What is Tableau software?

Data analysis is incredible, as it is an amazing visualization tool in the business intelligence services world. Data that is made using this software turns out to be anything but difficult to such an extent that it permits even a non-technical person to make a customised dashboard. It offers best-in-class interactive data visualization with the aim to help organizations handle their data concerns.

Tableau is one of the best data visualization software that can be used for data science and business intelligence. Tableau helps to create a wide range of various visualizations to interactively represent the data and exhibit insights. It is integrated with tools that allow us to bring down data and see the impact in a visual form that can be effortlessly understood by any person. Also, Tableau features comes with real-time data analytics abilities and is supported by Cloud. In this blog, we will discuss the various versions of Tableau, how it benefits and how we can implement it.

Let’s see an overview of various Tableau product suites. 

Overview of Tableau Product Suites

Tableau Desktop

Tableau Desktop is a leading BI and data visualization tool that can be utilized by anybody. Using it you can transform boring tabulated data into visually appealing graphs and representations. It also enables you to enjoy real-time data analytics by directly connecting the data from our data warehouse. You can import your data into Tableau’s data engine from various sources and integrate them together into interactive dashboards. 

Based on the connectivity to the data sources, Tableau desktop is divided into 2 parts: 

• Tableau Desktop professional: This is best suitable for thoses who want to publish their work in Tableau server. Quite similar to tableau desktop, however, the only difference is its online publication in the tableau desktop. In this version, you can get full access to all data types. 

• Tableau Desktop Personal: The personal version of Tableau is limited. It keeps the workbook private which one can’t publish online. It’s progress features are similar to Tableau desktop. Thus, it is divided either in Tableau offline or public. 

Tableau Server

Tableau server consists of all the features of Tableau Desktop along with its powerful networking capabilities. You can share dashboards created in Tableau Desktop. This makes it a perfect choice for enterprise-level projects and reporting. When used alongside real-time data processing, this can become a dynamic tool for ensuring instant insights and data communication. 

Tableau Online

Being a hosted version of Tableau server, it is powered using the help of cloud computing to make the software available to everyone. This enables faster and easier access to BI on the go. You can publish dashboards and share with anyone. 

Tableau Reader

This is a free desktop version of Tableau. Its features are limited to only viewing the visualizations built in Tableau. This implies you can filter and differentiate data but can’t edit or perform any kind of interactions or edits. 

Tableau Public

Tableau public is also a free version of Tableau and is widely used to make visualizations. The disadvantage is that you need to save your workbook and visualization in the Tableau server which can be accessed by everyone. 

How does Tableau work?

Tableau connects and extracts data stored at different places. It brings data from any platform- from a database like PDF, excel, to a complex database like Oracle or Cloud database such as AWS, Azure, Google Cloud. 

In Tableau, data connectors are there, which enables it to connect to any database. Number of data connectors will vary depending on the version of Tableau being used by the user. In Tableau Desktop, you can import your data into Tableau’s data engine from various sources and integrate them together into interactive dashboards. 

How to implement Tableau software?

Tableau comes up with a variety of consulting and implementation options. It includes a quick-start option for small-scale project deployments which can complete the set-up in a few hours. For complex enterprise-level deployments, it comes up with 4-step process:

• The first deployment phase consists of planning, architecture consulting, pre-install check, server set-up, verification and configuration of security. 

• The next step involves working on data and its migration - this consists of data modeling, data mining, extraction, data sources and business workflow. 

• The company ensures that employees are able to use the tool. If required, training is provided for Tableau fundamentals, hands-on advanced coaching for creating and formatting visualizations. 

• The final step enables companies to expand Tableau usage across their business. 

Benefits of using Tableau software

Great visualization

One of the top most benefits of using Tableau is its ability to build amazing dashboards and visualizations. It provides an instant connection facility using more than forty types of data. It can create complex graphs which gives a similar feel to the pivot table in excel. 

Large customer resources

The online tableau community is very strong, enthusiastic and engaging. It has comprehensive online resources including online forums, guides, and training for all types of users.

Actionable Insights

It allows users to analyze data without having any specific goals in mind. You can explore visualizations and various insights. Using ‘What If’ queries, you can adjust data hypothetically and visualize data components dynamically for comparisons. 

Excellent mobile support

Tableau has one of the highest percentage of users actively deploying mobile business intelligence. It puts total efforts into developing a robust mobile customer. 

Reduction in development time

Tableau enhances business customer’s expectations of BI solution. Tableau is very fast in nature while working with the database which results in lesser development time. The capability to adapt to a market quickly is an important advantage of using Tableau. 

Ease of use and low cost

As Tableau is a simple UI software, it becomes very easy to use it. It is a simple to drag and drop interface which is easy to learn. Tableau is relatively low cost when compared to other BI tools like Business Objects or Qlikview. It is easier to upgrade.

Conclusion

Today, Tableau has become the number one BI and data visualization tool available in the market. It is used by a large section of people to derive actionable insights from their data. For users, there is no use to work with a powerful tool to have any programming or technical knowledge. It allows users access to a reliable tech support team and automates data updates to help companies get new information without wasting time.