A mixed licensing strategy is the most effective approach for an organization with diverse departmental needs. This model allows the organization to optimize costs and access by aligning the license type with specific usage patterns. User-based licenses (Creator, Explorer, Viewer) can be assigned to individuals with defined, frequent roles, such as data analysts. Core-based licensing for Tableau Server is ideal for large populations of users with infrequent or unpredictable access, such as clinicians who may only view dashboards occasionally. This hybrid approach provides the necessary flexibility and scalability while managing the total cost of ownership effectively, directly addressing the scenario's core requirement of "varying usage patterns."

A. A uniform strategy is inefficient and costly for varied usage patterns, failing to match license capabilities and cost to actual user needs.

B. This approach is not cost-effective, as it would require purchasing expensive licenses for users who only need occasional, view-only access.

D. Relying solely on core-based licensing can be unnecessarily expensive for departments with a small number of dedicated, power users where named-user licenses would suffice.

1. Official Vendor Documentation: Tableau Server Help. "Overview of Licensing". This document explicitly details the two licensing models available for Tableau Server: user-based and core-based. It states

"When you activate Tableau Server with a user-based product key

you specify the number of users for each license level... When you activate Tableau Server with a core-based product key

you can add as many users as you want." This supports the use of different models for different user population sizes and types.

Source: Tableau Server Help

https://help.tableau.com/current/server/en-us/licensingoverview.htm

2. Official Vendor Documentation: Tableau. "Tableau Pricing for Organizations". The official pricing page outlines the different user roles (Creator

Explorer

Viewer) for user-based licensing and the separate model for core-based licensing. This structure inherently promotes a mixed strategy to meet the needs of "everyone in your organization

" from data scientists to casual business users

which is typical in a large healthcare setting.

Source: Tableau Website

https://www.tableau.com/pricing/teams-organizations

3. University Courseware/Documentation: University of Washington

IT Connect. "Tableau - Licensing". This guide for a university community explains the distinct use cases for both licensing models. It describes the user-based model for "individuals who will be creating

modifying

and publishing" and the core-based model for "embedding visualizations in other applications or providing guest user access

" validating the principle of choosing a license based on usage patterns.

Source: UW-IT Connect

https://itconnect.uw.edu/learn/tools/tableau/licensing/ (Section: "Tableau Licensing Options")