Tableau is an analysis software that is useful for Business Intelligence. You can rapidly create visualizations (also known as “vizzes”) by dragging your data fields into shelves and panes. From there, you can develop dashboards and stories to bring your analyses to life. The free version, Tableau Public, has full analytical functionality, including uploading vizzes to the Internet. However, you cannot save your files on your local or network drives. Because your published files are available to everyone, the free version is not suitable for analyses that contain sensitive or personal data. To save your files locally, you need to subscribe to Tableau Creator. It includes a suite of Tableau Desktop, Tableau Prep Builder, and a license to either Tableau Server or Tableau Online, which allow collaboration in a secure environment.

You can use Tableau to create analyses quickly. With just a few clicks, you can load your data and create your first visualization. You can then combine visualizations (“vizzes”) to create dashboards, and use vizzes and dashboards to create stories. There are around a dozen different types of vizzes you can create. If you have numerical data, you can create a standard bar, line, area, and pie charts. You can also use lines to connect categories or use markers such as squares and circles. With geographical data, such as street, city, and state data, or latitude and longitude details, you can create maps. If you have activities with start and end dates, you can create a special visualization called a Gantt Chart. Once you have created a viz there are additional features you can use. You can add filters so the end-user can narrow down what data they are using. You can animate your analysis using Pages and publish your analysis online to Tableau Public.

Tableau is very useful for Data Analysts as they need to be able to interpret data to create meaningful results. Data Analysts typically use tools such as Excel to create their analyses. However, they can save a lot of time by using Tableau’s drag-and-drop feature to create "vizzes". Tableau can be useful for any career that includes the words "Business Intelligence," such as BI Analyst or BI Developer. In this type of role, you would use a variety of advanced tools. Knowing Tableau would increase the range of tools that you can use. Finally, several specialist careers include the word "Tableau", such as Tableau Developer or Tableau Consultant. These would require a high level of Tableau knowledge to quickly create advanced, interactive analyses that use complex functions such as Level of Detail Expressions and Table Calculations.