Tableau subscription pricing model

Tableau Software is finally making the big change in the way it sells its business intelligence products: they have announced their new Tableau subscription pricing for all its products, including Tableau Desktop and Tableau Server. These new pricing model will potentially lower the threshold for users looking to gain access to a full-fledged analytics platform.

Tableau subscription prices are now as below :

• Tableau Desktop Personal subscription price is US$35 per user per month
• Tableau Desktop Professional subscription price is $70 per user per month
• Tableau Server subscription price is US$35 per user per month
• Tableau Enterprise offerings prices are not public but this is also available under  Tableau subscription model.

Tableau perpetual prices are $1000 for Tableau Desktop Personal, $2000 for Tableau Desktop Professional and $1000 for Tableau Server per user. The perpetual model also comes with 20% yearly license maintenance.

Since Microsoft Power BI entered the market 2 years ago, there is a growing market pressure on Tableau and its rival Qlik to lower the prices or provide flexible subscription models. This new Tableau pricing model is in line with customer demand and industry trends, and will significantly reduce the initial expense of deploying Tableau business intelligence. Under subscription model, customers will also gain full access to frequent product updates without having to purchase a perpetual software license.

“Many customers have told us they prefer to purchase software through a subscription model to more easily access the products they want, reduce upfront expenses and increase flexibility,” said Adam Selipsky, president and CEO of Tableau.

Tableau subscription pricing offers affordable access to one of the best Business Intelligence solution available today.

This move will make it easier for Tableau to compete in a very crowded BI market. Tableau customers surveyed for Gartner’s Magic Quadrant were always happy overall with Tableau software, but they were often frustrated with the company’s rigid pricing policies.

Tableau's rival Qlik has also announced their subscription model this year in January.

Tableau ready for Enterprise BI

Tableau, one of the most popular BI tools in the market today, is truly an amazing and comprehensive platform. Yet, many still think that Tableau just an eye candy toy tool, good for making pretty pictures but not for a serious, enterprise BI level platform. This is absolutely not true (if this was true, Tableau would not be in the leaders quadrant of Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms 2014).

Tableau offers tremendous efficiency, productivity, flexibility, performance and cost savings. Some discovers this accidentally, they bring Tableau in the project as their personal tool to understand data and then Tableau's highly viral nature carries it into the hearth of enterprise BI. Some innovative project teams head starts enterprise BI with Tableau and usually awarded successful implementations ("usually" because some teams will always have the ability to screw up projects even with great tools). You can see this in numbers. In Q2 2014, there were 157 $100,000-plus deals (a usual KPI to measure enterprise success of BI tools) and the number is increasing fast.

And yet the best part of the story is that Tableau Software, the company developing Tableau, is working hard to make it more enterprise ready in every release.

Tableau 9.0, the upcoming major version release, will most probably carry the product to a much higher level. September 2014's Tableau Customer Conference was the most important indicator of this ground breaking shift : "Tableau for Enterprise BI" was more emphasized compared to previous years. In an interview with InformationWeek, Tableau's VP product management Daniel Jewett, said that they have had a roadmap for how to bring 'analytics at scale' for five years. In the conference of September, Tableau Software also announced a massive update of its data engine that will bring support of parallel queries on machines with multicore processors, resulting in a 4x speed increase, company executives said.

Another gesture of focus for wide-scale enterprise deployments was the introduction of Tableau Drive, an implementation methodology and a set of services. Based on iterative, agile methods that are faster and more effective than traditional long-cycle deployments, Tableau Drive, is freely available.

Tableau is also commercially more effective compared to many competitors out there. Although Tableau server license pricing is not public, I would say it scales up very well without going into "Oh-my-Gosh" region in terms of Dollars.

Tableau 9.0 release date and overview

Tableau Software has finally released the new version of its benchmark setting data visualization and business intelligence platform, Tableau 9.0 today on April 7th 2015. The new version comes with an entirely new experience for Tableau Server, significant performance improvements, new data preparation features, drag-and-drop analytics, updates to mapping and much more.


Tableau 8 has been a phenomenal success[1] for data visualization and business intelligence platform provider Tableau Software after the release of Tableau 8.3, everybody was waiting for the new version : Tableau 9. Tableau 9 release date is postponed a few times. In Tableau Conference 2013, the expectation was that Tableau 8.1 would be released in fall 2013, Tableau 8.2 in winter 2014 and Tableau 9.0 later in 2014. Tableau 9.0 release date is later pushed to Q1 2015 and in March one more time to April 2015.

But this is a release worth waiting. There are many significant improvements in Tableau 9.0 over Tableau 8.3 which makes already powerful Tableau Software more competitive.

Tableau User Experience Improvements

Ease of use and flawless data analysis process has always been in the core of Tableau and the company is wisely investing more in this core strength with exiting new features. One of the most significant new feature in the front-end is ad-hoc calculations. You can now write expressions directly on the rows and columns shelves or mark cards with a simple double click. You can later drag these ad-hoc calculations to Data Window to make them reusable calculations.

Tableau 9 Ad-hoc calculations feature

A new Analytics Pane in Tableau 9 makes common techniques such as reference lines, bands, totals, trend lines and forecasts readily available by a simple drag-and-drop. Another feature related to Tableau's analytics capabilities is Instant Analytics which provides an interactive experience for comparing summary information about subset of marks to all marks in the view.

New level of details calculation is another exiting new feature which allows you to create arbitrary aggregates in charts without complex and cumbersome expressions. For example, with this new feature, you can easily calculate average sale per customer in each time period by a simple, nested Level of Details Calculation (LOD). LOD syntax also allows you to create fixed values not effected by level of detail in the charts.

Data Connection and Preparation Improvements

Tableau 9.0 now supports Kerberos authentication for Microsoft SQL Server, SQL Server Analysis Service and Cloudera Impala. adds data extraction API for Mac OS and offers new and improved data connectors such as SPSS, SAS and R.

Recently, almost every Tableau release adds more data preparation functionality. Tableau 9.0 is not an exception. Tableau now can detect the range of data in MS Excel files, unpivot tables (converts a cross-tab table to straight table), split data in multiple fields.

Tableau 9 Performance Improvements

Tableau data engine, the in-memory analytics database of Tableau platform, was introduced in Tableau 6 and went through performance improvements since than. But Tableau 9 seems the be the biggest jump. In the presentation, a bar-chart aggregated from 173 million rows of data took 0.7 seconds in Tableau 9 compared to  7 seconds performance of Tableau 8.3 (10x faster)!

As this individual query performance is not enough. Tableau 9 data engine also introduces parallel queries concept. If you have a Tableau dashboard with 3 charts and you do something to trigger a query (i.e. filtering dashboard), each chart queries the database one after another in sequence. In the presentation, a 3 chart dashboard took 9.5 seconds to load. In Tableau 9 it takes 1.1 seconds. Not only individual queries are faster, they also run parallel (provided that underlying database supports parallel queries).

And then comes query fusion. Even if you run parallel queries, why to run a the same query twice if two charts in the view has similar queries which can be run once. Tableau Query Fusion looks at the dashboards and finds way to simply the queries into simple queries.

Suppose that you have two sheets in a dashboard : Sum of Rides per Hour and Average Tip per Hour. In Tableau 8.3, these two will fire 2 individual queries (in sequence) to database. But in Tableau 9, because these two has the same level of details, they will be fused into a single query and run fast. A sample run for 173 million rows takes 3.7 seconds in Tableau 8.3 but only 1.7 seconds in Tableau 9 thanks to query fusion.

So Tableau 9 offers faster queries, parallel queries and thanks to Query Fusion, less queries. And thanks to new External Query Catching, it also offers no queries. Tableau 9 will cash queries in server and desktop and run no queries to database if there is no chance there. In an example run, a 3 sheet dashboard running 9.7 seconds in Tableau 8.3 took only 0.2 seconds to run. 50x improvements.

One of the most desired feature for Tableau 9 is visual ETL (Extraction Transformation and Load) functionality for data quality, validation and cleaning (and data modeling if possible).  Tableau 8.2's "visual data window" seems to be the first step to that direction but we will wait and see if this would be a new feature. Although there are very powerful visual ETL tools which can work seamlessly with Tableau such as Alteryx and Clover ETL, it would be nice to see some more features in this domain with Tableau 9.

On the predictive analytics domain, we expect more functionality in Tableau such as more predictive models and control in newly introduced forecasting feature and better integration with R (current Tableau version can do 4 functions passing parameters to R Server).

We will update this post as more information is revealed about Tableau 9.

[1] - Tableau's Building the 'Google for Data'
[2] - Tableau Gives Up Gains: Estimates Rise, Targets Decline, on Upbeat Q1, Forecast
[3] - Tableau Conference 2014 – A Field Report
[4] - Data Visualization with Tableau

What is Tableau Project Elastic?

Project Elastic is the code name for a new tablet-based product by Tableau Software which was first announced in Tableau Conference 2014. Tableau Elastic Technology is designed specifically with mobile users in mind and aims to help users to ask questions to their data using just their two fingers and making fairly complicated queries, are just a tap, swipe, scroll or pinch away.

Tableau's VP of Mobile, Dave Story, has demonstrated the product in annual Tableau customer conference. What we can see up to now is that Tableau Software is basically building a new iPad app (or tablet app). In the presentation, Dave Story took an email attachment (a data file listing sales information about a local sandwich shop) and opened it in the Tableau Elastic app. The app immediately opens with a view of a chart showing categories of products sold at the shop. As other Tableau user interfaces, Elastic is also "drag-and-drop" based. With taps, swipes and scrolls, you can easily change the dimensions and measures as well as the chart types.

"The idea is going beyond our core audience, which has been business, and reaching out to the consumer. The motivation is what would you do now if you wanted to disrupt or wanted to start over with Tableau." - Dave Story, Tableau Vice President of Mobile

Tableau Elastic release date and pricing is not announced yet. Tableau Software plans to release Elastic as a product at some point in 2015.

You can find more information on Tableau Elastic in its web page, Be-Elastic.

A screenshot of Tableau Project Elastic. Taken from Tableau Software web site,

What is new in Tableau 8.2 Release

Tableau 8.2 was released on June 18, 2014 and Tableau 8.2 Tour stop in Singapore was held on Wednesday July 23, 2014. The new release is already in 8.2.2 (released in August 21) and contains a lot of exiting features. The release includes the first-ever Mac OS version of Tableau Desktop, Story Points for interactive, data-driven storytelling, a more visual connection experience with data previews and improved experience in defining data table joins, and updated maps, in addition to enhancements to simplify administration and support of Tableau Server.

Here is a list of major new features in Tableau 8.2.

Tableau Desktop on the Mac
The revolutionary technology of Tableau Desktop now runs natively on the Mac. It’s the full analytics package, built to support high-resolution Retina displays, Mac-specific controls, and also all of your existing Tableau workbooks.

Story Points

One of the most anticipated features of Tableau 8.2, Story Telling lets you create compelling, interactive, data-driven stories. You can assemble sheets and dashboards into a narrative arc that tells the story in your data. You can capture key insights with annotations, highlights and filters. You can also add descriptions to emphasize findings. Make your story interactive to encourage further exploration.

Tableau Story Points

Visual data window

The data connection experience is redesigned in Tableau 8.2. from the ground up. With the new interface, you can connect to multiple tables, add joins with one click, and preview your data to make sure you've got what you need. You can also modify field properties, add data source filters, and extract your data.

Tableau New Visual data window

New map designs

Maps are critical to geographic analysis and have received a major overhaul in Tableau 8.2. This includes new map designs produced in collaboration with Stamen, worldwide detailed levels of zoom, an improved mapping server and support for high DPI displays.

Additional Tableau 8.2. Desktop features

New Excel & Text File Connector – You can connect to Microsoft Excel and text file data sources that are more than 255 columns. The new connectors automatically and more accurately detect data types and support functions, including Count Distinct and Median.

Native Support for Google BigQuery API - The Tableau connection to Google BigQuery now uses the native API from BigQuery, which means you’ll see improved performance and flexibility.

Improved SAP HANA Connector - The SAP HANA connector now supports HANA variables and Input Parameters.

Splunk Connector - Connect to and analyze machine-data in Splunk with the native Splunk connector (originally introduced in Tableau 8.1.4).

You can watch a 20 minute demo of the new Tableau 8.2. below.

New Tableau Server Features in 8.2

Server REST API - Tableau Server now comes with a REST API to help you easily manage and change your server resources programmatically, via HTTP. Use the API to create new sites, add or delete users from sites, and much more.

Disable Web Authoring - On Tableau Server, all web authoring capabilities can be disabled on a per-site basis, providing more administrative flexibility and control.

Simplified Log Access - Now you can download Tableau Server log files directly from the Admin page in your web browser. Key log files are now generated as JSON to be machine-readable.

Change Content Owner - You can now reassign the ownership of any published content to another user on Tableau Server or Tableau Online.

Import and Export Sites - All content within Tableau Server can be exported and imported on a per-site basis. This allows you to back up more efficiently or move content from one Tableau Server instance to another.

Responsive Marks - The web experience of published content has been upgraded to provide faster response times within the browser. When hovering over a mark on a view, the mark will respond immediately.

OAuth Support - Tableau now supports OAuth authentication when connecting to Salesforce, Google Analytics and Google BigQuery. This makes it convenient to connect to these data sources across all your workbooks and data sources. It also adds a layer of security since Tableau does not have to hold your credentials directly.

Analyzing Google Analytics data in Tableau

Google Analytics is the  most widely used website statistics service. It provides a great online platform to analyze your web site traffic. Although it provides powerful charts, reports and dashboards to analyze data, if you have needed to use it professionally, you hit its limitations frequently and do the following : Export the Google Analytics data to Excel and try to analyze it there. This manual and tedious process is always needed if you are trying to merge Google Analytics data and some other data in your analysis.

We know that Tableau provides a great data visualization tool and we could leverage its power to analyze Google Analytics data. But to bring the data into Tableau was tedious; you should export it first (to Excel manually or by using Google Analytics API and lots of scripting). Not anymore! With Tableau version 8 onwards, Tableau Software has released Google Analytics connector which makes it quite easy to pull in your Google Analytics data into Tableau. This does not only allow you to create incredibly interactive dashboards to analyze GA data but also allows you to integrate Google Analytics data with some other offline and online data to add great value to your web site analytics effort.

In this short video below, Ellie Fields from Tableau Software, demonstrates how powerful and interactive analytics opportunities Tableau brings to web traffic analysis. In the 3 minutes win Google Analytics challenge, she brings it some data from Google Analytics using the connector and then merges it with some offline data to create an interactive Tableau dashboard.

If you want to try it on your own, you can download Tableau here.

Tableau Google Analytics Connector makes it very easy to create web site traffic analysis dashboard

Tableau can import a Google Analytics extract into the Tableau fast in-memory data engine. This allows you to explore your web data at the speed of thought by easy drag & drop. You can Tableau Server and Tableau Online to build and store multiple small extracts of un-aggregated data. By reusing extracts you don’t have to pull every time from the Google Analytics interface and hit the 500,000 limit per individual per call. Start with a fixed date range and schedule automatic updates.

You can enhance the web-analytics data by Salesforce.com, spreadsheets, databases, cubes, Hadoop, or more. Then you can easily publish securely for your department or entire organization to use. Set permissions for dashboard, workbook, and data-source access by role and group or for individual named users.