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Tableau is good but could have been better…..What is lacking in Tableau?

Hello Folks,

I have been working on Tableau for quite sometime now and kind of feel that below functionalities should have been there.




1.Load data sources in background for Live Connections:
There could be multiple views and data sources in the workbook. Tableau will load all the views and all the data sources before displaying the first  view on the screen. All other data sources which are not contributing to the initial view can be loaded in the background thus saving the initial load time of the view.

2.Edit Federated data source in Web:
Editing federated data source is not allowed on Web. 
It becomes a tedious task when your database server details change and you have many federated data source.
You need to open all such workbooks in Tableau Desktop in order to change the details.

3.Hide/Unhide in Tile:
As of now Hide/Unhide feature is only available in floating container and we can't use floating in case we need responsive/automatic dashboard.

4.Dynamically calculate Result set of the data source:
The charts appears blank in case of no data. Many users want to display custom message like " No data for this selection". If we can have a function which can calculate the available data in run time e.g. if ResultSetEmpty(<Data source name>) then  "No data for this selection".

5.SAP Sources:
Tableau can directly connect to SAP NetWeaver BW, SAP Sybase (ASE and IQ) and SAP HANA. However for ECC we need OData connectivity. So either we ask the concerned team to create the oData Service/URL or bring data to BW. Again BW has some limitation in terms of writing formulas/calculated fields. Considering SAP announced 2027 as the end of life for its legacy ERP application (ECC), direct connectivity seems difficult. However, Tableau and HANA connectivity is phenomenal. 

6.Control on CSS file:
Umpteen number of times user asks for changing the look and feel of filters/legends etc. Sometimes the requests are as simple as text alignment but still we say No e.g..

1. Unable to align text on button/navigation component or in Story-navigator style.
2. Unable to centrally align legend.

7.Manage cache for Individual workbook.
Cache feature is available on site/server level. Managing cache on the server/site level is not suitable for real time statistics. If the cache is enabled, even the live connection takes a while to reflect the changes.

8.Control on borders:
We can't provide border on any specific side. We can give either all or none.

9. Parameter should accept multiple values:
As of now parameter only accepts single value.

10.Donut chart:
I don’t understand why this option is still unavailable. Why we need workaround to create a simple chart like this. Every other tools has this option.

11.Tabular report: 
The name is Tableau, but not suitable for Tables 😀. May be the focus is more on charts.

12.Colors change on changing data source:
As per Tableau this is by-design, however if the structure and object name remains the same, it shouldn't change.

13.Pixels value for Mark's size: Extremely frustrating. It is very difficult to synchronize mark size throughout the dashboard.
Even if you copy the worksheet to synchronize mark size (e.g. to have same size of multiple pie charts), and for some reason you made a change on one, you are back to square one. 

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