What is Tableau: Uses and Application

Tableau is one of the most efficient data visualization tools used for business intelligence and data analysis. You will be able to access different reports, dashboards, charts, and graphs using Tableau. Dive into this article to learn more about Tableau and its uses. 

What is Tableau?

Tableau is a rapidly growing data visualization tool in the industry. It can simplify raw data in a way that’s easy to comprehend for professionals at different levels of an organization. The tool ensures that even non-technical users can create customized dashboards.

Tableau enables powerful data discovery and exploration so that users can answer important questions quickly. Tableau can connect to different data sources that other business intelligence tools cannot. Users can blend different datasets to create detailed reports using Tableau. 

In 2003, Stanford University students Chris Stolte, Pat Hanrahan, and Christian Chatbot created Tableau. The primary intention of creating it was to make the database industry comprehensive and interactive. Since its inception, Tableau has been continuing to grow quite steadily. In 2016, Tableau declared Adam Selipsky as the CEO and President of the company. 

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Tableau Product Suite 

Let’s see the tableau product suite in detail:

How is Tableau Used in Different Industries?

If you are wondering what is Tableau used for, learn about its applications in a few major industries:

Manufacturing Industry

The Tableau data visualization tool makes manufacturing businesses fulfill the demand of modern customers with data-driven decisions. If you know what is Tableau, you will understand that it offers operational insights to manufacturing businesses. The valuable insights can be used by manufacturers for the following:

• Enhanced agility of the supply chain
• Real-time insights regarding how manufacturing businesses operate on a macro and micro scale
• Use of predictive analysis for smart decisions
• Performing market analysis
• Detecting and eliminating bottlenecks in the supply chain

Retail Industry

The retail industry can gain the following insights from the Tableau data visualization tool:

• Store-wise analysis of net sales, outstanding, and collection
• Annual profit analysis
• What-if analysis according to churn rate, additive rate, and business growth
• Day-to-day comparison according to a specific store, region, or month

Finance Industry

The finance industry benefits greatly from using the Tableau data visualization tool. Tableau helps the finance industry in the following areas:

• Identifying financial frauds
• Easily spotting market trends
• Making decisions with the help of facts and figures
• Performing deep analysis to find various answers

How Can Tableau Help with Data Visualization and Analysis?

Tableau can pull out data from different sources with the help of data connectors. The number of data connectors supported by Tableau depends on its version. The extracted data can be connected live or sent to the data engine of Tableau. 

Data analysts and data engineers can work on Tableau Desktop to visualize extracted data. They can create different dashboards for data visualization and share them with users in a static file. The user receiving the files can access them through Tableau Reader. 

The data visualized on the Tableau Desktop can also be published to the Tableau server. It is an enterprise platform that supports features like distribution, collaboration, maintenance, and automation. The Tableau server ensures that end-users can access files from all locations. 

Key Features of Tableau

The primary features of the Tableau tool are as follows:

• Drag-and-Drop Interface

The drag-and-drop interface Tableau makes it easier for many people to access it. The drag-and-drop feature ensures that users can create visualizations without writing any code.  

• Interactive Dashboards

Tableau tools help you create interactive dashboards to visualize your data. The tool also makes it easier for you to filter data and gain a deeper understanding of underlying data.

• Real-Time Data Analysis

If you know what Tableau is used for, you won’t be surprised to know that the tool supports real-time data analysis. It ensures that users can understand and evaluate dynamic data with high velocity. 

Advantages of Tableau

If you know what is Tableau, you should learn about some of its advantages:

• Supports complex data blending, computation, and dashboarding
• Easy drag-and-drop features for interactive visualization
• Ability to connect different data sources like SQL
• Mobile compatibility and a responsive dashboard
• Ability to use different scripting languages like Python and R to perform complex table calculations

Disadvantages of Tableau

The Tableau data visualization also has some disadvantages:

• Does not support automatic report scheduling
• Lack of custom visual imports
• Parameters have to be updated manually when data gets changed

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How to Get Started with Tableau

Once you know what Tableau is and what it is used for, you will have to focus on learning how to get started with it. The steps to get started with Tableau are as follows:

• Step 1: Connect to the data you have collected.
• Step 2: Use the drag-and-drop feature to check out the first look.
• Step 3: Check your results and employ various tools to gain insights from them and refine them. 
• Step 4: Perform a geographical analysis of data to look for trends and patterns.
• Step 5: Check out the details of the data and focus on creating a Top filter.
• Step 6: Develop and format a dashboard to reveal the visualizations you have created.
• Step 7: Build and format a story to show your findings.
• Step 8: Share your findings on the Tableau server, cloud, and public.

Tableau vs. Other Data Visualization Tools

Power BI is another popular tool for data visualization. Let’s compare the Tableau data visualization tool with Power BI.

Conclusion

Data has a massive potential to transform businesses as long as people know how to use it. Tableau is one such tool that can help with driving valuable insights from data. Multiple industries are already using Tableau, and several others will soon start using the data visualization tool for its multiple benefits.