Tableau
Several city departments use Tableau. Tableau offers a variety of different options from free to subscription.
Below is a brief overview of the options and links to learn more.
Tableau Public. This is a free tool and a great way to familiarize yourself with the product before purchasing other versions. You get fewer features and your dashboards are posted online in a public forum. It is a good option for any open data you have.
Tableau Desktop. This is great for creating dashboards on the desktop. You can share dashboards with staff using Tableau Reader. This is a free tool that lets users view and play with your dashboards ubt not edit them). You can limit costs by buying licenses for dashboard creators and giving free Tableau Reader to dashboard consumers.
Tableau Server. This allows you to store and distribute dashboards internally or to the public. This is like buying and installing enterprise level software. This is more costly and time-intensive.
Tableau Online. This is the “cloud” version of Tableau Server. This is a good option if you don’t want to run a server.
Combining Tableau & Excel or Power BI
Note that Tableau is not well suited to manipulating data. You could combine tools and use Excel Power Query or Power BI to structure data and Tableau to visualize it.
Online Training
The Tableau support page provides On Demand training videos. And our Introduction to Tableau Course links to videos that cover material in the class. You'll have to register with Tableau to view the videos. Sign up for the Data Academy listserv to learn about upcoming Tableau classes.
Below are links to training from Lynda.com. Learn how to sign up for an account through the SF Public Library.
Tableau 9 Essential Training (2h 55m)
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