Visual Analytics With Tableau

A four-color journey through a complete Tableau visualization

Tableau is a popular data visualization tool that’s easy for individual desktop use as well as enterprise. Used by financial analysts, marketers, statisticians, business and sales leadership, and many other job roles to present data visually for easy understanding, it’s no surprise that Tableau is an essential tool in our data-driven economy.

Visual Analytics with Tableau is a complete journey in Tableau visualization for a non-technical business user. You can start from zero, connect your first data, and get right into creating and publishing awesome visualizations and insightful dashboards.

•    Learn the different types of charts you can create

•    Use aggregation, calculated fields, and parameters

•    Create insightful maps

•    Share interactive dashboards

Geared toward beginners looking to get their feet wet with Tableau, this book makes it easy and approachable to get started right away.

Alexander Loth is a data scientist with over 10 years' experience in the Enterprise software space, focused primarily on Digital Transformation, Big Data, Machine Learning, and Business Analytics. Since 2015 he has been with Tableau Software as Digital Strategist in Frankfurt, Germany where he guides organizations to evolve their data-driven culture. Prior to Tableau, Alexander was a Data Scientist at CERN and worked as a consultant for Capgemini and in software engineering at SAP.

About the Author vii

About the Technical Editors ix

Credits xi

Acknowledgments xiii

Foreword by Nate Vogel xxi

Foreword by Sophie Sparkes xxiii

Introduction xxv

Chapter 1: Introduction and Getting Started with Tableau 1

The Advantages of a Modern Analytics Platform 2

My Personal Tableau Story 3

The Tableau Application Suite 4

Installing Tableau Desktop 5

System Requirements for Tableau Desktop 5

Downloading and Installing Tableau Desktop 6

Registering and Activating Tableau Desktop 6

Data Preparation 6

Crosstab Reports with Wide Tables 7

Preparing Your Data for Analysis 8

Long Tables Suitable for Analysis 8

The Sample Dataset 9

Finding the Dataset 9

Understanding the Data 10

Opening the Excel File Containing the Sample Dataset 11

The Tableau Workspace 13

The Menu Bar 15

The Data Pane 16

Working with Measures and Dimensions 17

Visualizing a First Measure 17

Breaking Down a Measure Based on a Dimension 17

Working with Marks 19

Working with Color 20

Adding More Information to Tooltips 21

Saving, Opening, and Sharing Your Workbooks 21

Saving Workbooks 21

Opening Workbooks 23

Sharing Workbooks with Tableau Reader 23

Chapter 2: Adding Data Sources in Tableau 25

Setting Up a Data Connector 26

Connecting to a File 27

Connecting to a Server 28

Connecting to a Cloud Service 30

Selecting Data Tables 31

Adding a Table to a Data Model 31

Joins 31

Unions 34

Specific Unions (Manual) 34

Wildcard Unions (Automatic) 35

Data Extracts and Live Connections 36

Live Connections 36

Untethered with a Data Extract 37

Data Protection and Data Governance 38

Editing the Model’s Metadata 38

Data Types 40

Changing a Field’s Data Type 41

Adding Hierarchies, Calculated Fields, and Table Calculations 41

Data Collection 42

Data Collection with IFTTT and Google Sheets 42

Website Analysis with Google Analytics 43

Checklist for Increasing Performance 46

General Advice for Performance Optimization 46

Performance Optimization with Files and Cloud Services 47

Performance Optimization with Database Servers 48

Chapter 3: Creating Data Visualizations 49

Chart Types 50

Ready, Set, Show Me 52

How Show Me Works 52

Scatter Plots 52

Bar Charts, Legends, Filters, and Hierarchies 53

Bar Charts 54

Hierarchies 54

Filters 55

Line Charts 57

Straight Lines 57

Adjusting the Time Dimension 58

Step Charts 59

Jump Lines 59

Continuous Date Fields 61

Highlight Tables 64

Step 1: Cross Tables 64

Step 2: Add Color 64

Step 3: Change the Mark Type 66

Heatmaps 67

Step 1: Build the Table 67

Step 2: Choose an Interesting Color Palette 68

Step 3: Change the Size of Marks 69

Bullet Charts 69

Step 1: Side-By-Side Bars 71

Step 2: Overlay the Measures 71

Cumulative Sums with Waterfall Charts 73

Step 1: Sorted Bar Chart 73

Step 2: Cumulative Sum and Gantt bars 74

Step 3: Calculate the Step Size 75

Reflection: The Anatomy of a Tableau Visualization 77

Chapter 4: Aggregate Functions, Calculated Fields, and Parameters 81

Aggregate Functions 82

Calculated Fields 84

Aggregations in Calculated Fields 86

Text Operators 88

Splits 88

Shortening Character Strings 89

Converting Between Uppercase and Lowercase 90

Replacing Substrings 90

Date Fields 90

Date Parts 90

Traditional Gregorian and ISO 8601 Calendars 91

Date Calculations 92

Parsing Date Parts 92

Date Format Conversions 93

Logical Functions in Calculated Fields 94

Case Discrimination 94

Case Discrimination with IF-THEN-ELSE Logic 95

Case Discrimination with the IIF Function 96

Working with NULL Values 97

Parameters 97

Creating a Parameter and Displaying the Control Element 97

Parameters in Calculated Fields 98

Searching Text Fields 100

Chapter 5: Table Calculations and Level of Detail Calculations 105

Different Types of Calculations 106

Order of Processing Steps 107

Quick Table Calculations 107

Setting Up a Quick Table Calculation 107

Duplicate as Crosstab 110

Editing Table Calculations 110

Customized Table Calculations 113

Bump Charts 113

Dual Axis Charts 116

Adjustable Moving Average 118

Level of Detail Expressions 123

Keywords and Syntax 123

Cohort Analysis 124

Regional Averages 125

Higher-Level Regions 127

Chapter 6: Maps 131

Symbol Maps 132

Filled Maps 134

Density Maps 134

Map Layers 136

Maps with Pie Charts 137

Creating a Pie Chart Map 138

Adding a Filter 138

Dual Axis Map 139

Viz in Tooltip 140

Step 1: Create the Second Chart 141

Step 2: Embedding the Chart in Tooltips 142

Reflection: The Anatomy of a Tableau Map 143

Alternative Map Services 144

Mapbox Maps 145

Mapbox Account and Token 145

Mapbox in Tableau 146

Using the Background Map 146

Spatial Data 147

Undersea Communication Cables 148

Open Data 152

Chapter 7: Advanced Analytics: Trends, Forecasts, Clusters, and other Statistical Tools 155

Overview of the Tableau Analytics Pane 156

Constant, Average, and Reference Lines 157

Trend Lines 157

Adding Trend Lines 158

Trend Line Options 160

Line and Trend Model Description 161

Forecasts 162

Adding a Forecast Line to the View 162

Forecast Settings 162

Model Description 164

Cluster Analysis 166

Clustering in Tableau 166

Saving and Working with Clustering Results 167

Python, R, and MATLAB Integration 168

Getting Started with Python and TabPy 169

Connecting Tableau with TabPy 170

Python Scripts in Calculated Fields 172

Trellis Chart with Python Script 173

R Integration 174

Security 175

Example: Local Regression with R 175

MATLAB Integration 178

Chapter 8: Interactive Dashboards 181

Preliminary Considerations 182

Creating a New Dashboard 183

The Dashboard Pane 184

Placing Charts on the Dashboard 185

Dashboard Titles 187

Navigation Buttons 188

Dashboard Actions 191

Filter Actions 191

Adding and Editing Filter and Highlight Actions 193

Adding Web Content via URL Actions 195

Email Notifications via URL Actions 198

Dashboard Starters: Templates for Cloud Data 199

Dashboard Best Practices and Inspiration 201

Design Tips for Creating a Dashboard 201

Tableau Public: A Gallery of Inspiration 202

Chapter 9: Sharing Insights with Colleagues and the World 205

Preliminary Considerations 206

Tableau Online and Tableau Server 207

Publishing 207

Ask Data 211

Tableau Mobile 212

Tableau Public 213

Publishing to Tableau Public 214

Your Tableau Public Profile 216

Web Embedding 216

Chapter 10: Data Preparation with Tableau Prep 221

Connecting to Data 222

Wildcard Unions 226

Additional Connections 228

Inspecting the Data 229

Removing Unneeded Fields 230

Data Cleaning and Formatting 231

Cleaning Steps and the Profile Pane 231

Calculated Fields 233

Built-in Cleaning Features 235

Renaming Cleaning Steps 235

Unions 237

Joins 238

Splits 239

Grouping 240

Joining 240

Running the Flow and Outputting the Data 242

Saving Flows 244

Index 245

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