Introduction to Tableau

What is Tableau ?

• Tableau is a leading data visualization tool used for data analysis and business intelligence.

• Helps in creating the charts and dashboards to take the insights out of the source data.
Tableau Desktop Variations

Tableau Desktop

Tableau Professional Tableau Public

14 days free

Student Version
Tableau Desktop Installation

• Tableau Professional (14 days free)

https://www.tableau.com/products/desktop/download

• Tableau Student Version (1 year free)

https://www.tableau.com/academic/students

• Tableau Public (Free forever)

https://www.tableau.com/products/public/download
Tableau File Extensions
⮚ Tableau Workbook (.twb)

• Need to send the source data and tableau file to the sender.

⮚ Tableau Packaged Workbook (.twbx)

• Single zip file containing a workbook along with any supporting local file data and background images.

⮚ Extract (.hyper)

• Local copy of a subset or entire data set that can be used to share data with others, when need to work offline,
and improve performance of tableau dashboards.
Data Types – Basic

String (Abc) Numerical (#) Date Date-time

25
Shubham
-25 01-01-2000 01-01-2000 14:21:15
Shubham123
25.97 15-08-1947 15-08-1947 00:00:00
Shubham123!@#$%
-25.97

Boolean (T|F) Geographical

India
True Maharashtra
False New Delhi
425001
Data Types – Dimensions & Measures

Dimensions Measures
Qualitative data Quantitative data
Discrete in nature by default Continuous in nature by default
Can’t apply aggregation except COUNT Can apply any aggregation
e.g. Customer Name, Country, Date e.g. Sales, Profit, Quantity

Aggregation

Product 1 • You buy 3 products with some cost value. The individual price of
each product is non-aggregation.
Product 2
• When you pay the bill, the bill value is aggregated one.

Product 3 • e.g. SUM, AVG, MIN, MAX, COUNT, COUNTD… etc.

Data Source - Overview
• Data Source section is the first screen after connecting tableau to the original data source.
• Need to drag and drop the tables in logical layer in order to see the data.

Operations:

1) Rename
2) Copy Values Metadata Data Preview Pane
3) Hide/Unhide
4) Aliases
5) Create Calculated Field
6) Create Groups
7) Create Bins
8) Split
9) Custom Split
10) Pivot
11) Describe
Data Source – Live Vs Extract
Connections

• Real-time data flowing form original source in tableau.

• Live data processes queries in source database.
Live
• By default, connection is live in tableau.
• With live connection data in the worksheet gets updated every time when it is opened.

• Tableau Data Extract(referred to as hyper file) is a compressed snapshot of live data that
is stored locally and loaded into memory.
• To ease off our connection and minimize the load due to complex data, we can apply
Extract
filters to our data, save it as a .hyper file and later use them for our extract connection.
• This tends to be much faster than Live Connections and hence provides an edge when
used for complex visualizations. Manually need to click on Refresh option.
Worksheet - Overview

Menu bar

View Pane/Canvas
 Table Name

Dimension Pane
Types of
Charts (24)

Measure Pane
Shelves
1) Rows: To add the values of a column horizontally.

2) Columns: To add the values of a column vertically.

3) Marks: To enhance the chart by colouring the chart, modifying the size of the chart or showing more information in the chart.

4) Filters: To restrict the data to flow into charts.

5) Pages: To show the series of events in animated form.

Marks Card
There are 5 types of marks cards available. Those need to be judiciously used as per the requirement.

Color: It is used to change the color of the chart. Can use any dimensions or measures on color
marks card.

Size: It is used to modify the size of the chart. Can use any dimensions or measures on size marks
card.

Text: It is used to show the labels in the chart. Labels can be resized, given colours or can be
aligned horizontally/vertically.

Detail: It is used to show the information in more depth. For example, one can show region wise and
category wise sales in pie chart. (MEASURE - Works as a Tooltip, DIMENSION – Gives the Detail View)

Tooltip: Tooltips are details that appear when you rest the pointer over one or more marks in the view. Tooltips
also offer convenient tools to quickly filter or remove a selection, select marks that have the same value or view
underlying data.