Over the last few years, we have seen a rise of Tableau being used in industry. For those not familiar with Tableau, it is a software product that you use for data visualizations. I highly recommend you check out the public gallery so you can get an idea of the range of visualizations that can be created: https://public.tableau.com/en-us/s/gallery
As someone who has used Tableau extensively over the last couple of years, I like to think I have a pretty good grasp on Tableau.
Pros
Let’s be honest here. The best thing about Tableau is how visually appealing the visualizations you can create are. It really is the most attractive quality it has. Plus, it is so easy to make it interactive and to quickly change features on it. That is not something that I would say about visualizations I have to code by hand (R Shiny, etc.)
Cons
It is a proprietary software. You are learning how to use it, not how to code something up. And what makes it so easy to use, can become a curse if you are trying to do something very specific and custom. Do you want a diagonal line in your plot? Well, be prepared to go through a bunch of hoops and hacks to do so in a software that is suppose to be intuitive and easy to use. But if I’m going to be honest, one of the things that bugs me the most is how confusing all the software and pricing options are. And how often they change: https://www.tableau.com/pricing
Pricing
As of right now, Tableau Creator is an individual license for Tableau Desktop and Tableau Prep with the ability to create for Tableau Server/Online. Tableau Desktop is actually the software you use to create visualizations. Tableau Prep is what you can use to prep the data for visualization work. And you can use Tableau Server or Tableau Online to share your visualizations with others. It should be noted that these options are separate from Tableau Public. Tableau Public is where visualizations can be shared publicly with anyone (no privacy options). You could use Tableau Public and not download Tableau Desktop, but the functionality in Tableau Public is fairly limited.
Before we move on in the pricing conversation, I feel like I should talk about Tableau Prep. This is a new software that has come out in the last couple of years in response to complaints on how hard it is to manipulate data and its shape within Tableau Desktop. When I was told they were working on something to make it easier, I assumed it was going to be within Tableau Desktop, but instead we got a separate piece of software. In all honesty, I don’t really use Tableau Prep. As someone from the data analysis field, I have other tools (i.e. R and python) that are free to use and often already built into my data pipelines. Why use a proprietary software when I can just as easily do data manipulation on my own? Because of this, I wished they offered license option without Tableau Prep.
Then of course, you have the group options which can allow explorers/viewers. You can set up something on-premises/cloud (Tableau Server) or have one hosted by Tableau (Tableau Online). However, you will need at least one ‘Tableau Creator’ and the fine print specifies that for the explorers/viewers categories there are required minimums. Now what are the distinctions between a Tableau viewer and explorer? A Tableau viewer is someone who can view a visualization within a group server and interact with it but they can’t download the data or edit existing visualizations, or manage user permissions. A Tableau explorer is someone who has all the ability of a Tableau viewer, and can download data, edit existing visualizations, and manage user permissions. In the workplaces I’ve been in though, not many people fall under the Tableau explorer category. The people who are going to edit an existing visualization are likely the same people who are going to create and publish new workbooks, and would need a creator license anyway.
Note: If you work in academia (student/instructor/researcher) and are using Tableau for non-commercial purposes, you can get ahold of Tableau Desktop (i.e. Creator license) for free.
Student: https://www.tableau.com/academic/students
Instructor: https://www.tableau.com/academic/teaching
It is a little unclear which method Researchers should use to get ahold of a Tableau Desktop. There used to be a separate method but it looks like at the moment, going the Instructor route is the most appropriate.
Conclusion
As always with Tableau, it is a bit of a hate/love relationship. If you want something custom (i.e. deviates from the options readily available), be prepared to spend some time as well as extensive googling. However, the beauty of Tableau can’t be denied and there is something very satisfying about how quickly one can generate a scatter plot and filter it out by a variety of metrics. If you have some coding experience already, I recommend learning how to use Tableau as it is widely in demand but not often taught on.