Tableau is the centerpiece of our Business Analytics.
August 10, 2018

Tableau is the centerpiece of our Business Analytics.

Don Babcock | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Tableau Server

Tableau Server is being used across our entire enterprise as the primary vehicle for the dissemination of business analytics (BA). In particular, it enables end-user/department "self-service" in terms of reporting. It also works very well for embedding BA in mobile enterprise applications (iPhone-iPad.)
  • Self service publishing - Before Tableau Server, most reporting was done by central report writers on a request basis, and the backlog never ended. Now a great deal of the reporting is "self service" within the departments, freeing IT Business Intelligence (BI) staff to focus on the reporting tasks requiring more expertise.
  • It is VERY easy for folks to publish their creations from Tableau Desktop directly to Tableau Server.
  • Starting with "template" projects, many users don't have to have Tableau Desktop but can simply "clone" the template (data connections "baked in") and create new dashboards with nothing more than their browser. This is very cost effective.
  • We have created several Enterprise Mobile Applications for iPhones/iPads and it is very easy to integrate analytics provided by Tableau Server into our custom in-house applications. This GREATLY simplifies the development of sophisticated mobile BA tools.
  • They are already moving toward not requiring any special desktop software to create dashboards from scratch. It will be nice when they finally get there. The biggest hassle we have with getting new Tableau users installed is that Tableau Desktop requires Admin rights on the PC to install. We don't generally allow that, so end users have to get PC support staff involved to do that installation. All of that goes away when Web UI users of Tableau Server can do everything folks with Tableau Desktop can do in terms of creating new projects from scratch.
  • Tableau Server could be "Dockerized" allowing easier installation. Containerization is the wave of the future as opposed to "Full Stack" installations.
  • Without question it has helped us make information that was "invisible" or hard to fathom much more accessible to those that need it to run our business. To that end, it is helping us zero in on many cost avoidance issues which were not surfaced before the advent of Tableau Analytics.
It is great for Business Intelligence/Business Analytic reporting. It is far better than using something like Excel and much easier to use. We have had some issues with folks with a long history of spreadsheet reporting having difficulty making the transition to a different paradigm, but that's not really a fault of Tableau. It's more of a situation where folks have been using a "hammer" (Excel) for so long that they want everything to look like a "nail." Once they make the transition, however, they never want to go back.

Tableau Server Feature Ratings

Customizable dashboards
10
Report Formatting Templates
10
Drill-down analysis
10
Formatting capabilities
8
Integration with R or other statistical packages
8
Report sharing and collaboration
10
Publish to Web
10
Publish to PDF
10
Report Versioning
8
Report Delivery Scheduling
8
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
10
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
10
Predictive Analytics
5
Multi-User Support (named login)
10
Role-Based Security Model
10
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
10
Single Sign-On (SSO)
10
Responsive Design for Web Access
10
Mobile Application
10
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
10
REST API
10
Javascript API
10
iFrames
7