Tableau for Everyone: Which Tableau Program is Best for You
What is Tableau?
Tableau is a business intelligence software great for creating interactive data visualization dashboards. The Digital Scholarship Lab supports and teaches introductory and intermediate workshops on the tool. Accessing Tableau can be prohibitively expensive so thankfully Tableau offers a few options for amateur analysts and Tableau educators.
Tableau Public
One way is Tableau Public. All the machines in the Digital Scholarship Lab are equipped with Tableau Public so if you come to the lab to work on your viz, that’s what we have on each of the machines. What is Tableau Public? Tableau Public has all the same functionality of Tableau Desktop but without the server options. You can only access data from a CSV, JSON, google sheets and a couple other options. No secure servers, no local saving options. When you’re ready to save you’ll publish to Tableau’s public server. What are the advantages of this? It’s free! There’s a large community of Data Viz designers to share and learn from, and if you are creating visualizations you want to promote openly or share publicly it’s easy to embed your dashboards across websites, blogs and social media. Downsides? If you’re dealing with sensitive data AT ALL this is not the version for you. Tableau Public should only be used for projects that use public or open data, like census data or data you have that you are comfortable with sharing openly.
So what if that’s not the type of project you’re working on or you’d like more options for accessing data or saving work in progress? Tableau has two programs that generously offer free full licenses of Tableau to students and faculty:
Tableau for Students
Just as it sounds, Tableau will offer currently enrolled K12 and higher education students a free license of Tableau. Students at accredited academic institutions worldwide are eligible for a free year of Tableau Desktop and Tableau Prep. Complete the form on their site to confirm your eligibility and unlock: https://www.tableau.com/academic/students
Tableau for Teaching
Tableau also makes their data viz tool free for instructors as well. Instructors can either request an individual license or a course license. This process is a little bit more complicated than Tableau for Students. Instructors will need to submit either a syllabus or other proof of how Tableau is being used in the classroom, at which point a key will be sent to your inbox to activate your free term. The license is only valid for the duration of the class.
If you have questions about using the tool or how best to access it for your project, contact us! We’re here to help.
