R may be a popular open-source environment for statistical analysis. Tableau Desktop can now hook up with R through calculated fields and cash in of R functions, libraries, packages and even saved models. These calculations dynamically invoke the R engine and pass values to R via the Rserve package, and are returned back to Tableau.

Tableau Server also can be configured to attach to an instance of Rserve through the tabadmin utility, allowing anyone to look at a dashboard containing R functionality. Combining R with Tableau gives you the power to bring deep statistical analysis into a drag-and-drop visual analytics environment.