Alteryx vs Tableau

Data is the most important element for any organization to scale its performance and make influencing decisions for organizational growth. However, managing data becomes one of the most complex things in mid-level organizations. For this, they have to take help from different tools along with specialized people to manage and analyze data for improvements. Keeping this in mind, there are many companies around the globe that have developed ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) platforms to make this process more convenient. Here, we are elaborating on two of the leading ETL platforms that can simplify the management and analysis of company data. This article will help you choose the best that suits your organizational needs by comparing all the features between Alteryx vs Tableau.

Alteryx vs Tableau: Choosing the right data analytics tool for your business

What is Alteryx?

Alteryx can be term as a data blending tool that helps in collecting data from different sections of a company and showcase them in the best way possible (i.e. charts, graphs, etc.). With the help of Alteryx, you will be able to analyze the data of the entire organization altogether to get the entire overview of progress.

Alteryx Features

Alteryx comes with the following features, which can help you in getting actionable business insights. Kindly take a look at the following points given below:

• Stanford University patented protection.
• Toggle View
• Drag and Drop actions
• Native data connector list
• Highlight and Filter data optionality
• Dashboard sharing
• Dashboards embedding
• Data notifications
• Mobile-ready dashboards
• Tableau Reader for viewing data
• Create “no-code” data queries
• Dashboard commenting
• Import data of all sizes and ranges
• Translate queries into visuals
• Interactive dashboards
• Metadata management
• Convert string insights into a guided story
• Every level of security permission
• Automatic updates
• Server API
• Integration with Tableau Public for data sharing

What is Tableau?

Another panacea to harness the power of your company data is Tableau, which can sweep out a load of managing bulk data of your business. Tableau can help you in collecting the entire data of your organization in a single place so that you can analyze it more deeply and can obtain actionable business insights.

Tableau Features

Tableau packs the following features, to make data management easier than ever. Take a look at the list given below:

• Predictive Analysis
• Data Blending
• Encrypted Storage
• Spatial Analysis
• Export-Package
• Import-Package
• Mapping
• Interactive Visualizations
• Sharing
• Encryption
• Governance and Security
• Drag and Drop Workflow

Why use Alteryx with Tableau?

Tableau is an undeniably powerful software to collect and analyze data from different sources. Its easy-to-understand visualizations answer your every complex question and help you in making the right moves. But, with the evolution of technology, new data types have also emerged (for eg: social media and big data). Gathering and analyzing the array of these newly emerged data to make critical business decisions is not a piece of cake. It will require specialists and extended-IT staff to get this task done.

This is where Alteryx came in, as you will not have to wait even a bit to access and analyze the datasheets you need with the help of it. Alteryx allows you to integrate every data source from any location virtually. It then combines the data sources with third-party location-based, spatial, demographic data and arranges them into a single workflow. It provides you with the best set of data available to analyze it with the help of Tableau. And you don't need data scientists or specialists for this.

Alteryx vs Tableau: Difference between Alteryx and Tableau

Looking at the above-given information, the working of this software looks similar to each other. However, they are quite different if the overall structure of them is concerned. Clearing out all the confusion, here we are showcasing how Alteryx and Tableau are different from each other. Kindly take a look at this below-given table to get all the main differences between Alteryx and Tableau:

How to use Tableau?

To use Tableau, you will first have to make an account and subscribe it to move further. After getting all the formalities done, you will then be ready to move further. Open Tableau Desktop, you will see a starting page, then simply follow the below-given steps to dodge every hurdle in your way.

Connect your data

After getting on the start page, the first thing you will have to do is connect your data. For this, you will need to click on the Tableau icon present in the upper left-hand corner of the page. It will showcase you a sidebar where you will get different data types present at different places to connect.

Drag and Drop to get the first look

While creating an analytic chart of overall sales data, you can simply drag and drop different elements to make your work done with ease.

Focus the results

You can have more focus and get more precise results by using Tableau. It gives you the facility to add different filters and use different colors to showcase your findings of different data types in an analytic chart.

Explore the data geographically

You can simply build a map view to trace your data geographically. By this, you can simply compare the sales and other things countryside, and can take many revolutionary decisions by analyzing it.

Drill down into the details of data

After getting a countrywide overview, you can also go deeper into the country data that found to be negative in the profit rate. Go deeper and see the analytic chart of that specific region itself to get some actionable insights.

Build a sparkling dashboard to present your insights

After creating different analytic sheets for different areas, you will now need to showcase all of them together to take out negative points. Tableau offers you the ability to create your desirable dashboards which can help you in representing all the analytic charts at once.

Make a representable story

Before consulting your plans with your team and indulging them in a PowerPoint representation, you can choose a better and wiser path to follow. Tableau enables you to make stories for better understanding. You can easily create your own story for your plan, product, or services, which your teams will understand better.

Share your conclusions

After getting all the work done, you can also share your results and findings with your teams sitting at different locations with the help of Tableau Server or Tableau Online.

Learn from Library

Next in this Alteryx vs Tableau Article, we will see how to use Alteryx,

How to use Alteryx?

After getting registered with Alteryx, you will get to see the start screen of this analytic tool. Its user environment can also be termed as GUI (i.e. Graphical User Interface) and is blessed with 6 components that simply can be seen in the following points given below:

Inspired by most of the windows based applications, file navigation is executable from the windows button. Common tools are arranged in this section just like any other web application.

Tool Palette

The Tool Palette in Alteryx consists of all the tool names along with their images, that can be used for any operation. To use any tools in Alteryx, the user will just need to pull it out in the canvas to make a workflow.

Workflow Window

The area where workflow is built or made up can be termed as a Workflow Window. This arena can also be termed as a Workflow canvas.

Properties Window

The Properties Window provides different options, that are relevant to configuring the specifications for each and every tool bought into the workflow. Moreover, it also works the same for the entire workflow itself when no tool is selected. It automatically adapts the sections within the workflow.

Overview Window

The Overview window in Alteryx offers a scaled-down image representation of the entire workflow, which can be used for getting more deeper into the workflow.

Output Window

As its name represents, it shows the status logs to the workflow with the help of reporting messages from each and every tool. It gets visible on special occasions such as at the starting of a workflow, at the end of the workflow, while having an error or warning, etc.

Apart from this, after getting registered with the Alteryx, the File menu (File > Open Sample > Open Tutorials) will showcase to you 8 step-by-step illustrated examples. These examples will teach you how to filter, how to build a workflow, how to author an app or a Marco, and how to blend and analyze data.

How to prepare address files in Alteryx for use in Tableau?

Tableau has fair geocoding and mapping functionalities that can help you in managing your data, still, these are not up to the mark. This is where Alteryx comes in, as it comes with a ravishing address tool to make your work easier than ever. We can understand this more deeply with the help of an example. If we process a set of data with addresses in Tableau, it will not recognize addresses as a geographical feature. You will need to use the longitude and latitude of a specific point to make Tableau recognize it, which is simply a very time-consuming and hectic process.

Now, Alteryx, as we have already mentioned above packs a specialized suite of address tools including Street Geocoder and CASS. This suit will help you in transforming a longitude and latitude format automatically without any hustle. By using these tools, you will be able to make address files in a .tde format which is easily accessible in Tableau. Saving files in .tde format (i.e. Tableau Data Extract) will simply enhance its performance in Tableau. By using this technique, you can easily create executable address files in Alteryx to use in Tableau.

Alteryx and Tableau Integration

After making .tde (Tableau Data Extract) files in the Alteryx, the next question that arises is how do we integrate Alteryx and Tableau? The answer is, you will have to use Alteryx’s “Publish to Tableau Server” tool to publish the data directly to the Tableau Server. For this, you can simply follow the steps given below:

• Firstly, you’ll need to download the “Publish to Tableau Server” tool from the official website.
• After downloading it, you need to install it, so that it may appear in the tool palette of Alteryx.
• Open Alteryx, make a new workflow.
• Drag the Input data .tde file you want to share.
• Search for the “Publish to Tableau Server” tool into the search bar and drag it to the workflow canvas.
• Make a connection between the “Input Data” and “Publish to Tableau Server” tools.
• Select the “Publish to Tableau Server” tool and enter all the essential information (i.e. Server name, site name, the username of Tableau server, password of Tableau server, file name, project name).

Moreover, you will also need to change the Alteryx output properties to “Overwrite Existing Extract File”, as it is not a default option. By this, you will get updated data every time in Tableau without any hustle.

Conclusion

Tableau and Alteryx both are known as the leading platforms in the field of data analytics. Tableau is a great tool to collect and visualize data to make great business decisions by analyzing them. However, with the reference of time, different data types have emerged that are important but are complex to study and analyze. Alteryx plays a vital role in blending modern data types so that you can use it in Tableau. Alteryx vs Tableau platforms have their own importance, but using them together will undeniably create a masterpiece, or we can say an art of managing complex data.