BrightGauge vs. Tableau Public

BrightGauge lets us know when we have critical issues that need solving. A massive influx of tickets all at the same time triggers an investigation. Usually, it is tied to a server going down, which we can address. It would not be helpful for a small MSP or IT department with just a few daily tickets. The stats are better used to track a large amount of clients.

Incentivized

Tableau Public is great, especially if you're new to the platform or considering implementing it within an organization. The Public version has most of the capabilities of the full version, with extensive community documentation to troubleshoot issues you may run into. Additionally, there are many resources to check out Public workbooks from other users and communities: a GREAT learning resource to figure out new, innovative ways to visualize and present data. It is perfect for evaluating public datasets, for doing exploratory data analysis, or contributing to cross-organizational or extracurricular projects that may benefit from more sophisticated data analysis and exploration. Tableau Public, because it stores to the cloud and has limitations on connectivity (ie, cannot connect to SQL servers) is not suited for confidential, financial, PII, etc., data, and care should be taken to avoid including sensitive data in any of the Tableau Public workbooks used by an individual or organization.

Incentivized

• SQL queries can be presented in many different ways to illustrate the data. They can be used in lists, graphs, meter, etc.
• The datasets frequency of updates can be customized to from 5 minutes to annually. It's very granular in this respect.
• It allows dashboards to be shared outside your organization with clients, partners, and vendors to maximize collaboration and reporting.

Incentivized

• Tableau Public can work with data that are differently formatted, such as MS Excel, .txt file, Google Sheets, not sure about MS Access.
• GUI interface of Tableau Public is not that hard to start working on; Also, it can generate codes for the operations and so it is relatively easy to visualize and correct mistakes.
• Lots of Tableau Public users upload their work to the online community, users can easily find very good figures/graphs that are similar to their problems and so they can use these figures/graphs as templates to modify and make their own ones.

Incentivized

• Modifying data sets to bring in custom fields requires an experienced SQL engineer
• Cost when bringing in lots of data sources can be prohibitive
• Limited ability to format gauges and reports
• Make MFA a requirement - this data is sensitive and giving the admin the ability to force MFA is a MUST!

Incentivized

• The biggest drawback to the Public version of Tableau is that any data used in the program is 'public' and therefore not secure: workbooks are saved to the cloud, rather than locally
• Tableau Public limits data ingestion to 10 million rows per source
• Limited connections - can't connect to SQL databases to ingest data (must be through CSV, Access, TDE, or text files)

Incentivized

It's free, right? I'll keep using the free version. So the real question to ask is this? Will I pay $999 for the Personal version or $1,999 for the Professional? Yikes! That is a big stretch. I'm not sure about that. The product comparison chart is at: http://www.tableausoftware.com/public/comparison

Usability is BrightGauge's strength. Granting the ability of virtually any user to be able to create a dashboard is incredibly valuable. If an organization very simple and straight forward reporting needs then BrightGauge is a perfect fit for them. Connecting to the dataset we used was very quick and easy and I imagine it would be the same for any major data source you would like to pull from.

Incentivized

Tableau public is a great training tool to understand the basics of Tableau before buying it. A great tool to extend Excel's visualization and to publish data for others. Not useful for anything you need secure. No ability to access databases. Static information only.

We did not need to use BrightGauge's support for the entire time that we used it. Best support is always the one that isn't needed because nothing breaks.

Incentivized

I have not yet required to contact support as the documentation and help i found online has always worked so far

Incentivized

I found it sufficient, and fast. I could easily "kick the tires" with Tableau on my data so I got up and running fast.

Start at the end and work backward. Identify the business case / issue and questions the end users have, then identify the data needed, and where to get it.

Incentivized

I'm not aware of any other competitors to Bright Gauge that we selected. They seem to be very close to managed IT service providers and have been great at tailoring their support to the PSAs like ConnectWise, AutoTask, etc. I can see Bright Gauge getting more and more popular as time goes by

Incentivized

Tableau public is Free and no subscription is required whereas Tableau Desktop is a paid subscription. if there is no private or confidential data it's easy to Tableau public and share reports with people. Tableau public has same features and options same as desktop. its easy for students or beginners to signup and start learning/build reports.

• Faster compilation of Business Review material
• For larger customers, the dashboarding has helped our customers to remain sticky and add services/revenue to our MSP. They want to add more fragments of their IT for the 1 pane rollup.
• From a leadership perspective, BG has allowed me to make difficult staffing decisions with confidence. Detailed metric driven decisions on who is hitting KPIs/who isn't - as well as when data proved we were overstaffed and understaffed.

Incentivized

• We have saved costs on Dashboarding tools thanks to the free tools within Tableau Public
• Streamlined reporting
• Time saved with easier data preparation features
• Professional looking dashboards and visualisations

Incentivized