Compare and Contrast Essay on Excel and Tableau

Introduction

The following report evaluates the functionality of Excel and Tableau programs. The scope of the analysis shall be limited to data analysis capabilities about Business intelligence, display of results regarding visualization and ease of manipulation of data. This report is also premised on the acknowledgment that Excel works like a spreadsheet tool that presents and manipulates data in tabular format, while Tableau is a visualization program that transforms data into pictorial representations for interpretation.

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Excel: Key Features

The first distinct features in Excel are the formulas and functions. The formulas make Excel a stronger spreadsheet tool as they facilitate manipulation of data in a manner that one desires (Mazenko, 2017). The formulas aid in the automation of various functions relevant to manipulation of data. Similarly, Visual Basic Applications (VBA) represents the programing language that Excel users may exploit to automate tasks through Macros (Collie & Singh, 2015).

Regarding visualization, pivot tables and Excel charts are critical tools for display of data (Collie & Singh, 2015). The tools allow for the generation of graphs and complex reports for analysis and interpretation. The tools facilitate Business Intelligence by providing answers to business questions that communicate various insights to analysts. These visualization functions are reinforced by conditional formatting features including data bars, color scales, and icon sets that facilitate visualization of data (Mazenko, 2017).

When it comes to navigation and manipulation of complex data, Excel is implemented with look-up formulas that facilitate location of information within a complex set of data (Mazenko, 2017). Further, the sorting and filtering functions help analysts arrange data in desirable formats. Dropdown validations and other form control also make excel workbook more interactive.

Evaluation of Excel

The program's strength lies with language extension capabilities of code construction through the VBA macros. Excel also allows for in-place editing of data. The VBA and Macros functions give the program automation capabilities which provides users with the liberty to automate any operations through VBA commands. However, it is only a few users who understand the use of formulas and functions in addition to automation of tasks through VBA macros. In the same vein, using visualization through charts and graphs depends on knowledge in the prudent use of formatting tools; otherwise, it would be difficult for users to generate clear illustrations. Further, excel cannot combine multiple tables or data from different sources to create reports or unitary outputs and requires ad-ins for facilitation of such capabilities (Mazenko, 2017).

Tableau: Key Features

The program is considered a Business Intelligence and a data visualization tool. It is implemented with functions that allows one to drill down data and transform the same into a visual format (Groenfeldt, 2013). Tableau also has real-time data analytics capabilities reinforced with cloud support. With its visualization strength, the program easily converts tabulated data into comprehensive visual representations that are critical to business intelligence. Unlike Excel, Tableau can accommodate data from varied sources and integrate them to generate multiple intelligible views over a dashboard for interpretation (Groenfeldt, 2013).

Evaluation of Tableau

Features such as colors, labels, and shapes among others depict better visualization from the program which facilitates analysis and exploration of data on a granular level (Wexler, Shaffer, & Cotgreave, 2017). The overarching advantage of excel is that the program is easy to use for generation of solutions that are critical for Business Intelligence without advanced skills in data science (Wexler, Shaffer, & Cotgreave, 2017). Hence, anyone including business executives may enjoy the automation functionalities without knowledge in programming languages. Tableau is useful for building interactive visual dashboards that easily refresh the data set for prudent update management. It is also comfortable to use the program amidst moderately largescale data, unlike excel that is limited to a million rows (Collie & Singh, 2015). The only disadvantage attributed to Tableau is its inability to provide for language extension through code construction.

Conclusion

Both Excel and Tableau can create interactive visualizations for comprehensive insights through their data analysis tools. However, these tools have different approaches to arriving at the insights. Similarly, both programs support real-time visualization for better comprehension of data. The ultimate distinction between these data analysis applications is their approach to insights. Whereas tableau transforms data in the initial stage into pictorial representations, excel requires one to preempt the insight they intend to generate before arranging the data accordingly to generate representations.

References

Collie, R., & Singh, A. (2015). Power Pivot and Power BI: The Excel User's Guide to DAX, Power Query, Power BI & Power Pivot in Excel 2010-2016. Tickling Keys Inc.,

Groenfeldt, T. (2013, February 22). A Tableau Solution to Those Excel Blues. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomgroenfeldt/2013/02/22/a-tableau-solution-to-those-excel-blues/#52c711c075c8

Mazenko, E. (2017, April 13). Table vs. Excel: Comparing Core Features and Functions. Retrieved from https://www.betterbuys.com/bi/tableau-vs-excel/

Wexler, S., Shaffer, J., & Cotgreave, A. (2017). The Big Book of Dashboards: Visualizing Your Data Using Real-World Business Scenarios. John Wiley & Sons.