Tableau & Data Analytics

What is Tableau? (www.tableau.com)
Tableau Desktop is data analysis that keeps you in the flow. It’s easy to learn and easy to use. It’s built on breakthrough technology that translates pictures of data into optimized database queries. Use your natural ability to see patterns, identify trends and discover visual insights in seconds. No wizards, no scripts.
 Who is your user?
Some users just want to get the data. Tableau is more expressive than excel. There are 2 types of users, 1) Person who builds the Tableau workbooks/dashboards and 2) user who uses the data in the workbook.
 Where do you find out more:
A. There is a Community of Practice in Stanford , has had 1 meeting so far. Hopefully will have another before Christmas. Contact Irene Poston (iposton@stanford.edu). Topics for discussion are, OBIE vs Tableau with regards to Vs business objects , data prepping.B. Recorded Tech briefing (no longer available). Tech Training for end users and developers planned for next year. C. Tableau has free and paid training: http://www.tableau.com/learn
D. Lastly, we have a discount code for Tableau Conference 2016:
Here is the Stanford code for Tableau Conference (TC16) in Austin next November.  Registration is already underway for 2016 and there is an early bird registration discount through 12/18/2015 for groups of 20+. It is $895 now through 12/18/2015. After that, the Education pricing will be $1,095 and no other discounts can be combined.  Use this code: STANFORDUNIVERSITY20
 
-------- Details discussed during session below --------
OBIEE, Business Objects, Excel are other "analytics" tools in use, but those can be either too cumbersome or too limited compared to Tableau.
Tableau is point and click and easy to use, but also has powerful features for those who want to learn and do more. It has a facility to run data extracts at night, with great response times. Lets you do ad hoc, queries, beautiful graphs, "show-me" feature. 
However, Tableau will not clean your data and is it not an Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) tool. It's important to have you data prepared right before importing it into Tableau. The basic assumption is that you have access to your data. Can connect to R or a cloud database, many ways to get data in. Excell input.  Can also mix several sources. 
ODBC  not necessary through SQL or Microsoft. Tableau can interact directly with Oracle db. Can merge data from multiple sources (like Excel with Oracle with Cloud databases). People at the GSB, IRDS, and several others are doing a lot of work with direct connection to the database. Need a firewall etc to the server. 
Free 2 week trial, paid license is $1200 one time + $300 yearly maintenance. Can get up to 20% group discount.