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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)
    8.4
    84%
  • Multi-User Support (named login) (93)
    7.3
    73%
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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.

7.3
Avg 8.6

Mobile Capabilities

Support for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

7.6
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

7.3
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 9.5.

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

(877)

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

(101-111 of 111)
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George McCarrolle | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • 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
Charles Hooper | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • 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!
Anish Koppula | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • Quick 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.
April 17, 2015

Tableau 8 Review

Dwight Taylor | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • 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.
Nelson Davis, MSCE, EIT | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • Rapid 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.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Tableau Server is a great tool for sharing meaningful reports. Members of a site simply access their site through their web browser, and then can view reports that drive business decisions. The navigation is very user friendly and the learning curve is minimal, even for someone who has never used a BI tool before.
  • Reports housed on Tableau Server are either made out of a "live" data connection or a data extract, where data is brought in in memory. Within Server, it is very easy to set up your extract report to be refreshed based on whatever timeframe suits you (daily, weekly, monthly etc). It is easy to control how up to date the data in the reports are for site members viewing the reports.
  • Site administrators within a site manage and control the permissions within the site. There is a three tier hierarchy within the content that's published to a Server site (Project level, Workbook level, View level) and site admins can quickly and easily control which members have access to which content within the site.
  • There is no easy way to extract a Tableau site user list. (It can be done with using Tableau Desktop) but having an icon to export a user list to Excel seems like a simple enhancement that could go a long way.
  • From a system admin perspective, there is no way to kill a task within Server. We ran into an issue where the subscription feature (an option where a user can have reports emailed to them on a schedule they determine) was gumming up our background task processors. The subscriptions would never execute, though it would hog the associated background task processor. Without having a simple kill task button, the system admins would have to stop processes and restart the actual Windows Server. It was a pain.
  • Tableau Server vendor support can be frustrating at times. The turnaround time is inconsistent, it's almost like the luck of the draw for who gets assigned to your case. Many times they give canned copy/paste replies until you can get a WebEx session to show them what's going on.
October 22, 2013

Tableau

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • The 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.
Torry Johnson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • Connect 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.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • In 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.
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