Tableau

Tableau is a powerful business intelligence (BI) and data visualization tool that organizations use to interpret, analyze, and present data in a more understandable and interactive format. It helps companies transform raw data into actionable insights.   

Tableau primarily focuses on data visualization and is best known for its ability to generate complex and beautiful charts, graphs, and dashboards with just a few clicks.

Origins of Tableau

Tableau was founded in 2003 as a spin-off of Stanford University’s Computer Science Department. It was created by Christian Chabot, Chris Stolte, and Pat Hanrahan.  

Pat Hanrahan, a founding member of Pixar and an Academy Award winner, and Chris Stolte, a Ph.D. student, were researching data visualization techniques for exploring and analyzing relational databases and data cubes. Their research project, called “POLARIS,” was the technology that eventually became Tableau.  

Acquisition by Salesforce

In 2019, Salesforce, a leading customer relationship management (CRM) platform, acquired Tableau. The acquisition deal was worth approximately $15.7 billion and represented a significant shift in Salesforce’s business, moving beyond CRM into business analytics.

With the integration of Tableau, Salesforce can offer customers a more comprehensive understanding of their data across their entire business process, from leads and opportunities to sales and customer service.  

Key Features of Tableau Software

The following Tableau features are helpful to know about:

1. Ease of Use: Tableau is known for its user-friendly interface. Users can create sophisticated visuals and dashboards without deep coding or programming knowledge.
2. Interactive Dashboards: Tableau’s dashboards are highly interactive. They provide rich visualizations, allowing users to explore data at different granularities and dimensions. You can drill down the data, apply filters, and perform many more operations.
3. Real-Time Analysis: Tableau can connect to various data sources in real-time, meaning that dashboards and visualizations get updated as the underlying data changes.
4. Data Blending: With Tableau, you can blend data from different sources and types, such as relational databases, cloud-based data, Excel files, and more.
5. Data Collaboration and Publish: Tableau allows for easy sharing of insights, dashboards, and data stories with others in the organization. It also lets you publish your dashboards on websites, blogs, etc.
6. Tableau Public: A free version of the tool, Tableau Public, allows anyone to create and share data visualizations online, making it accessible for people who want to learn the tool or share their work publicly.
7. Tableau Server and Tableau Online: Tableau offers Tableau Server and Tableau Online for enterprise-grade applications. These versions allow for secure, collaborative, scalable tool usage within large organizations.
8. Mobile-Ready Dashboards: Tableau supports responsive design principles, meaning dashboards can be viewed and interacted with on various devices like tablets and smartphones.  

Tableau also provides strong community support with many resources, including tutorials, forums, and user groups, to help users solve issues and learn new techniques.  

Tableau Public

Tableau Public, a free platform offered by Tableau, has been instrumental in promoting data literacy and visualization skills among the general public. It has become a popular tool among journalists, researchers, and government organizations for sharing data insights with the public.

Users can create and publish interactive data visualizations on the platform, contributing to an ever-growing repository of public data stories.  

Tableau Foundation

Tableau is strongly committed to using data and analytics for societal good through its philanthropic arm, the Tableau Foundation. The foundation encourages using facts and analytical reasoning to solve the world’s problems.

Since its inception, the Tableau Foundation has launched various initiatives to promote the use of data in tackling issues like global health, poverty, and climate change.

Conclusion

Tableau has gained significant popularity for its robust data visualization capabilities. Its ease of use and ability to handle large amounts of data has made it one of the leading tools in business intelligence.

Moreover, it has a thriving user community that offers extensive support through forums, user groups, and vast online resources. This community is a key part of Tableau’s success, as users often share knowledge, solve problems together, and even create new functionalities using Tableau’s APIs.  

What is Tableau? – 10 mins