Item: Tableau Cloud
Rating: 7
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We integrate our data and analytics through a Tableau Online interface, making it our primary delivery device of our product to our customers. We also use it internally for help in analyzing our scorecard metrics and to help us meet our quarterly, annual, and long-term goals. The biggest business problem it addresses for us is it allows us to deliver our product without having to hire a team of developers to build a custom solution to visualize our data and analytics.

Pros and Cons

Robust data integration with a variety of databases
Ability to display complex data visualizations with many options for user interactivity
Look and feel is impressive no matter what device you use to access it

Exporting functionality is limited
Cost and complexity of license structure
Filtering on large datasets can at times be slow

Return on Investment

No need to hire a team of developers to deliver our product, a huge cost savings for a start up company.
The ability to work off data extracts allows us to "set in and forget it" so to speak, which allows our customers to use the system during business hours with almost no cost in terms of database usage.
It has been a great internal tool for dashboarding company metrics and helping us track goals and implement solutions to meet those goals through efficient data analysis.

Alternatives Considered

Alteryx

In determining whether to go with Tableau Online versus Alteryx, two important factors stood out in determining our go-to solution. First, while Alteryx is an impressive tool for data cleansing, it did not stack up in terms of data visualization capabilities. Tableau, on the other hand, provided us everything we needed in terms of visualizing our data and analytics. The second factor is cost. Well neither solution would be considered cheap, Tableau was the more cost effective solution for our needs.

Key Insights

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

Yes

Are you happy with Tableau Cloud's feature set?

Yes

Did Tableau Cloud live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Tableau Cloud go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Tableau Cloud again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Azure Data Factory, Azure Blob Storage, Slack

Usability

I gave it this rating primarily based on feedback from our clients that use it. We have many non-technical users that often comment on the ability to navigate easily through the Tableau Online interface. We don't get many complaints from our users in terms of usability. As a user myself for our internal products, I've also had few complaints.

Support Rating

In times where the system is down, support has always been quick to notify and keep us apprised of the latest developments. It's crucial for our system to always be available, but when emergencies have arisen, I don't recall a time where the Tableau Online Support hasn't been able to address our concerns in a timely manner.

Likelihood to Recommend

In our specific use case, we only require a once a day refresh of our data which allows the entire online system to operate off of extracts. That is very important as we use our daytime working hours to work on feature updates and implementation items rather than having to worry about any extra load on our database (which would be required with a direct connection to the online system). Importing the extracts is rather seamless and robust enough to handle large volumes of data.

Scenarios where Tableau Online would be less appropriate is where there is a high need to export and distribute data and reports. That functionality is rather limited in the online system.

Startups take notice: Avoid high developer costs and deliver your product(s) with Tableau Online

Overall Satisfaction with Tableau Online