Item: Tableau Desktop
Rating: 9
Author: Rupinder Sehmi

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Tableau Desktop is used by the BI team to create business dashboards which are then consumed by the rest of the organisation. It is a useful tool and makes dashboarding very simple and easy. It addresses the problem organisations have with viewing how their business is performing through data as well as providing insight into management.

Pros and Cons

Very easy to use
Wide selection of graphs and charts
Excellent array of toolips
Good for advanced users as allows deep level of customisation

UI could be more intuitive
Stand alone product from the web editor so requires additional setup and installation
Easier use for managing custom parameters

Return on Investment

Improved customer service by visualisation report queues
Helped ROI through funnel targeting and dropouts
Assists executive meetings through forecast analysis

Alternatives Considered

Zoho Analytics (formerly Zoho Reports), Google Data Studio and IBM Cognos Analytics

Tableau Desktop allows for a lot more customisation then the other products which are more targeted at being easier to use. Tableau is also easy to use for standard analytics and dashboards, but allows advanced users to create more powerful data driven dashboards through its user of tool tips and parameters.

Key Insights

Do you think Tableau Desktop delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Tableau Desktop's feature set?

Yes

Did Tableau Desktop live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Tableau Desktop go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Tableau Desktop again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Microsoft Power BI, Microsoft SQL Server, Databricks Lakehouse Platform (Unified Analytics Platform)

Usability

Tableau is a great all round product which delivers exactly what I would expect it to. It is generally easy to use for the majority of the reports and dashboards. However, it fails to get a 10 because the UI is not very intuitive and using some of the advanced features is tricky and requires training.

Support Rating

My experience with the Tableau team has all been positive. They are very quick to help and the Tableau community is a vast resource full of common problems where you can find most answers. Those that you can not find, the Tableau team were very quick and helpful to solve any issues we had.

Likelihood to Recommend

Tableau is best suited for easy and high-level visualisation of data. This for example could be executive dashboards, or team based dashboards which are driven by OKRs or KPIs. Tableau is less appropriate for detailed and raw data extracts which may be consumed by team such as Finance for cash or transaction reconciliation.

Tableau Desktop- Exactly what you would expect from a leading analytics tool

Overall Satisfaction with Tableau Desktop