October 19, 2018
Tableau Server Review: "Usable Analytics for the Right Price!"
Implementation
10
TrustRadius
Tableau Server is an enterprise-class business analytics platform that can scale up to hundreds of thousands of users. It allows distributed mobile and browser-based users to interact with Tableau workbooks published to the server from Tableau Desktop.
Tableau Server comprises 4 main components:
-Application Server
- VizQL Server
-Data Server
-Backgrounder
Tableau Server supports both web browser and Tableau Desktop clients.https://media.trustradius.com/product-logos/Dr/DC/B9UT7Z2T8LTT.PNGTableauUsable Analytics for the Right Price!2018-10-15T14:54:36.638ZTableau 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.,10,We believe that our deployment of Tableau Server has had a large positive ROI for emergency preparedness. While not formally calculated, we have done comparisons with other leading analytics vendors, and there is no competition - Tableau Server is clearly the value leader.
The major contributor to our positive ROI has primarily been the time to deployment and the time to adoption for critical visualizations and dashboards.,8,10,9,9,9,20,1,Easy access to critical resource dashboards in one environment. Tableau combines data from multiple applications into one dashboard to monitor resource utilization in user-defined areas and user-selected hospitals.
Dashboards that allow staff to interact with certain data sets, using the powerful visualization tools in Tableau.
Data-driven maps that allow trauma network managers to identify appropriate hospitals based on the trauma location and service status within user-defined areas.
Data maps include hospital status details in a pop-up when hovering over the map point.,We have been able to extend the functionality of the mapping capabilities of Tableau beyond what is normally available. Using data-based calculations, we have been able to provide end-user interactive capabilities to specify location areas and hospital resources.
We are able to use Tableau for data listings that enable us to manage compliance with other vendor usage limitations.
We are able to use Tableau to identify duplicates in databases. This allows staff to keep databases current and error-free.,We would like to expand the use of Tableau's mapping functionality.
We would like to extend the use of the Tableau mobile app by our regional coordinators.
We are working at automating and pushing visualization updates to other applications.,10,No,Price
Product Usability
Analyst Reports,We wouldn't change a thing. Now that we know more about the potential competitors, the more Tableau server stands out. As indicated earlier, it has consistently demonstrated high value to our developers and end-users.,Third-party professional services,No,Change management was a small part of the implementation and was well-handled,User acceptance. This was really an issue of providing training and showing how regional coordinators managing hospital resources could use Tableau.
There were no other significant issues. The implementation went smoothly and timely.,10,No,10,No,We had an issue with a particular mapping capability. We wanted to be able to map hospitals state-wide, provide a pop-up of service status upon hovering over the map point, and allow the end-user to specify the location of a trauma and use a slider function to define hospitals located within a radius in miles of hospitals. Tableau support was able to provide a solution, and this dashboard is a key resource used by our state-wide trauma network to provide routing suggestions to EMS agencies.,Dragging and dropping data variables to quickly and easily create visualizations
Tableau's "Show Me" function that suggests visualization types based on the data source.
Easily mapping data that doesn't have latitude/longitude in the data set. Tableau can use county and/or zip code to quickly provide a map of the data.,The mapping function in Tableau continues to improve, but it can't accommodate the use of layers as data filters just yet.
Tableau is not really meant for the generation of lists from data. We've found ways to do it, but it takes someone with technical skills.,Yes,10Henry YennieGetting the most out of small data in healthcare2013-08-19T17:40:26.021ZFor cases of "tell me something about X" for a data set I've never seen before such as data collected about blood transfusions, Tableau is fantastic at helping to make sense of the data and creating insights.
In cases where the data is really messy, even though Tableau does not do full ETL it speeds up the analysis and distribution of analytics process by an order of magnitude or more over Excel, which is a huge win for us.
Tableau's ability to aggregate at a variety of levels via table calculations is something that I haven't een done in other BI products (except via a ton of SQL), it makes a number of advanced computations easier for users to accomplish.,Tableau's model for filtering and sorting is based on the individual worksheet. Though extensions have been made over time for filtering at the dashboard level, the level of functionality for filtering and sorting at the dashboard level isn't where I'd want it to be.
Dashboard layout has definitely improved with version 8.0, and it's not quite the pixel perfect rendering that I want.,10,,10,Saving hundreds of person hours in preparing charts & reports.
Enabling real-time or near real-time visibility into performance on a wide variety of metrics that have long-term financial impact on hospital & physician practice (for example, the Medicare Value Based Purchasing measures). This enables us to take action now that will affect our Medicare reimbursement a year or more from today.,12,1,Analysis of a variety of data sets and creating analyses across data sets. For example, looking at relationships between staff survey data and outpatient practice patient panels and workloads.
Dashboards to inform doctors, nurses, and administrative staff of performance on a variety of quality metrics.
Projecting externally generated quality metrics such as Medicare readmission rates, and validating those metrics.,,Implemented in-house,9,Self-taught,Extremely easy to learn, with a wide variety of ways to learn. Tableau has an extensive knowledgebase, there are dozens of hours of training videos, a number of blogs, the Tableau forums are amazing, and there is Tableau Public. Any visualization there can be downloaded and the techniques analyzed.,No,8,9,10,10,YesJonathan DrummeyYes, Tableau can make you feel "Tab - Blue" At Times2013-09-12T15:36:00.059ZAllows you to quickly visualize your data.
Great for viewing data that has geospatial elements.
Easy to share with others via publishing to Tableau Server.,Not a one stop shop for summarizing large data sets (>1 million rows).
Does not work well with Teradata (in my experience). There was a host of connectivity issues that were logged by Tableau support as bugs/defects that were going to be addressed.
Performance is solely based on the amount of RAM your individual machine running the client app has (I would regularly see the Out of Memory error when trying to connect to Teradata).
Requires customization in order to force a refresh of the the webpage when publishing the dashboard on Tableau Server (data refreshes in the background but webpage does not update at the same time).,6,Through some customization we were able to monitor the network on a dashboard 24/7.,15,1,Allows analysts and managers to get a near real-time reading on the health of a wireless network of millions of devices.
Allows for creation of dashboards that provide analysis from a geospatial and a performance view.
Serves as a way to store data historically (using a Tableau generated extract) when your source system does not store data historically.,9,,Third-party professional services,7,Online training
In-person training
Self-taught,7,7,The only way I have learned anything was through trial and error. Its nice to have formal training but at the end of the day they won't be available to help you out every time you get stuck.,6,7,8,3,If Tableau can integrate with ESRI's ArcMap that would be amazing,I cant speak on that. That was handled by other people in my dept as well as other depts.,NoMashhood SyedTableau - Everything You Need To Know2013-07-08T21:27:43.486ZTableau's core strength is how easy it is to use. This was a key attraction to me in the early stage and remains a key consideration for many who want to visualise and understand the data in which they are subject matter experts without it requiring them to become experts in the software tool itself. As you use it more and more you also realise that while Tableau is deceptively simple to use it also has real depth and real power.
This ease of use addresses a key business problem for many organisations which is that other solutions will require people who know a lot about databases but little about the data to produce solutions for people who truly understand the data but aren't database administrators. Tableau places very little demand at all on IT departments, many of whom are overworked and have long request queues to satisfy. Tableau allows the IT departments to work on the provision of simplified data connections with helpful metadata, leaving end users able to access the data, design and share meaningful dashboards from that data with anyone they wish in their organisation. This approach is very powerful and very productive.,In browser animations
Speed of rendering dashboards - this is getting faster all the time but it is there and can be a consideration. When we're so used to web pages rendering almost instantly it can feel unusual to wait 2-3 seconds for something to render on screen.
auto update - Tableau does not automatically render new points if the underlying data changes. The browser page has to be manually or programatically refreshed to display new data.,10,,10,The year we implemented Tableau the cost of purchasing Server and Desktop represented just 5 weeks' worth of that year's increase in net profits that our 8 person team delivered over the previous year so we regarded the ROI on Tableau to be 5 weeks.
Nowadays, I think there are a few basics to any business: such as phones, email, website, CRM, accounts package etc and BI must be in that list.
Turning off Tableau in the company would be like turning off the lights - we could probably cope but it would be pretty miserable and we would be nowhere near as effective or efficient.,25,1,Sales Order analysis - margin maintenance, sales per month per salesperson, sales by channel, bonus calculations for salespeople and how that relates to previous years
Stock control - we relate the stock holding to the moving average of sales to influence what should be ordered from suppliers so that stock holding is expressed in time not in units, we can see seasonality in products so that we can adjust what to order, we can ensure that the right amount of stock is held - too much and we're tying up capital that could be at bank, too little and we won't be able to fulfil orders to customers wasting profit opportunities.
Technical Support analysis - we can see immediately warranty returns that are spending longer than expected at a particular stage of the warranty process which we can rectify in a timely fashion, we can see whether it is more effective to spend more on a particular component or less in order to lower the overall cost of warranty support and see what will productively improve the mean time between failure of a machine
Financial analysis - we use Tableau to monitor the basic financials of sales/revenues, COGS, AR, AP, as well as running totals of sales and net profit during the FY compared to forecast which we find to be a really useful way of keeping us focused throughout the year on delivering against the target.
In essence, we use it pretty much everywhere. It takes so little effort to connect to relevant data and to start turning it into something that is easy to understand and represents the situation correctly that there's never a hesitation about whether it's worth that effort.,,Implemented in-house,9,Online training
Self-taught,10,It is easy enough to use without training but I would say that we're not all James Bond and us mere mortals do benefit from some instruction. The on demand training on the Tableau website is very good and really helps you get going quickly. In my case I also took the Tableau training and certifications at the customer conferences. Now, as a Tableau Partner, we deliver training to lots of organisations and I've lost count of the number of times we've had people chime in throughout the day "Oh, I didn't know you could do that - that's so good!".,No,10,9,10,9,Sage CRM
Sage 200 Accounts
Our timekeeping system (tracks attendance and punctuality
Google Analytics,No,Tableau operate a very simple pricing model and maintain a consistent policy of not discounting. This was certainly my experience when I first purchased Tableau and it hasn't changed in the years since.
The upside of this is that if you're trying to evaluate the value offering of the product you don't have to consider some arbitrary point at which you would buy it and then see if you can get it for that. It either represents a meaningful ROI to you at its list price or it doesn't. The downside is you can't tell your boss "I spent this much but I got this much off".,YesMel StephensonTableau from a BI consultant view.2013-09-04T18:57:54.871ZAs a consultant, I work with many organizations, all using Tableau Sever differently. Some implementations are department oriented, and, some are total enterprise installations.
Tableau Server facilitates the secure, controlled, sharing of work done my Tableau Desktop analysts and developers.,Ease of use - connecting to different data sources, and, in visualizing data.
Rapid and intuitive analysis.
Easy to share (Tableau Server),In Tableau Desktop version 8.1, a direct interface to the 'R' open source statistical library was implemented. This allows for a major enhancement in the ability to do high-end statistics. I would love to see an interface where I did not, also, have to know 'R' syntax. But, for now, this enhancement is great!,10,,10,As a consultant, it is my clients that benefit. NDAs prevent my disclosing details.,1,1,I am a BI consultant - use Tableau for my clients (retail, manufacturing, healthcare, education, etc.)
Ease of use - allows users that are not technical, but, know their business, to gain insights.,,Implemented in-house,10,Online training
Self-taught,10,It is easy to get started - new users can be productive quickly with an hour of web based, free training. The real power of Tableau is tremendous - not sure anyone could ever learn it all!,No,10,No. Tableau is not an "integrate with" type of tool. It connects to all kinds of data sources to enable rapid and intuitive ad hoc query and analysis, as well as building analytic views/dashboards for sharing.,I did not negotiate - felt the price I paid was more than fair.Charles HooperTo Server or Not to Server, that is the question!2014-06-17T22:35:41.101ZWe currently use Tableau to support numerous departments across the entire organization. We have plans to deploy the server to other departments over the next few quarters. We use Tableau mainly as a information tool for our teams. We have built several dashboards to display critical information to stakeholders in that particular area. The ease of setup and the ease of maintaining the server allows us to concentrate on our users rather than on the server.,Mobile and Browser based access across multiple devices and OS
End user ease of use
Rapid development and deployment of user new content,Extracts can be somewhat difficult to deploy if developing off a local machine with limited resources
Advanced skills needed to fully exploit the capabilities of the product
Programming syntax issues, no standard based off another language,9,,10,9,500,10,9George McCarrolleTableau 8 Review2013-06-04T17:10:50.283ZTableau server provides central access to interactive business intelligence. Specifically, Tableau server delivers interactive insight into company performance using web browsers, tablets and mobile devices. Tableau server is the preferred Data Visualization engine.,The advances in computer CPU and Memory have left most software titles behind. Tableau Server 9 took the first step toward leveraging the advances in computer hardware. From leveraging multi-core CPUs to parallel request processing, the performance improvement will be noticeable to all Tableau Server 8 users.
Previous Tableau Server versions have suffered from an ability to be categorized as Enterprise Ready. Tableau Server 9 improves on this gap in the following areas. Improved cluster configuration, a new Cluster Controller, standby Repository capabilities and a new File Store process which resolves the previous restrictions on the number of Data Engine Nodes allowed in a cluster.
The web interface of Tableau Server 9 has been totally overhauled in an effort to boost access to dashboards. The new interface accomplishes this through an improved workflow, easier access to resources and an improved management interface. Tableau Server 9 presents the user with entry points to the main features of Tableau server in one screen, not a trivial accomplishment. In my opinion, well designed user interfaces invite users to explore. Tableau server 9 excels at this.,Tableau Server 9 has a lot of room to improve it's Administrative Views. For Tableau to be such a powerful Data Visualization engine, the Administrative Views out of the box have much to be desired.
Tableau Server 9 would also benefit greatly from an enhancement to it's dashboard scheduling and distribution capabilities.
Tableau Server 9 would also benefit greatly from threshold alerting. This would deliver actionable insight as opposed to just insight.,10,,10,This is quite simple. From my perspective, time to insight is measured in the man hours it takes to connect to data, begin exploring the data and finally sharing insights with peers and decision makers. The rate of return is immediately quantifiable and undeniable unlike any other Data Visualization offering I've tested.
Hierarchies in data are another immediate exercise that has consumed major resources, from a Data Warehouse perspective, that can easily be implemented by non-technical analysts on the fly.
Blazingly fast proto-typing. For customers who really don't know what they don't know, my experience has proven that the sooner you put visual results using real data in front of the customer, the more likely you are to avoid low production adoption.,25,1,Optimize the consumption of enterprise data warehouses. In most large organizations, the enterprise data warehouse is where most of the companies information assets can be accessed for consumption. However, one of the common stumbling blocks is the overwhelming volume of data. Tableau Server can prospectively be a solution to assist in this area. With regularly scheduled data extracts, Tableau server delivers optimized timely data important to the user.,Data Discovery - I'm almost embarrassed to acknowledge the number of reporting or BI projects I've participated in where neither he customer nor IT really had a handle on the data sources required to be successful. Tableau is an excellent tool to use to understand and discover insights about UNKNOWN data in advance of establishing requirements for reporting or BI projects. Being able to easily perform data discovery exercises on UNKNOWN data sources really empowers analysts to proactively contribute to requirement gathering and agreement on BI project deliverables. In addition, with Tableau data discovery is almost effortless and doesn't require building new data structures to discover the ins and outs of new data sources.
Proto-typing - If I had a buck for every customer that agreed to a report mock-up only to change their mind once the mock-up contained LIVE data. After a few trips around this bush it became clear that proto-types are really only as good as they are close to the finished deliverable. Tableau helps users quickly deliver near-to-prod proto-types using real data without having to build new data architectures for BI projects.
Rapid Insight - Speed to Insight is the differentiator of the next 50 years. Tableau empowers users to easily and quickly connect to the data important to them in order to discover insights not seen in Excel like or static historical reporting.,Optimizing Tableau Workbooks - It seems rather circular, but it's true. Tableau Server inherently empowers users with the tools to test, validate and tune the performance of their dashboards. This is yet another unsung feature of Tableau. Many BI suites require engaging DBA, server hardware, network and architecture professionals to performance tune BI solutions. Tableau empowers the user with this ability right on their desktop and on Tableau Server.
Parameters - Using parameters on Tableau Dashboards we were able to deliver Dashboards that were configurable at run-time by those accessing Dashboards via Tableau Server. Bi solutions have possessed the ability to filter Dashboard content for many years now, however, presenting a totally different visualization on the same Dashboard using parameters, this is a first to my knowledge.,,Price
Product Usability,Evaluation of BI tools is an exercise that demands circumspect analysis. With more than 10 years of BI experience in the enterprise environment, there's nothing I would change. However, I would offer a word of wisdom to those embarking on the journey. Involve your business customers early and often in the evaluation process. Doing this will avoid costly adoption abandonment issues as the result of BI tools not meeting customer needs.,Implemented in-house,10,Self-taught,Yes, Tableau provides an outstanding set of free instructional videos and online resources. Couple this with the phenomenal ease-of-use, these resources alone are enough to equip the average non-technical user.,No,10,Deploying Dashboards to Tableau Server - Once a Tableau Author produces the final version of a Dashboard, publishing the Dashboard to the server for mass consumption happens in a few clicks. Intuitive and not overly complicated. The advanced publishing features (refreshing extracts and security) require training, but even these features are easily understood.
Dashboard Search - Tableau Server 8 includes empowers with a search feature that makes it easy to locate Dashboards important to the user.
Online Dashboards Analysis - The new Dashboard Edit feature available with Tableau Server 8 is unprecedented and unique among BI suites. The ability for a user to create custom views of a published Dashboard is phenomenal. How many analysts have seen a report and wanted to ask additional questions based on the results on a Dashboard? This feature empowers the user to ask deeper questions of any Dashboard right in the web browser without having Tableau Desktop installed on their computers.
Shared Data Sources - Tableau Server offers a capability known as Shared Data Sources. These are commonly referred to as Symantec Layers in traditional BI circles. However, in Tableau Server, these can be pure symantec layers or actual Tableau Data Extracts optimized for data analysis. This prevents IT from repeatedly having to make data extracts available to business users. In addition, this feature also is an added bonus when used with existing information systems. Instead of creating yet another data mart, Tableau Server administrators can deploy shared data sources that maximize the investment in existing information systems as opposed to moving and duplicating data.,NONE,Yes,10,10,10,Teradata, SQL Server, SaleForce.com, Google Analytics, Microsoft Excel, ODBC data sources,No,We had no negotiations. Being aware of price points for other BI offerings, the retail price was affordable.Dwight TaylorTableau Server - Good for Visual Representation of the data2013-10-16T20:21:34.099ZQuick visual representation of factual data.
Drill down/Drill up and flexible slice/dice of the information.
Easy exports of data extracts and Excel based reports for additional processing.,No statistical procedures embedded in the software.
Tends to become slow when connected to a database table with a large data set.,9,It is not an "extremely expensive" software. It is worth the investment.
It is definitely dependent on the business objective a group is intending to achieve.,,1200,10,Weekly Insights on media buy performance.
Clients are in and out of the dashboards using them for their corporate presentations.
Unified Report Central for all our activation decisions and optimizations.,9,,Implemented in-house
Third-party professional services,9,Online training,9,8,No,8,8,7,8,MS SQL Server 2008
SAS 9.3,No,Global partnerships with the corporation always helps. Additionally, renewals and constant relationship with the vendors adds to negotiation.Anish KoppulaTableau Server - A Powerful Tool to Democratize Data2013-09-05T22:36:52.236ZRapid fire analysis: the ability to ask questions and find answers rapidly of the data on the fly.
Dashboarding: taking different views or sheets and bringing them to one screen where they can then interact with one another.
Integrated mapping: rather than layering on top of Google Maps through complex coding, Tableau gives you the ability to look at geospatial data simply and quickly with both point maps and filled maps.
Data Blending: taking data from different sources (even different DB types) and bringing it into visualizations together.
Putting the ability to do analysis in the hands of the user,Can be a bit buggy every so often.,10,,10,Greater understanding of our data.
Greater transparency both internally and with our clients.,Data Storage
Data Management
Data Visualizations
Dashboarding
Automated Reporting,,Implemented in-house,10,Self-taught,It is certainly learn-able without formal training. The formal training would provide some best practices, but the software is very approachable on your own.,No,10Nelson Davis, MSCE, EITTableau is a great analytics platform2013-10-19T21:52:36.374ZConnect easily to several data sources and can join data across sources.
Particularly good at finding useful insights in large data sets - very flexible.
Server solution is good for dissemination of data and reporting, but isn't the strongest part of the product.,Automatic data type recognition can be troublesome; some geographic data points aren't recognized as such and require time-consuming manual mapping
Alerts in the server platform would be a great addition. As is it's not a proscriptive product.,We haven't explicitly measure it but it's a godsend in terms of saving time for analysts. It also allows business/product owners to easily monitor the health of their businesses and identify and fix problems early.,9,9,15,2,Data analysis - working with large data sets.
Data visualization - advanced way to tell stories with data.
Reporting and distribution.,No,,Implemented in-house,10,Online training
Self-taught,9,Yes, provided you have a basic understanding of data analysis. Being comfortable with pivot tables is a good starting point.,No,8,8,9,8,MS SQL Server,Salesforce. They have a connector, we haven't gotten around to it yet.,,Can usually negotiate some kind of deal when buying additional licenses. We eventually worked out a long-term deal that was similar to the individual deals we had negotiated.Torry JohnsonTableau2013-10-22T16:12:30.558ZThe best feature of Tableau is that it is easy to use. It gives those with an analytical mindset the ability to analyze data without having to navigate technical obstacles such as SQL, coding, etc.
Quick dashboarding with easy to use drill down & drill across. Setting up an enterprise quality dashboard is pretty simple and there is a lot of functionality that can be incorporated using actions to allow for drill downs, filtering, etc.
Implementation is a breeze. Tableau is quick to implement and upgrade. Unlike traditional BI Suites that have months-long implementation cycles, Tableau is pretty quick. Additionally, it does not need to sit on top of a data warehouse it can be fed via Access, Excel, or text - which makes it perfect for ad hoc analysis as well,Ipad reporting seems to be a pain point for all BI sytems, Tableau included. In previous roles, we had more issues with security (internal to our company), but it seems like you have to download large files to the iPad to run the visualizations/dashboards, which can be a challenge for a mobile workforce.
Blended data sets were always tricky in Tableau. It is pretty simple to get them up and running, but advanced features always seemed to be challenging.
We had some issues using Essbase/Multi-Dimensional Sources, early on, but the Tableau support team was quick to churn out a solution.,Limited implementation - we can spend less time implementing and more time doing.
Ease of upgrades - again, less time doing maintenance and more time producing quality data visualizations for our customers.,10,10,15,4,Ability to quickly get data and data visualizations out to users. Tableau is a quick implementation and most changes can be completed outside of a typical build cycle.
Simplicity of use, non IT and non BI users can easily get access and get going quickly. Our company has a number of non-technical people (finance, etc.) doing analysis. Tableau gave them the ability to access and manipulate data without knowing SQL or the data warehouse.
Tableau provides better visualizations over the leading BI players.,No,,Don't know,10,Online training
In-person training
Self-taught,8,10,It was easy to learn without training. I would recommend watching the free videos online and playing around with your data before engaging more advanced training.,10,10,10,10,Tableau server was integrated with our custom online reporting portal. The level of integration was simplistic, but worked very well.
All of our data sources (Oracle DW) were integrated into Tableau, so we could easily access the reporting data sources.
Easy to embed Tableau visualizations into corporate intranet sites using Tableau Server!,,Not sure.Verified UserTableau: The successful democratization of visual data analytics.2013-09-15T16:47:30.174ZThe product provides a very easy to use method to develop insightful visualizations.
The product also provides a very easy method for sharing visualizations.,None come to mind.,10,Provides a way to quickly visually discover what is hidden in vast amounts of data.,120,0.25,The product is used to develop data-driven insights through data visualization by democratizing the process to people most familiar with the business needs.,10,Implemented in-house,6,Online training
In-person training
Self-taught,9,10,Yes, easy, and yes, would recommend this approach.,Yes,10,10,10,8,Oracle,Not sure at this time, but possibly identity management.,Terms were not an issue.Verified UserStrong visualization capabilities. Good for SMB.2012-11-26T17:16:46.694ZIn some ways, this depends on company size. For a mid-sized company like us, this is a very good solution. But if we were a large enterprise, it would certainly make more sense to use something more appropriate to a large organization like Business Objects.
Tableau is a huge improvement over what we had. It’s now easy to drag and drop elements to create very compelling visual reports. It’s also quite easy for users to create powerful reports without having to know SQL.
Distribution of reports company-wide (by publishing to server and having users view reports through desktop or reader) is also great, and a huge improvement to the very manual process we had before.
The data engine does an extract every morning from our data warehouse to update the data sets . This automatic data sync and report refresh capability is extremely helpful.
Being able to connect different data sets – so some direct to our data warehouse, some in spreadsheets (like budgets) has been very helpful.,The converse of the automatic data sync mentioned as a plus, is that it was a little difficult to set up. Initially we could not make Tableau sync with our data warehouse and we needed help from them, which they wanted to charge us for. It turned out that the problem was on our side – we’d done the installation incorrectly, so not their fault – but this was painful.
Tableau does not work well with cubes that were used to speed up reporting in our DW. We have a columnar database, Vertica, for some parts of our DW as well and it remains to be seen how those will integrate with Tableau, although I don’t expect any issues here.
Some features that are natively available in SQL are not available in Tableau (temporary tables)
They release a new version every three weeks, which creates some management overhead for us. In particular, we have experienced some versioning problems where different versions of the product do not talk to each other correctly.,Easier to see business trends than ever before. Visualization is very strong.
Since all reports are now housed in the Tableau dashboard, far fewer people are running ad-hoc SQL queries which often led to support issues for us.
Forecasting and budgeting teams can use Tableau data alongside their own data to produce much better insight.,10,8,35,5,,Vendor implemented,6,Online training
In-person training,9,9,We did not do very much in the way of configuration. We set up security and some other basic things and there were no real issues.
The only other set-up was setting up the integration with our data warehouse, which did not go particularly smoothly.,No,7,9,Our data warehouse.Verified User
Windows, Linux
Tableau Server
633 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>
