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Tableau is not scriptable. 3 places I have worked are moving away from it because of this severe limitation. You have no control over what queries it writes and

Tableau is not scriptable. 3 places I have worked are moving away from it because of this severe limitation. You have no control over what queries it writes and you can't easily add simple scripts to make things more seamless or performant, like say a quick scripted query to populate a dropdown menu.

chris_wot 11y ago
I've played with Tableau, is there no scripting at all? Their previous Director of Analytic Product Management Stephen McDaniel stated that in v8 they were going to add server side Javascript - and he said this in 2012... https://community.tableau.com/ideas/1694#comment-2661 https://community.tableau.com/ideas/1694#comment-2661
- notyourwork 11y ago
  Many companies have said things that never materialized. Landscape changes over time.
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    And the need for scripting has not changed.
physcab 11y ago
It's not very scriptable but that's not the use case of Tableau. Generally data analysts do not know how to program. They meet with PMs to understand concerns, interpret concerns into metrics, write some SQL, and display them in dashboards. While Tableau performance is a thing that people debate, its a non-issue. Generally, the data analyst produces a report that is consumed by 1-10 people and if that consumption grows >10, then the organization will "productize" the report by putting engineering resources on it and build something custom with HighCharts or D3.
- IndianAstronaut 11y ago
  >Generally data analysts do not know how to program In my experience, the ones that don't often produce some really erroneous or nonsensical results. Or even if they do get some things right, they have no ability to drill deeper.
  - lawnchair_larry 11y ago
    Most big companies are actually just fine with nonsensical results. It's a bit odd, but I've realized that nobody who uses BI actually cares much about data quality or integrity.
    - endymi0n 11y ago
      This. BI in large corporations is usually done by people having no clue about the data, producing bullshit results, leading to "insights" to management (who at that point have have no clue that all the cost columns were added up, regardless of currency), leading to a final "product strategy" that gets implemented over the next years, while in all the companies still producing innovation, this is usually done by a rogue team applying common sense and ignoring that strategy all day long. BI is pure feel-good for upper echelon.
      - nchelluri 11y ago
        wow. i've only ever worked at small companies, and i guess to avoid things like this is why, but i can't help but wonder how common this is, and if in fact no one has ever used BI effectively. i find that hard to believe but really i have no idea, and its an interesting thought, makes you want to chuckle or shake your head or both.
        lawnchair_larry 11y ago
        Of course I wouldn't go so far as to say no one has ever used it effectively, but it seems like in the vast majority of cases, it's bullshit all the way down. It's a surreal experience when you realize how executives are making decisions based on something that, after a moment of critical thought and common sense, clearly has no more relevance than some integers pulled out of rand(). Chuckle and shake your head is indeed about all you can do. Just try not to visibly smirk if you're ever involved in acquisition talks. Play along.
huherto 11y ago
What are they moving to ?
- IndianAstronaut 11y ago
  One is building visuals into the Java based application. Two are using Flask.
astine 11y ago
"You have no control over what queries it writes" Huh? Just write a view or a stored procedure and point Tableau at that. There's no need to compose a query in the Tableau interface.
- pinneycolton 11y ago
  Run a trace on your database and watch the queries Tableau actually runs while building your worksheets and dashboards. It's doing a lot more than you think.

chris_wot 11y ago

I've played with Tableau, is there no scripting at all? Their previous Director of Analytic Product Management Stephen McDaniel stated that in v8 they were going to add server side Javascript - and he said this in 2012... https://community.tableau.com/ideas/1694#comment-2661 https://community.tableau.com/ideas/1694#comment-2661

notyourwork 11y ago
Many companies have said things that never materialized. Landscape changes over time.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  And the need for scripting has not changed.

physcab 11y ago

It's not very scriptable but that's not the use case of Tableau. Generally data analysts do not know how to program. They meet with PMs to understand concerns, interpret concerns into metrics, write some SQL, and display them in dashboards. While Tableau performance is a thing that people debate, its a non-issue. Generally, the data analyst produces a report that is consumed by 1-10 people and if that consumption grows >10, then the organization will "productize" the report by putting engineering resources on it and build something custom with HighCharts or D3.

IndianAstronaut 11y ago
>Generally data analysts do not know how to program In my experience, the ones that don't often produce some really erroneous or nonsensical results. Or even if they do get some things right, they have no ability to drill deeper.
- lawnchair_larry 11y ago
  Most big companies are actually just fine with nonsensical results. It's a bit odd, but I've realized that nobody who uses BI actually cares much about data quality or integrity.
  - endymi0n 11y ago
    This. BI in large corporations is usually done by people having no clue about the data, producing bullshit results, leading to "insights" to management (who at that point have have no clue that all the cost columns were added up, regardless of currency), leading to a final "product strategy" that gets implemented over the next years, while in all the companies still producing innovation, this is usually done by a rogue team applying common sense and ignoring that strategy all day long. BI is pure feel-good for upper echelon.
    - nchelluri 11y ago
      wow. i've only ever worked at small companies, and i guess to avoid things like this is why, but i can't help but wonder how common this is, and if in fact no one has ever used BI effectively. i find that hard to believe but really i have no idea, and its an interesting thought, makes you want to chuckle or shake your head or both.
      - lawnchair_larry 11y ago
        Of course I wouldn't go so far as to say no one has ever used it effectively, but it seems like in the vast majority of cases, it's bullshit all the way down. It's a surreal experience when you realize how executives are making decisions based on something that, after a moment of critical thought and common sense, clearly has no more relevance than some integers pulled out of rand(). Chuckle and shake your head is indeed about all you can do. Just try not to visibly smirk if you're ever involved in acquisition talks. Play along.

huherto 11y ago

What are they moving to ?

IndianAstronaut 11y ago
One is building visuals into the Java based application. Two are using Flask.

astine 11y ago

"You have no control over what queries it writes" Huh? Just write a view or a stored procedure and point Tableau at that. There's no need to compose a query in the Tableau interface.

pinneycolton 11y ago
Run a trace on your database and watch the queries Tableau actually runs while building your worksheets and dashboards. It's doing a lot more than you think.