If you think you are getting the best value from Tableau you might want to think again. When you weigh the pros and cons you could discover that a more robust, enterprise-wide autonomous analytics tool is not only a better value, but saves valuable time with IT resources, up-time and ease of development.
Tableau vs. Oracle Analytics Cloud:
Before we begin let’s take a few moments to compare Autonomous to Managed solutions. If you are an organization that has limited IT resources Oracle’s Autonomous Analytics Cloud might just be the thing that seals the deal. Consider a system that manages itself. Very little intervention is required once you provision your services. The system patches, performs maintenance, does backups and most of those other tedious tasks required to maintain an enterprise software solution. What you can save on IT resources and expertise might be just the choice you are looking for in your Analytics and Data Visualization package.
Two Major Selling Points:
Two major selling points for Oracle Analytics Cloud for many organizations are the inclusion of Essbase Cloud in the product suite and OAC as a complete enterprise solution with an enterprise platform and security. If you are looking for a big data solution, OAC has that as well. With the addition of BIC– Business Intelligence Cloud you can have a more traditional BI solution as well as easily managed dashboards to display all your reporting needs.
Ease of Use:
For ease of use either tool is an excellent choice. The drag and drop interface on either tool is simple, clean and direct which assists users in exploring their data in foundational ways. Vibrant visualizations can be built allowing either tool to choose the format that best expresses the data or customize for a personal solution. Visualizations can be overlapped, interlaced or tiled in either tool. And both have a wide array of report and chart types that fit nearly any need.
Is High Performance Your Benchmark?
If high performance is your benchmark either solution will work for you. Both products can return speedy queries for a full spectrum of data visualizations. Additionally, both products produce high quality, brilliantly stunning data visualizations. Tableau may have a slight edge on flexibility with some of the advanced functionality for visualizations being more adaptable—the color pallet being one. Tableau allows the user to modify and slide the color pallet to customize the weight of each color. OAC is more automatic and does not allow the user to slant the results by adjusting the color pallet to highlight specifically chosen information. Apples and oranges, if you are more interested in providing a non-biased picture of your report, OAC is your tool. Both tools allow interaction between visualizations— click one viz and the other responds with the corresponding information. This functionality is as simple as check a box in OAC and only slightly more complicated in Tableau.
Data Integration:
Let’s move on to data integration. Both products have an impressive choice of data connectors that are continually being enhanced but that is where the similarity ends. Tableau requires a moderate to advanced understanding of SQL to build data relationships and queries. OAC has a feature called Data Flows that through a drag and drop interface allow you to perform Extract Transform and Load features like an expert. Data Flows use a combination of out of the box features that can intuitively build your Data Flow to create defined, curated data sets for your visualizations. And once those Data Flows have been built you can create a sequence to schedule and manage them. Additionally, you’ll find some nifty configurable Machine Learning drag and drops that let you train and explore your data like a pro.
Do You Need a Forum for Your Data?
If it’s a forum that you need for your data, Tableau is unmatched. There are many ways to share your visualizations including Tableau’s robust public solution. You’ll find dozens of blogs, webpages and other venues extending and enriching the Tableau footprint. The Tableau user community is wide-ranging and dense with potential solutions for any visualization you might choose to develop. OAC, a new product more focused toward the Enterprise, has a footprint that is just beginning to expand. The Analytics Cloud community has developed an assortment of downloadable plugins that offer a wide range of functionality including one that solves that pesky need for hierarchical reporting with a crazy simple click and drag.
Comprehensive Mobile Solution:
Both tools have a comprehensive mobile solution that can be accessed on phone, tablet or laptop in either Android or iOS. Both products have interactive interfaces with Tableau taking the lead for comprehensive usability. The newer OAC mobile app, Day by Day, allows less phone functionality, but the question is how much reporting interactivity do users want on something as small as phone.
OAC – Your Go To for a Holistic Solution:
For a holistic solution including collaboration, analytics, big data and security, OAC is the hands down champ. Because it is an enterprise solution offering the opportunity for across the board reporting it includes features in which Oracle excels. If you need to create dashboards for users with selective visibility, OAC with BICS is your tool. If you choose to use one of Oracles new Autonomous databases for your data not only can you integrate them to any portion of the product, but they provide Enterprise-wide security and collaboration. OAC is a one-stop shop encompassing all your reporting needs.
Ultimately, the choice comes down to how, what and when you do your reporting. If a visualization is all you need, Tableau could be the perfect solution. But if your organization needs something more comprehensive that pulls all your reporting into a single cloud-hosted environment, OAC might be just what you are looking for.
Catherine Summers
BI Practice Lead
Vertical Edge Consulting Group
csummers@verticaledgecg.com
