Tableau Desktop Level 1: Intermediate

Overview

Tableau has emerged as one of the most popular Business Intelligence solutions in recent times, thanks to its powerful and interactive data visualization capabilities. This book will empower you to become a master in Tableau by exploiting the many new features introduced in Tableau 10.0.

You will embark on this exciting journey by getting to know the valuable methods of utilizing advanced calculations to solve complex problems. These techniques include creative use of different types of calculations such as row-level, aggregate-level, and more. You will discover how almost any data visualization challenge can be met in Tableau by getting a proper understanding of the tool’s inner workings and creatively exploring possibilities.

You’ll be armed with an arsenal of advanced chart types and techniques to enable you to efficiently and engagingly present information to a variety of audiences through the use of clear, efficient, and engaging dashboards. Explanations and examples of efficient and inefficient visualization techniques, well-designed and poorly designed dashboards, and compromise options when Tableau consumers will not embrace data visualization will build on your understanding of Tableau and how to use it efficiently.

By the end of the book, you will be equipped with all the information you need to create effective dashboards and data visualization solutions using Tableau.

Features

Features

• Arm yourself with an arsenal of advanced chart types and geocoding to efficiently and engagingly present information

• Map a grid over a network node diagram and use that grid to demonstrate loads, processing time, and more in Tableau

• Integrate R with Tableau by utilizing R functions, libraries, and saved models

Learning

• Create a worksheet that can display the current balance for any given period in time

• Recreate a star schema from in a data warehouse in Tableau

• Combine level of detail calculations with table calculations, sets, and parameters

• Create custom polygons to build filled maps for area codes in the USA

• Visualize data using a set of analytical and advanced charting techniques

• Know when to use Tableau instead of PowerPoint

• Build a dashboard and export it to PowerPoint

Version

This course will be taught with the Version 10 course materials and software. Users of Tableau Version 9 will feel comfortable in the class because the user interface is very similar between versions 9 and 10. Instructors will also be able to highlight new features and differences between the two versions, as appropriate.

Audience

This two day course will provide you with the skills that will help you be a Tableau power user. It is designed for individuals with experience with the fundamental concepts of Tableau who want to take their skills to the next level.

Prerequisites

Before attending this course, students should have experience using Microsoft Excel and have taken the Tableau Level 1 course.

Certification Options

This class, when combined with our Tableau Level 1 class, offer a strong foundation in preparation for the Tableau Qualified Associate Exam. Exam prep guide is shown here: mkt.tableau.com/files/Desktop-9-QA-Prep-Guide.pdf

Course Outline

1: Getting Up to Speed – a Review of the Basics

The Tableau universe

Understanding the Tableau interface and basic terminology

Worksheet and dashboard creation

Connecting Tableau to your data

Measure Names and Measure Values

Three essential Tableau concepts

Summary

2: All about Data – Getting Your Data Ready

Understanding Tableau's data-handling engine

Data-mining and knowledge-discovery process models

CRISP-DM

Focusing on data preparation

Summary

3: All about Data – Joins, Blends, and Data Structures

About joins

Complex joins

Data blending

Data structures

Summary

4: All about Data – Data Densification, Cubes, and Big Data

About data densification

Working with cubes

Tableau and big data

Summary

5: Table Calculations

A definition and two questions

What is the function?

How is the function applied?

Summary

6: Beyond the Basic Chart Types

Improving popular visualizations

Custom background images

Summary

7: Mapping

Extending Tableau mapping capabilities without leaving Tableau

Extending Tableau mapping with other technology

Summary

8: Tableau for Presentations

Getting the best images out of Tableau

From Tableau to PowerPoint

Embedding Tableau in PowerPoint

Animating Tableau

Story Points dashboards for presentations

Summary

9: Visualization Best Practices and Dashboard Design

Visualization design theory

Dashboard design

Sheet selection

Summary

10: Improving Performance

Understand the Performance Recording dashboard

Hardware and on-the-fly techniques

Single Data Source > Joining > Blending

Working efficiently with data sources

Intelligent extracts

Using filters wisely

Efficient calculations

Additional performance considerations

Summary

11: Interacting with Tableau Server

Tableau file types

Tableau Server architecture

Tableau Server revision history

Tableau Server web authoring environment

User filters

Accessing the Tableau Server Performance Recording dashboard

Summary