What are different Tableau products?

Software Development
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Tableau like other BI tools has a range of products:

  • Tableau Desktop: Desktop product is used to create optimized queries out from pictures of data. Once the queries are ready, you can perform those queries without the need to code. Tableau desktop encompasses data from various sources into its data engine and creates an interactive dashboard.
  • Tableau Server: When you have published dashboards using Tableau Desktop, Tableau servers help in sharing them throughout the organization. It is an enterprise-level feature that is installed on a Windows or Linux server.
  • Tableau Reader: Tableau Reader is a free feature available on Desktop that lets you open and views data visualizations. You can filter or drill down the data but restricts editing any formulas or performing any kind of actions on it. It is also used to extract connection files.
  • Tableau Online: Tableau online is also a paid feature but doesn’t need exclusive installation. It comes with the software and is used to share the published dashboards anywhere and everywhere.
  • Tableau Public: Tableau public is yet another free feature to view your data visualizations by saving them as worksheets or workbooks on Tableau Server.

Types of Tableau Products

Tableau has many products, it is categorized based on the nature of their functionality. The server part, the developer part, the viewer part and data preparation part
Tableau Products

The products are

  • Tableau Server
  • Tableau Online
  • Tableau Public server
  • Tableau Desktop
  • Tableau Public Desktop
  • Tableau Reader
  • ableau Mobile
  • Tableau Prep Builder

Tableau Server

Tableau Server is a paid Server application which needs to be installed on a Windows or Linux server. This is used widely in the enterprise world. Usually there would be a dedicated admin team/person to take care of the memory, user management, data source management , folder management and other server related things.

Tableau Online

Tableau online is a paid server application too but it is already hosted by Tableau software and so no need to install on any windows server. It is better when you need the Tableau dashboards to be accessed from anywhere. It has almost all features of Tableau server but on the internet.

Tableau Public Server

Tableau Public server is a free server in the internet. This is the YouTube or Blogspot in Tableau Data Visualization world. It is free and people post their ideas and visualization here. We call it the Visual blog. It has no user management or folder management options. You can hide your work though. It cannot have live data source but only Extract. So many people publish their ideas and custom visualizations here. We could find the inspiration from here.

Developer Part

Tableau Desktop

Tableau Desktop is a paid desktop application. It is also called as Tableau Desktop Professional edition. This is where the developers create charts, formula, dashboards, actions and everything. It has 14 days trial too. The dashboards we create here can be published to any Server listed above. It can be opened in Tableau reader. Read Tableau reader for more information.

Tableau Public Desktop

Tableau Public Desktop is a free desktop application. It is the developer place for Tableau Public server. It is free and has some limitations like cloud Save only, no live or database connection. They are widely use by learners, bloggers, public information related institution like media and etc.

Viewer Part

Tableau Reader

Tableau Reader is the free desktop application which can help us to view the Tableau dashbords created by Tableau Desktop. It supports only extract connection files. It can help new people to try Tableau by getting one license for Tableau Desktop and installing this free software on their end user’s machine. It can open the dashboards, interact with them like filtering, tooltip and parameters. We cannot edit the formula or charts here.

Tableau Mobile

Tableau mobile is a mobile application. It is available in iOS and Android. It can connect to Tableau server or Tableau online. It is just like Tableau Reader buy for mobile. It can help to interact and view dashboards which are published to Tableau server or Tableau online.

Data Preparation Part

Tableau Prep builder

Tableau Prep builder is a new product of Tableau. It helps developers to cleanse, blend and wrangle the raw data. It is a mini ETL ( Extraction, Transformation and Loading ) tool which can connect to different database, join the data, transformation over the data and save the file as output. It can be automated and help developers to avoid redundant manual data manipulation.