate collaboration across the organization. It can be deployed on a server in the data center, or it can be deployed on a public cloud.

Domo, IBM Cognos Analytics, and Looker are common alternatives for Tableau Server.

Reviewers rate Publish to Web highest, with a score of 9.6.

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

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Reviews and Ratings

(876)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Tableau Server has become an essential tool for organizations across various industries, offering a wide range of use cases that have proven valuable to users. Its ability to transform complex data into user-friendly visualizations has been particularly beneficial in emergency preparedness analytics within the healthcare sector. Additionally, dedicated analysts have utilized Tableau Server to create and deploy dashboards that are accessible to all employees, serving as the main repository for reporting needs. This versatility extends beyond healthcare, with organizations from IT to Human Resources leveraging the platform to address key issues such as device availability, performance tracking, and enterprise reporting.

Marketing teams have also found value in Tableau Server, using it to gain a better understanding of their customer base and track product ownership and usage trends. The platform's storytelling approach has been especially valuable for data scientists who use Tableau Server to present data to managers and executives, facilitating understanding and supporting decision-making processes. Furthermore, Tableau Server has been integrated into third-party applications and platforms such as Microsoft SharePoint, making it a convenient one-stop-shop for reporting needs.

Tableau Server's ease of maintenance from an administrator level and seamless integration with Active Directory for user permission management have made it a preferred choice for many organizations. It fosters secure and controlled sharing of work done by Tableau Desktop analysts and developers, enabling real-time data visualization and monitoring across the organization. This has led to increased adoption and expansion of its usage in various departments such as Finance, Supply Chain, and HR.

Overall, Tableau Server's ability to store, visualize, and share information effectively has provided organizations with leverage over other systems. Its versatility and ease of use have made it a trusted platform for reporting and analytics needs across different industries, enabling self-service analytics, cost savings through improved tracking capabilities, enhanced customer experience operations, and centralization of reporting.

Tableau users commonly recommend seeking advice from Tableau representatives to determine the best licenses for their needs. They also suggest optimizing data flows and extract refreshes from the beginning. Additionally, users emphasize the importance of being specific when setting up reports to avoid incorrect data. For example, providing clear filters and selecting the appropriate dimensions and measures ensures accurate results. Another tip is to utilize Tableau's training resources and attend user groups and conferences for additional tips and tricks on using Tableau effectively.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 83)
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Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Tableau Server is an online platform to host and hold all the tableau workbooks, data sources, and related tableau data. Users should have a license in order to use Tableau server and its features. creating security, folder setup, automation, data refresh are some of the best features Tableau servers provides. Scheduling the data extracts and dashboard refresh is the main scope of our project
  • Security
  • extract refresh schedule
  • subscriptions to workbooks & Dashboards
  • download data in crosstab
  • download workbook as image, pdf, twbx
  • permissions should flow from primary folder if changes are made later.
  • download pdf content doesn't have scroll bar it just takes snapshot leaving some data
  • data cache issues should be resolved
Ask data is one of the new and good feature that is available in tableau server. Tableau Server is well suited for a data warehouse build and handling big data. Tableau data aggregation, transformation, clustering capability is powerful and easy to implement. The choice of charts and visualization tools is outstanding.
Bob Ladd | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it to deploy dashboards that help our decision makers across all companies. It helps our sales associates direct their attention to customers for changes in business activity. It helps our MFG department plan and visually see future demands. We use it to analyze our forecasting and on time delivery.
  • It always available and allows us to make it easy for users outside of the building get their BI info.
  • It's easy to manage and takes very little daily or monthly maintenance.
  • The subscription service really helps users stay on top of things with their alerts.
  • Doesn't send out PDF versions of the dashboards.
  • Tabcmd is old and needs to be updated to a visual client.
  • It is sometimes slow opening dashboards and the new data methodology hasn't proven the improvement as promised.
  • Is well suited at deploying BI dashboards to any audience that has a license.
  • It not good at servicing users outside of the license for one-off reporting. Microsoft BI does this very well.
Score 2 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Tableau Server as an add-on service to our SAAS product. It's integrated via API, using "Trusted Tickets" functionality. Multitenant environments. It allows our clients some self-service reporting capability using pre-defined datasources which connect tableau to their SAAS product database.
  • It's pretty
  • Installs easily
  • Impresses decision makers
  • Support is costly and practically nonexistent
  • Their windows server application is fragile
  • Product not well designed for multitenant architectures
  • Licensing is convoluted in ways
As a person responsible for administering their self-hosted product, I would never recommend this to a collogue. Fragile product + ineffective support = operations nightmare. It breaks frequently (upgrades, extracts, backups/restores, sometimes a service just stops during normal usage), and basic support (costing 5 figures/yr) with a 3 bizday follow-up SLA on downtime events is essentially useless for anything more than functionality questions (which take weeks to resolve). Stack restarts take over 15 minutes and are required for just about every configuration change. [I believe] the product was a poor fit for our use-case (add-on service for multitenant customer SAAS applications) for several reasons: - There's no supported method for changing datasource connections, which is a problem if you plan on publishing data sources from dev to prod environment without Tableau Desktop and manual effort. You'll have to make your own tooling to modify the XML directly (unsupported) - Trusted ticket implementation is secured via IP whitelist. If you want to use a modern SAAS product and not have to manage this IP whitelist (every change requires 15min restart), you'll have to write your own ticket-granting service over top of this API. - Security architecture offers poor segmentation between client databases. You can very easily provide customer A access to customer B's database. This danger is aggravated by the lack of a supported method for modifying data source connections in an automated fashion. - All users exist at a server level. This adds to the "poor segmentation between sites" argument, and also complicates things when you have 2 clients bound to different sites, trying to add the same username "jsmith". But hey, it's really pretty. Our product team bought it, infra team has paid for it since.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Tableau Server is being used for data visualisation and analysis of our internal and third-party data sets. Tableau allows our business analytics team to assist the business in reporting, data visualisation, performance monitoring, and machine learning across multiple organisation functions - operations, marketing, finance, product, compliance, and automation design.
  • Data visualisation.
  • Analysis.
  • Dashboards.
  • Reports.
  • Worksheets, Stories, Dashboards different tabs are a bit cumbersome.
  • Limitations with Tableau Online.
Tableau Server is well suited for a data warehouse build and handling big data. Tableau data aggregation, transformation, clustering capability is powerful and easy to implement. The choice of charts and visualisation tools is outstanding. Customisation and dynamic data visualisation capability is superb. The user interface takes some time getting used to.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Tableau Server is actively used in my organisation for connecting to different data sources and viewing different visualisation for deriving insights from them.
  • Connection to different data sources
  • Creating meaningful visualization
  • Advanced Analytics
  • Tableau server can incorporate more AI visualization
  • Errors in visualization can be highlighted quickly
  • ETL capabilities can Ben enhanced
Tableau [Server] is a user friendly tool and is applicable for any areas where KPI can Ben understood by just dragging and dropping the visualization objects.
October 05, 2021

Tableau to the rescue

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is being used across the organization. It helps us visualize business trends in a nicely presented format which can be easily used by all levels of management. Currently we use it for our sales projections, marketing analytics, finance analytics and other business analytics. It is also used to analyze monthly results across different KPI's
  • Visualization of data in multiple formats
  • Concisely present information in a dashboard
  • Allow multiple users to access the same reports simultaneously
  • Sometimes the functionality related to formula entry is difficult
  • You have to create multiple data sheets to create one dashboard
It is well suited where data is clearly arranged in a particular format and is less useful if the data is not in the format usable by tableau
The formulas are sometimes difficult to enter into tableau and that restricts some analysis to be performed.
Visualization within tableau is the best but the trend line graphs are not great
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Tableau is being used as one of several reporting tools. Its primary use was for creating dashboards that could be leveraged by a large segment of the company. The web enablement allowed for broader user adoption than other tools adopted at the time of implementation. Navigation of the workbooks was also more palatable to users vs running individual reports.
  • Visualizations.
  • Simple deployment method.
  • Easy to navigate interface.
  • Server administration is cumbersome.
  • Recent changes (after 10.x) have required rewriting of admin scripts.
  • Cumbersome licensing management.
Tableau may be well suited to non-Microsoft shops. Its methodologies, internal management, and overall approach seem geared more toward Oracle/Java shops. It also does require a decent amount of care and feeding. Backups, upgrades, etc., tend to be cumbersome and require some level of IT knowledge, despite how the product is often sold. Smaller shops that wish to pursue Tableau may be better off leveraging their SaaS offerings.
September 13, 2019

Failed to meet expectations

Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Tableau Server was purchased by the IT department in an effort to expand the institution's use of analytic data. Prior to buying Tableau Desktop, there was very minimal use of analytics data of any kind. Tableau Server was purchased with the intention of expanding the use of Tableau and storing data in a central repository for collaboration.
  • It's part of the Tableau ecosystem of products.
  • Easy connectivity to Tableau Desktop.
  • Easy installation.
  • Slow, even with a solid server running it.
  • Overly complicated.
  • Still not 100% sure why I need it in the first place.
We are a small organization, and it was a budget stretch to get Tableau Server in the first place but we took a chance. Our goal was sharing analytics data. Unfortunately, we found the product to be overly complicated. It was not easy to transfer data between Tableau Desktop and Server as advertised. That made sharing overly difficult, which was our primary goal. In the end, we chose not to renew the license and are pursuing other options for collaboration/sharing of analytics data.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized

Tableau server is used across multiple departments, with the bulk users in our reporting and finance department.

It allows end users to see more comprehensive/dynamic reports versus what we used. Our clients are now asking for access so they can start looking at reports that we have created.

  • It provides easier reporting for end users
  • It allows for better comprehensive reporting
  • It allows us to connect to multiple sources with one product
  • Desktop should not allow updates unless server is updated first
  • Need a better management tool that doesn't take a long time to start-up
  • Better documentation online
When multiple people need to look at the same report (either with or without Tableau desktop). Allowing users to see data dynamically versus an Excel spreadsheet.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Tableau Server is used by our organization to create and use real-time dashboards and reports. It is used across the entire organization. Tableau Server makes it easy to gather data from multiple sources and easily create dashboards and reports for different users. The data can be updated instantly and allow users to view real-time data.
  • It can gather data from various sources and combine it in one place for users to view and use the data.
  • Visualizations created by Tableau can be easily modified and updated by users.
  • Tableau Servers can provide daily reports that are up to date, along with dashboards that can provide real-time data.
  • Tableau Server needs to provide more options to modify and update user-friendly dashboards.
  • Tableau Server can be expensive for a company.
  • Tableau Server sometimes takes a long time to load reports with a lot of data.
Tableau Server is great for gathering data from different sources and displaying that data through dashboards and reports that are easy to create and modify. It can be easily used on a mobile platform. However, Tableau Server can be expensive for a company, and may not be able to create all kinds of graphs, dashboards, and reports.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Yes, we have adopted the Tableau Server in our environment. It has been used by higher authority people who want to get some insights out of their data. And also it has been maintained by the AWS team to manage and control the server. It mainly solves sharing and collaboration problems in Tableau.
  • Integrating with APIs, and also on webpages.
  • Version controlling of Workbooks.
  • Provides high-level security to the dashboards. It is completely isolated with other users who don't have access.
  • Adoption of AI [Artifical Intelligence].
  • More options for dashboard management in server.
  • Sharing an interactive dashboard with another environment is the missing factor.
It doesn't have any particular scenarios...but If you are using Tableau Desktop and if you want to share your dashboard with other people in your organization, then you need to go for Tableau Server for sharing and collaboration. If you want to share your dashboard by using cloud-based functionality, then Tableau Online is sufficient. Tableau Server is not required.
Jacob Rasmussen | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Tableau Server is being used across our entire organization. Every employee at Qualtrics has a Tableau Server user, and we use Tableau Server authentication to display reports and dashboards in our company portal. Tableau Server is used heavily within each department, with dedicated analysts for each team creating and deploying dashboards for all employees to consume. Sales leaders view dashboards regularly to track the progress of their teams, and individual contributors view dashboards frequently to track their own progress.
  • Tableau Server is extremely well at providing a stabile system for us to host data sources and dashboards
  • Tableau Server is great at managing permissions for users, data sources, workbooks, and dashboards
  • Tableau Server has had some issue handling some of our larger data sets. Our extract refreshes fail intermittently with no obvious error that we can fix
  • Tableau Server has been hard to work with before they launched their new Rest API, which is also a little tricky to work with
Tableau Server is extremely well suited for a company with a few dedicated analysts creating dashboards and reports for a few stakeholders. It is also great at handling a large amount of report viewers, but it is more expensive because you have to pay for each user.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Tableau Server is used in my company as our primary method for sharing business insights. We build visualization dashboards in Tableau Desktop, then publish them to project folders in Tableau Server so that the appropriate teams can access their near real-time metrics.
  • It's good at doing what it is designed for: accessing visualizations without having to download and open a workbook in Tableau Desktop. The latter would be a very inefficient method for sharing our metrics, so I am glad that we have Tableau Server to serve this function.
  • Publishing to Tableau Server is quick and easy. Just a few clicks from Tableau Desktop and a few seconds of publishing through an average speed network, and the new visualizations are live!
  • Seeing details on who has viewed the visualization and when. This is something particularly useful to me for trying to drive adoption of some new pages, so I really appreciate the granularity provided in Tableau Server
  • I think the UI of how projects and folders within projects are managed could use some improvement. The organization is pretty straightforward, but it's designed for a large amount of content. Accessing a simple dashboard from one published workbook requires clicking into a Project then clicking into the dashboard to actually see the content. It's hard to describe without seeing it, but it always feels like there was an extra, unnecessary click. Seems minor, but this is an annoyance I and my colleagues face many times through the day.
  • There seems to be some formatting issues between what's built in Tableau Desktop (TD) and Tableau Server (TS), e.g., if I format some filters over a background in TD, they show up very legibly with the background as white against the color background. But when published the same filters could have the color of the background and no way to change it to white, and the font has less contrast for some reason. Seems minor, but it wastes a lot of time retrying then re-publishing just to get something to work as expected. The view in TD should be exactly the same as TS.
  • As far as I can tell, there's no way to put a clone of a certain dashboard into multiple projects/folders and have any updates propagate to those clones. Also as far as I can tell, there's no feature that tracks where the same dashboard has been published in multiple places. That means if I have a dashboard that I need to show in multiple places so those teams can access it in their native location with their other content contextual to them, I have to maintain a record of all the places I've published and re-publish to all whenever updates are made. And if it turns out the solution is there in the product, then the UI is clearly pretty dense because I haven't found it whereas this was an intuitive setting to find on a competitor BI tool I have used. I think this should be improved in the product since it's often necessary to manage the same content across multiple locations so various teams are accessing their single location relevant to them.
The scenario where you need Tableau Desktop is if you need to share the content of workbooks across a broad audience, and access it through an on-demand web interface. The alternative being downloading a workbook from some shared drive and opening it in Tableau Desktop. I suppose the latter could work in small team environments, but that would be very tedious for anything beyond a small project.
Mathieu Gaouette | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Tableau is being used mostly by marketing to get a good view of their customer base. It covers the present footprint in terms of product ownership and the trend in usage of services.

Tableau is used by data scientists to present data to managers and executive. It has a storytelling approach that facilitates the understanding of data and eases the decision-making process.
  • Tableau server's portal and general look is really convenient and pretty. Users feel comfortable using it.
  • The learning curve of Tableau Server from an end-user perspective is really short. For the creator of content, it is a little more complex but easy to learn. Tableau has really succeeded in creating a user-friendly software.
  • From an administration point of view, Tableau is great. Installation and housekeeping are really easy and quick.
  • Visuals are really appealing and will help "sell" your presentations.
  • Tableau allows connectivity to a huge selection of data sources and data formats.
  • Online training for software is free and of very good quality.
  • Tableau doesn't (at least when I used it) have custom widgets or elements in the creation of dashboards. Its main competitor, Power BI, allows this. Because of that, some visualizations are challenging and need the use of advanced tricks that most users don't know about.
  • Tableau logs a lot of information, and sometimes, getting the right information from these logs when something goes wrong is challenging.
  • Tableau support is not the quickest. This sounds bad, but I have to specify that I very rarely had to contact them. However, when I did, the answer took a few more days than with other providers.
Tableau Server should be considered in organizations where you have several consumers of data and fewer creators. The licensing of the server will make you save and allow you to have some governance over your dashboards.

In an environment where you have a lot of creators, the use of a server might not bring a lot of benefits, because creators using the desktop version can open and modify other people's dashboards.
Thomas Young | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Tableau Server is used by our organization to implement real-time data visualization and monitoring. The software is used only by certain departments. Tableau Server makes real-time data analytics easy for busy executives who want interactive visualizations and reporting without having to put too much work into what they are doing.
  • Tableau is perhaps the most aesthetically pleasing software to create beautiful visualizations that get updated in real-time. I wish this software had been around 20 years ago.
  • Tableau Server makes sharing visualizations across the organization seamless. I don't think I could do my job without it.
  • Tableau Server is used to create interactive daily reports, updated automatically and in an interactive style.
  • Tableau Server is sometimes referred to as simply Microsoft Excel with a power boost. I understand the reason analysts say this. It is because the software is almost exclusively a visualization software. If you're looking for truly advanced analytics combined with cutting-edge visualization, Tableau Server isn't it.
  • Tableau Server limits the type of graphs a user can create. There are numerous workarounds for different graph types, but they are not easy to implement.
  • Tableau Server can sometimes be slow to render graphics with lots of data and calculated fields.
Tableau Server is awesome for creating easy to understand visualizations for busy executives. An analyst can be up and running with some cool visualizations fairly quickly. But, if you're thinking of using Tableau Server for real machine learning, this is not the tool.
January 02, 2019

Intuitive and easy BI

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I used Tableau as another BI tool, by the client where the Tableau server installation was used and most production reports were accessible here.
Tableau has proven to be a great tool for the collection of data from multiple data sources, with varying complexity -- we used spreadsheets, SQL tables as well as Google Analytics connection. The tool was a standard platform in a multinational organization and was used for years, so the data was already linked, including the local eDWH solution, providing support for regular as well as ad-hoc reports.
  • Many available plugins, incl. the one I have used for regional analysis (data enriched with addresses / GPS attributes)
  • Narratives (story building) is a great tool for creating and sharing your analysis with your audience
  • Data visualization is one of the best you can get today
  • Supports mobile usage
  • Connection to SQL database: by connecting it to a database, one has to employ an SQL specialist to write the script
  • No autosave function
  • No automatized notification feature (e.g. alert based on value out of range, in a report)
  • Very expensive solutions
If you have to quickly explore a large volume of unknown big data (really large tables), then Tableau is a great choice.
It is a great tool for any ad-hoc analysis that has to deliver an interactive story to management (client), it will not only deliver nice visualizations, but will also allow for drill-downs to the primary data and proof for your audience that your numbers in the presented graph are correct
Cody Kimball | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Tableau Server is a vital part of our data ecosystem. Without it, our data analytics and general reporting efforts would be greatly impeded if not completely derailed. It hosts a large majority of our internal facing reporting KPIs and metrics, and enables our business leaders to keep a watchful eye on the status of the company and its health.
  • It is able to extract data very efficiently, as compared to extracting data on one's personal machine
  • It is able to handle a large quantity of content and traffic to the reports hosted on the server
  • It is fairly self-sustaining and doesn't require too much maintenance, though it is hosted in our own environment.
  • Some of the metrics and data relevant to Tableau Server are difficult to get to, and it would be super insightful if it was more accessible and readily available to users trying to report on it
If you have sensitive data that you are wanting to share in a High Level Visual Analytics environment, Tableau Server is the way to go. Your executives will appreciate no longer wondering how their business is actually doing, but can in a lot of cases have real-time visual depictions on the health of their companies, or at least accurate as of the previous day (depending on your data ecosystem).
Anand KK | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The entire organization of internal users and external users use the Tableau dashboards hosted on Tableau Server. We use Tableau to address health care analytics data.
  • The installation, upgrading and migrating to new hardware is straightforward
  • The Tableau Server admin can adjust the server processes to make it tailor-fit for the organization, hence increasing the dashboard and query performances.
  • The core-based licensing and user-based licensing of Tableau Server is very useful based on the required scenario.
  • Support for Exasol Data Connections in Tableau Server for Linux.
  • Publish Document Covering Tableau Server Architecture on 2018.2 with HA environment.
  • Improve historical reporting for extract schedules on Tableau Server.
The Tableau Server can be used based on different requirements and is very user-friendly.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Tableau to aggregate data from a lot of different systems. It brings it all together to a single place where users can build and access reports and dashboards to gain insight into different areas of the business. The insight gained through Tableau across systems is essential to our business functions and would take much more time and effort to do manually.
  • Allows for aggregation across multiple systems
  • Allows reports and dashboards to be self serve for end users
  • Allows for ad-hoc reporting
  • Initial setup of data sources can be time consuming.
  • Some native connectors didn’t work as well for us like Salesforce. We had to build our own ETL process.
  • Setting up permissions originally was burdensome.
Tableau is great for aggregating data for reporting across many different systems. The perpetual licensing made it an affordable solution for a small subset of our company. It is nice that end users can create reports and dashboards without a dedicated report writing resource. If Tableau is used for reporting outside the company to external users it can get very expensive.
Justin Pulley | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it across the organization, but I only manage 1 or quite a few. It is the trusted platform for visualization across the organization.
  • User management; you have a plethora of options built in (LDAP, Domain, SAML, etc.) for SSO and user management.
  • Dashboard Hosting; you have the option to host your dashboard in a few different ways. You can embed it as part of a larger web page, have it emailed automatically, or view it directly on the server.
  • Web Editing; while not as robust as a full fledged desktop I can see that it is edging that way. The web editing is great for fast, small, on the fly edits during a working session with a customer.
  • Installation; the latest iteration was an absolute nightmare to install. It failed to install several times.
  • Web Editing; while it is okay at small edits it would be a very nice feature to have an integrated solution that is as robust as desktop.
  • User Management; in certain aspects user management could use a small boost. Have a setting that allows Active Directory / LDAP based users be removed/deleted from the server automatically instead of forcing a script be written and deployed. If the user no longer exists in the AD or LDAP group they should be removed vice set to inactive as an option.
Server is appropriate anywhere really, but it comes down to cost. If you are a small org, say 20 people, that cost is going to be $16,800 per year. That is a steep price and other options might be more cost effective. Additionally, large high availability Tableau clusters increase the costs.
Shoaib Yari | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Tableau Server is being used at Ellie Mae as a platform for not only sharing enterprise level Tableau dashboards created by our BI developers, but also as a location to host business specific data sources for end users to create their own ad-hoc visualizations.
  • Allows for easy sharing of data and actionable insights with an extremely user-friendly visual interface
  • Acts as an environment to implement and enforce data governance with centralized and certified data sources
  • Easy to deploy, scale to our specific needs, and monitor
  • Enterprise level implementation is very pricey
  • Dashboard layout changes if the screen resolution of the Tableau developer is different from the end user's screen resolution
  • Embedding is limited and difficult
If you want a BI tool with the capabilities to create and share rich, vibrant reports with advanced data visualization options, Tableau can’t be beat. It’s easy to implement and has a very active and helpful online community. If, however, you are looking for a more affordable option, it’s better to look elsewhere.
Score 4 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is used in a single product using the in-line version in a web application. It is a huge selling point to the application suite as it allows the users to see the effectiveness of using the application. The visualizations are powerful.
  • Powerful visulizations that can be customized with the desktop suite.
  • Can be scheduled for emails or exported to PDF.
  • Supports many different charts graphs and has plenty of filtering options.
  • Default dates parameters do not work.
  • Not a lot of room for custom queries to the end user.
  • Desktop customization software is buggy.
Quickly getting a reporting solution integrated.
Henry Yennie | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Tableau Server is the backbone for emergency preparedness analytics for the Louisiana State Department of Health. As the lead agency for public health and medical services during an emergency, we collect a large amount of near real-time information from over 1,500 healthcare facilities. This data includes operational statuses, power statuses, fuel usage and needs, and census/bed availability. Tableau takes this data stream and transforms it into user-friendly visualizations for staff both in the field and in the State Emergency Operations Center. On a day-to-day basis, Tableau provides tools and interactive maps to our state trauma network so that they can determine the most appropriate facility for high risk patient routing.
  • Summarize complex data in an easy to understand format.
  • Very fast idea/need to realization timelines.
  • Ability for end users to interact with data sets, giving them filters, groupings and other tools to get the data they need.
  • Tableau's mapping capabilities are "almost there". We would love to have Tableau able to function as our sole GIS product. Each version of Tableau brings us closer to that goal.
  • We would like to have the ability to schedule data transfers. The new Data Prep tool is step in that direction.
  • We still have need to produce lists of summarized data. Making this process a little more straightforward would be nice.
Tableau Server is able to handle our data very efficiently and quickly. The design to publish cycle, using the Desktop Creator tool, is very fast making needed adjustments to visualizations very easy in a rapidly changing event. The ease with which a non-technical person can make changes to a visualization that is connected to our source data is unmatched. We can put this tool in the hands of "unsophisticated IT users" and have them productive quickly. This efficiency and usability is deeper with the mobile application. We now have field hospital coordinators using the mobile app to assist in patient routing and facility evacuations.
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Across organization, augmenting our client-facing web portal that helps us optimize our clients' database marketing efforts.
  • Allows non-technical data scientists and analysts to approach and visualize data.
  • Allows reports prepared by non-technical analysts to be readily adapted by technicians into an always-live web portal.
  • Its "extract" capability, although imperfect, can help to digest and visualize larger amounts of data in a moderately performant way.
  • Consume hardware resources like crazy. It is implemented using a raft of heavy technologies, including Postres, Java, Apache httpd, and more.
  • It has decent support for tabular data, but this support is somewhat rigid.
  • It nags end users to upgrade their desktop versions frequently, even though this risks compatibility errors with the server.
  • It's a significant resource hog. To some degree this is understandable, but it is largely due to its use of many heavyweight technologies (Postgres, Java, Apache httpd, and more).
  • You can't change its use of port 443 when using SQL, forcing extra deployment complexity (e.g. proxy servers) in many deployment scenarios.
  • The look and feel of their "story" feature is surprisingly hard to customize (beyond basic style elements) -- it's "a row of blocky buttons" only.
  • It's geographic maps are fairly basic, and the UI controls for navigating them are clumsy.
Well suited when non-technical analysts need to approach and visualize data sets. Poorly suited for shops that are well-positioned to do their own, more nimble web application visualization (e.g. using D3).
Kishore Ummadisetti | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are using Tableau as the primary BI tool for Accurate organization. We used Tableau for creating dashboards, and we integrate those into our Clients portal using JS API. We also use the tool internally across all departments for data analysis and to build self-service reports/dashboards.
  • Tableau is an easy to use yet powerful analytics tool. We have created 100+ dashboards for our clients in a short time.
  • Tableau supports multiple data connectors to pull data from almost any database, and CRM tools. We are able to pull data into Tableau from multiple databases.
  • If your business is looking at a tool to put data in the user's hands and avoid IT requests overhead around reporting, Tableau is the tool.
  • It is not easy to subscribe to dashboards or send e-mails outside of Tableau users. We have to use open source solutions like VizAlerts to make this happen. I believe for a tool like Tableau this should be an out of box solution.
  • Even though Tableau is an easy to use tool, there is still a solid learning curve to get familiar with the use of Tableau. One should invest a good amount of time to get an organization to adapt to Tableau, especially if the organization hasn't already used similar tools already.
  • Tableau Desktop is powerful. Tableau Web Portal provides a lot of the same functionality as Tableau Desktop, yet there are lots of gaps.
  • Data blending is one of the more powerful features. However, this only works with limited data. If you are blending a million rows of a data source, we found it very difficult to blend.
Tableau Server works well in providing a self-service analytics tool. To work with live data, you better have the data in query efficient schema (data warehouse.) Tableau has a good security model. It is easy to integrate with other external tools.
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