The power tool of the digital analyst
Updated May 24, 2016
The power tool of the digital analyst
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Tableau Desktop
Tableau has become the Swiss knife of the power analyst. So much that I don't do anything in Excel anymore because I always ended up working in Tableau anyway.
Under the definition of Big Data in the recently published book entitled "The Devil's Data Dictionary" by Jim Sterne I'm quoted for the simplest definition of Big Data ever: "That which does not fit into an Excel spreadsheet" (Twitter, circa 2013)
That's a key aspect - Tableau forces you to think differently, address the problem in a new way, and makes it easy and efficient to slice & dice the data at will.
Under the definition of Big Data in the recently published book entitled "The Devil's Data Dictionary" by Jim Sterne I'm quoted for the simplest definition of Big Data ever: "That which does not fit into an Excel spreadsheet" (Twitter, circa 2013)
That's a key aspect - Tableau forces you to think differently, address the problem in a new way, and makes it easy and efficient to slice & dice the data at will.
- Slicing & dicing of data
- Visualization
- Ease of connectivity to Google Analytics (but always has a downside, see "Cons")
- Ease of connectivity to dispersed data sources
- The Google Analytics connector still needs an "advanced mode" where we would paste our own API request. The dumb-proofed interface turns out to be limiting for advanced users (doesn't allow dynamic segments, sometimes lag behind the official API).
- Data blending between dispersed data sources is often confusing and limiting.
- A built-in data-transformation step would be absolutely awesome - I often have to use an ETL (Extract/Transform/Load) tool to prep the data.
I haven't used other tools for a number of years - when I made the selection my criteria were ease of use (including, slicing & dicing data at will), connectivity to various data sources (especially REST API - which Tableau doesn't support natively but now has a way to use through the Web Data Connector). An element that is often overlooked is the ecosystem: other services or tools complementing & extending Tableau, the support community, training opportunities, books and even the availability of skilled resources in the field. And finally, price was a factor.
In some cases I use Klipfolio as an alternative to Tableau dashboards. I see it as a matter of "fit to task" and data-maturity. Sometimes Tableau dashboards are just overkill for building nice-looking, simple dashboards where my client doesn't need too much controls (i.e. no highlighting or segmentation at will).
In some cases I use Klipfolio as an alternative to Tableau dashboards. I see it as a matter of "fit to task" and data-maturity. Sometimes Tableau dashboards are just overkill for building nice-looking, simple dashboards where my client doesn't need too much controls (i.e. no highlighting or segmentation at will).