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Tableau Prep

Score7.6 out of 10

32 Reviews and Ratings

What is Tableau Prep?

Tableau Prep enables users to get to the analysis phase faster by helping them quickly combine, shape, and clean their data.

According to the vendor, a direct and visual experience helps provide users with a deeper understanding of their data, smart features make data preparation simple, and integration with the Tableau analytical workflow allows for faster speed to insight. Tableau Prep allows users to connect to data on-premises or in the cloud, whether it’s a database or a spreadsheet, and access, combine and clean disparate data without writing code. Easy sharing reduces friction and helps users bridge the gap between data preparation and analytics, for better business results.

Tableau helps people and organizations become more data-driven. With an integrated platform that is easy to start and scale, Tableau supports the entire analytics journey, from data preparation, to deep analysis, to the shared insights that drive the business forward.

Categories & Use Cases

Tableau Prep - A Necessary First Step

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We have use Tableau Prep to get datasets ready for our designers to use in Tableau. Our junior designers don't necessarily have a prior skillset in data management, but a lot of features in Tableau Prep such as filtering and cleaning up data has made it a lot easier for them.

Pros

  • Importing data
  • Auto cleaning datasets
  • Troubleshooting

Cons

  • Cleaner UI
  • More tutorials within the program
  • Different ways to link data sets

Return on Investment

  • Data prep is faster
  • Prepare findings more quickly

Alternatives Considered

Tableau Desktop

Other Software Used

Storyblok

Great product for the right task!

Pros

  • Sync data
  • Match
  • Repeatable results

Cons

  • A stand alone product vs integrated
  • More training of a specialized tool

Return on Investment

  • We found that the ROI did not over come our costs

Alternatives Considered

TIBCO Spotfire

Other Software Used

Tableau Desktop, TIBCO Spotfire

Powerful, convenient and easy!

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Tableau Prep is used for re-creating an ETL workflow to connect data sources, clean data and then combining it to perform joins, and in generating a final output to use operations like pivot, join, rename, union and the control flow plane. Tableau Prep also helps with exploring the data to figure out data quality issues and in creating calculated fields for analysis.

Pros

  • Data Cleansing
  • Automation
  • Joins

Cons

  • Use of Macros within Workflow (and more types of automation)
  • Join Editor also giving a SQL Update Query
  • More types of visuals

Most Important Features

  • Data Blending
  • Data Joining
  • Data Aggregation

Return on Investment

  • Saves time in getting more analysis
  • More use-cases can be constructed with better analysis
  • Easily understood by business

Other Software Used

Alteryx, SAS Enterprise Miner, Swimlane

Tableau Prep is great prep for your work!

Pros

  • Display the raw data coming in from the data warehouse
  • Point out situations that might be erroneous
  • Show the distribution of raw data figures

Cons

  • Should allow you to connect to more databases and platforms
  • Allow clearer initial visualizations
  • Run through data quicker

Most Important Features

  • Ability to clean data sets
  • Ability to help us determine if a dashboard can be created
  • Ability to monitor the data feeds we [receive]

Return on Investment

  • More efficient dashboard production
  • More streamlined workflow
  • More autonomy with data sets

Alternatives Considered

Alteryx

Other Software Used

Tableau Desktop, Jupyter Notebook, Oracle SQL Developer

Good basic ETL option

Pros

  • Clean data
  • Join data files
  • Create calculated values
  • Output to CSV

Cons

  • More output options
  • Allow SQL code to input data files for prep
  • Allow row level edits/deletes

Return on Investment

  • Quicker data sets for online reports
  • More efficient data cleaning Ad Hoc reports
  • Costly if using data management to schedule data pull and cleaning (priced per viewer accounts not creator accounts)

Alternatives Considered

Looker and Oracle SQL Developer

Usability

Other Software Used

Tableau Desktop, Tableau Online, Oracle SQL Developer