Best Tableau Tutorials Online and Certification Exam Guide for Beginners and associates

Section 1: Section 1: Tableau Foundations
Chapter 1: Taking Off with Tableau 8
The cycle of analytics 9
Connecting to data 10
Foundations for building visualizations 14
Measures and dimensions 15
Discrete and continuous fields 16
Discrete fields 16
Continuous fields 17
Visualizing data 18
Bar charts 19
Iterations of bar charts for deeper analysis 21
Line charts 24
Iterations of line charts for deeper analysis 27
Geographic visualizations 28
Filled maps 29
Symbol maps 31
Density maps 34
Using Show Me 35
Putting everything together in a dashboard 38
The Dashboard interface 39
Building your dashboard 42
Summary 44
Chapter 2: Working with Data in Tableau 45
The Tableau paradigm 45
A simple example 47
Connecting to data 52
Connecting to data in a file 52
Connecting to data on a server 56
Connecting to data in the cloud 58
Shortcuts for connecting to data 60
Managing data source metadata 60
Working with extracts instead of live connections 62
Creating extracts 64
Using extracts 66
Performance 68
Portability and security 69

Table of Contents

[ ii ]

When to use an extract 70
Tableau file types 71
Joins and blends 72
Joining tables 72
Cross database joins 77
Blending data sources 78
A blending example 81
Filtering data 82
Filtering discrete (blue) fields 84
Filtering continuous (green) fields 85
Filtering dates 87
Other filtering options 88
Summary 89
Chapter 3: Venturing on to Advanced Visualizations 90
Comparing values 91
Bar charts 92
Bar chart variations 94
Bullet chart – comparing to a goal, target, or threshold 94
Bar-in-bar chart 99
Highlighting categories of interest 102
Visualizing dates and times 104
Date parts, date values, and exact dates 104
Variations of date and time visualizations 109
Gantt Charts 111
Relating parts of the data to the whole 115
Stacked bars 115
Treemaps 120
Area charts 122
Pie charts 125
Visualizing distributions 126
Circle charts 127
Jittering 128
Box and whisker plots 130
Histograms 132
Visualizing multiple axes to compare different measures 135
Scatterplot 136
Dual axis and combination charts 137
Summary 140
Section 2: Section 2: Leveraging the Full Power of Tableau
Chapter 4: Starting an Adventure with Calculations 142
Introduction to calculations 143
Creating and editing calculations 143
Additional functions and operators 146

Table of Contents

[ iii ]

Four main types of calculations 147
Example data 147
Row-level calculations 148
Aggregate-level calculations 152
Why the row-level/aggregate-level difference matters 155
Level of detail calculations 158
Level of detail syntax 158
Level of detail types 159
FIXED 159
INCLUDE 159
EXCLUDE 159
Level of detail example 160
Parameters 163
Creating parameters 163
Practical examples of calculations and parameters 167
Fixing data issues 167
Extending the data 168
Enhancing user experience, analysis, and visualizations 170
Ad hoc calculations 172
Performance considerations 174
Summary 176
Chapter 5: Diving Deep with Table Calculations 177
An overview of Table Calculations 178
Creating and editing Table Calculations 179
Quick Table Calculations 181
Relative versus fixed 183
Scope and direction 184
Working with scope and direction 186
Addressing and partitioning 189
Advanced addressing and partitioning 193
Custom Table Calculations 195
Meta table functions 196
Lookup and previous value 196
Running functions 198
Window functions 199
Rank functions 200
Script functions 200
The Total function 201
Practical examples 201
Year over Year Growth 201
Dynamic titles with totals 204
Late filtering 207
Data densification 208
When and where data densification occurs 209

Table of Contents

[ iv ]

An example of leveraging data densification 213
Summary 218
Chapter 6: Making Visualizations That Look Great and Work Well 219
Visualization considerations 219
Leveraging formatting in Tableau 221
Workbook-level formatting 222
Worksheet-level formatting 223
Field-level formatting 228
Custom number formatting 229
Custom date formatting 230
Null formatting 230
Additional formatting options 234
Adding value to visualizations 236
Tooltips 241
Viz in Tooltip 243
Summary 245
Chapter 7: Telling a Data Story with Dashboards 246
Key concepts for dashboards 247
Dashboard definition 247
Dashboard objectives 247
Dashboard approaches 248
Designing dashboards in Tableau 249
Objects 249
Tiled versus floating 251
Manipulating objects on the dashboard 252
Dashboard example – is least profitable always unprofitable? 253
Building the views 254
Creating the dashboard framework 257
Implementing actions to guide the story 261
Interlude – context filtering 263
Designing for different displays and devices 266
How actions work 269
Filter actions 270
Highlight actions 273
URL actions 275
Set actions 276
Sets 276
A set action example 279
Dashboard example – regional scorecard 282
Stories 287
Summary 294
Chapter 8: Digging Deeper - Trends, Clustering, Distributions, and
Forecasting 295

Table of Contents

[ v ]

Trends 296
Customizing Trend Lines 301
Trend models 305
Linear 305
Logarithmic 306
Exponential 307
Power 308
Polynomial 309
Analyzing trend models 310
Exporting statistical model details 313
Advanced statistics (and more!) with R and Python 315
Clustering 318
Distributions 323
Forecasting 327
Summary 333
Section 3: Section 3: Data Prep and Structuring
Chapter 9: Cleaning and Structuring Messy Data 335
Structuring data for Tableau 336
Good structure – tall and narrow instead of short and wide 337
Wide data 338
Tall data 338
Wide and tall in Tableau 339
Good structure – star schemas (Data Mart/Data Warehouse) 342
Dealing with data structure issues 345
Restructuring data in Tableau connections 346
Union files together 351
Cross database joins 356
A practical example – filling out missing/sparse dates 357
Working with different levels of detail 361
Overview of advanced fixes for data problems 366
Summary 367
Chapter 10: Introducing Tableau Prep 368
Getting prepped to explore Tableau Prep 369
Understanding the Tableau Prep Builder Interface 369
Flowing with the fundamental paradigm 373
Connecting to data 376
Cleaning the data 380
Union, merging mismatched fields, and removing unnecessary fields 381
Grouping and cleaning 384
Calculations and aggregations in Tableau Prep 388
Filtering in Tableau Prep 394
Transforming the data for analysis 396
Options for automating flows 401
Summary 401

Table of Contents

[ vi ]

Section 4: Section 4: Advanced Techniques and Sharing with
Others
Chapter 11: Advanced Visualizations, Techniques, Tips, and Tricks 403
Advanced visualizations 404
Slope Charts 404
Lollipop Charts 407
Waterfall Charts 408
Step Lines and Jump Lines 410
Spark Lines 411
Dumbbell Charts 413
Unit chart/symbol charts 415
Marimekko Charts 418
Sheet swapping and dynamic dashboards 420
Dynamically showing and hiding other controls 426
Mapping techniques 429
Supplementing the standard in geographic data 429
Manually assigning geographic locations 431
Creating custom territories 433
Ad hoc custom territories 433
Field-defined custom territories 435
Leveraging spatial objects 436
Some final map tips 438
Using background images 440
Animation 444
Transparency 444
Summary 447
Chapter 12: Sharing Your Data Story 448
Presenting, printing, and exporting 448
Presenting 449
Printing 449
Exporting 452
Sharing with users of Tableau Desktop or Tableau Reader 454
Sharing with Tableau Desktop users 454
Sharing with Tableau Reader users 455
Sharing with users of Tableau Server, Tableau Online, and Tableau
Public 456
Publishing to Tableau Public 458
Publishing to Tableau Server and Tableau Online 459
Interacting with Tableau Server 462
Additional distribution options using Tableau Server