Unit 1

Prepared by: Varun Rao (Dean, Data Science & AI)

For: Data Science - 2nd years

What is Tableau?

Tableau is a leading data visualization tool used for data analysis and business
intelligence. Gartner’s Magic Quadrant classified Tableau as a leader for analytics and
business intelligence. This Tableau tutorial will cover a wide range of how-to topics,
including how to create different charts and graphs, in addition to visualizing data
through reports and dashboards in Tableau to derive meaningful insights.

What is Tableau?

Tableau is an excellent data visualization and business intelligence tool used for
reporting and analyzing vast volumes of data. It is an American company that started in
2003—in June 2019, Salesforce acquired Tableau. It helps users create different charts,
graphs, maps, dashboards, and stories for visualizing and analyzing data, to help in
making business decisions.

Tableau has a lot of unique, exciting features that make it one of the most popular tools
in business intelligence (BI). Let’s learn more about some of the essential Tableau
Desktop features. Now that we know what tableau is exactly, let us understand some of
its salient features.

Tableau Features

● Tableau supports powerful data discovery and exploration that enables users
to answer important questions in seconds
● No prior programming knowledge is needed; users without relevant
experience can start immediately with creating visualizations using Tableau
● It can connect to several data sources that other BI tools do not support.
Tableau enables users to create reports by joining and blending different
datasets
 ● Tableau Server supports a centralized location to manage all published data
sources within an organization

File Types Used in Tableau

Next up in the what is tableau tutorial, we will learn about the various file types. In
Tableau, you can save your work using various Tableau-specific file types. The following
are the different types of files that Tableau supports:

File Type File Extension Description

Tableau .twb The most commonly used file type

Workbook in Tableau that has information
about worksheets, dashboards, and
stories.

Tableau .twbx A packaged zip file that enables

Packaged users to share their work with those
Workbook who don't have access to the
original data.

Tableau .tds These files are shortcuts for quickly

Data connecting to the original data that
File Type File Extension Description

Source you use often. It does not contain

the actual data, but has the
information needed to connect to
the real data and any modifications
you've made to the data.

Tableau .tdsx A zip file that has the data source

Packaged file and any local file data, such as
Data extract files (.hyper or .tde), text
Source files, Excel files, Access files, and
local cube files.

Tableau .tde or .hyper This contains a local copy of a

Data subset or entire dataset that can be
Extract used to share data with others
when you have to work offline and
improve performance.

Tableau .tbm This enables you to save

 File Type File Extension Description

Bookmark worksheets and share them with

others so that they don’t have to
create a new worksheet from
scratch and can use it in their
workbooks.

Connecting to your data-How to Connect to your data

Before you can build a view and analyze your data, you must first connect
Tableau to your data. Tableau supports connecting to a wide variety of data,
stored in a variety of places. For example, your data might be stored on your
computer in a spreadsheet or a text file, or in a big data, relational, or cube
(multidimensional) database on a server in your enterprise. Or, you might
connect to public domain data available on the web such as U.S. Census Bureau
information, or to a cloud database source, such as Google Analytics, Amazon
Redshift, or Salesforce.

Tableau Desktop
When you launch Tableau Desktop, the data connectors that are available to
you are listed on the Connect pane, which is the left pane on the Start page.
Under Search for Data, select Tableau Server to find data using Tableau Server
or Tableau Online. File types are listed next, then common server types, or
servers that you've recently connected to. Click More to see the complete list of
data connectors you can use.

For supported files and databases, Tableau provides native connectors that are
built for and optimized for those types of data. If your file or database type is
listed under Connect, use this native connector to connect to your data. If your
file or database type is not listed, you might have the option of creating your
own connection using Other Databases (JDBC), Other Databases (ODBC), a
Web Data Connector, or a Connector Plugin built using the Tableau Connector
SDK. Tableau provides limited support for connections that you create using
these options.

After you've connected to data, you can save the connections to have them
show up under the Saved data sources section on the Connect pane.

Generated Values
Tableau has built-in fields that make difficult tasks easier. These are found on the left side
of the screen at the bottom of the dimensions list and at the bottom of the measures list.
When you perform an operation (such as double-clicking on a geographic field) these
Tableau generated fields are automatically added to the design window. Generated values
include:

● Measure Names and Measure Values

● Longitude and Latitude
● Number of Records

Measure Names, Measure Values and Number of Records are always present. If your
dimensions include standard geographic place names, Tableau will also automatically
generate center-point geocodes.

Measure Names and Measure Values

Measure Names and Measure Values can be used to quickly express all the different
measures in your data set or to express multiple measures on a single axis. These fields
are automatically generated when you connect to a data source and can be used in a
variety of ways. When you connect to a data source, Tableau automatically creates a field
that contains all of the0 measure names and measure values.

Tableau Geocoding
If your data includes standard geographic fields like country, state, province, city, or postal
codes – denoted by a small globe icon – Tableau will automatically generate the longitude
and latitude values for the center points of each geographic entity displayed in your
visualization.

If Tableau failed to recognize any location, a small gray pill would appear in the lower right
of the map. Clicking on that pill would expose a menu that would help you identify and
correct the geocoding.

Number of Records
When you build a view using Measure Names as a filter to allow the user to select from a
subset of measures. You want “Number of Records” in the tooltip, but NOT in the filter
values.

The final generated value provided is a calculated field near the bottom of the measures
shelf called Number of Records. Any icon that includes an equals sign denotes a calculated
field. The number of the records calculation formula includes only the number one.

What are Joins in Tableau?

In Tableau, when we work with vast data sets, it is natural that data
sets will have multiple tables with different data fields. This means
that data does not reside on a single table instead, there are
different tables. However, some tables might have common fields.
We can join such tables by means of columns that are common or
related. Such related fields or identifiers used to form joins are
known as Key fields or records.

Thus, related tables are joined or combined from the same or

different sources to form a single virtual table which is an extended
table having added columns from different tables. It is convenient
for the users to use this joined table in data analysis works.

Rules to Perform a Join in Tableau

● Make sure that the data types of the tables you are joining
are the same. If you create a join of tables with different
data types, the join will break.
 ● The tables that you are joining should have at least one
common field or column.
● Determine the right join type and join clause for your join
to optimize the performance of Tableau with your data. If
the join type you select is not appropriate for the tables,
the join form will not be proper and won’t give efficient
data analysis results.

Common issues

● To view, edit, or create joins, you must open a logical table in the
relationship canvas—the area you see when you first open or create a
data source—and access the join canvas.
● Published Tableau data sources cannot be used in joins. To combine
published data sources, you must edit the original data sources to
natively contain the join or use a data blend.
● When joining tables, the fields that you join on must be the same data
type. If you change the data type after you join the tables, the join will
break.
● Fields used in the join clause cannot be removed without breaking the
join. To join data and be able to clean up duplicate fields, use Tableau
Prep Builder instead of Desktop

Create a join

1. To create a join, connect to the relevant data source or sources.

These can be in the same data source (such as tables in a database or sheets in
an Excel spreadsheet) or different data sources (this is known as a cross-
database join). If you combine tables using a cross-database join, Tableau
colors the tables in the canvas and the columns in the data grid to show you
which connection the data comes from.
1. Drag the first table to the canvas.

2. Select Open from the menu or double-click the first table to open the join
canvas (physical layer).
3. Double-click or drag another table to the join canvas.

If your next table is from another data source entirely, in the left pane,
under Connections, click the Add button ( in web authoring) to add a
new connection to the Tableau data source. With that connection
selected, drag the desired table to the join canvas.

4. Click the join icon to configure the join. Add one or more join clauses by
selecting a field from one of the available tables used in the data source,
choosing a join operator, and a field from the added table.

Note: You can delete an unwanted join clauses by clicking the "x" that
displays when you hover over the right side of the join clause.
 5. When finished, close the join dialog and join canvas.

After you've created a join, Join Your Data.

What is Blending Your Data

Data blending is a method for combining data from multiple sources. Data
blending brings in additional information from a secondary data source and
displays it with data from the primary data source directly in the view.

There are several ways to combine data, each with their own strengths and
weaknesses.

Relationships are the default method and can be used in most instances,
including across tables with different levels of detail. Relationships are flexible
and are adaptable to the structure of the analysis on a sheet by sheet basis.
However, you can't create relationships between tables from published data
sources.

Joins combine tables by adding more columns of data across similar row
structures. This can cause data loss or duplication if tables are at different
levels of detail, and joined data sources must be fixed before analysis can
begin.

Blends, unlike relationships or joins, never truly combine the data. Instead,
blends query each data source independently, the results are aggregated to the
appropriate level, then the results are presented visually together in the view.
Because of this, blends can handle different levels of detail and working with
published data sources. Blends are also established individually on every sheet
and can never be published, because there is no true “blended data source”,
simply blended results from multiple data sources in a visualization.

Data blending is particularly useful when the blend relationship—linking

fields—need to vary on a sheet-by-sheet basis, or when combining published
data sources.

What are the Steps for blending data

Data blending is performed on a sheet-by-sheet basis and is established when
a field from a second data source is used in the view. To create a blend in a
workbook already connected to at least two data sources, bring a field from one
data source to the sheet—it becomes the primary data source. Switch to the
other data source and use a field on the same sheet—it becomes a secondary
data source. An orange linking icon will appear in the data pane, indicating
which field(s) are being used to blend the data sources.

1. Ensure that the workbook has multiple data sources. The second data
source should be added by going to Data > New data source.
2. Drag a field to the view. Whichever data source this first field comes from
will become the primary data source.
3. Switch to another data source and make sure there is a blend
relationship to the primary data source.
○ If there is an orange linking field icon ( ), the data sources are
automatically linked. As long as there is at least one active link, the
data can be blended.
○ If there are gray, broken link icons ( ), click the icon next to the
field that should link the two data sources. It will turn orange,
representing an active link.
4. Drag a field into the view from the secondary data source.
As soon as this second data source is used in the same view, a blend is
established. In the example below, our primary data source is Sales Targets
and the secondary data source is Sample - Superstore

● The primary data source is indicated with a blue check mark on the data
source. Fields from the primary data source used in the view have no
indication.
● The secondary data source is indicated with an orange check mark on the
data source and an orange bar down the side of the Data pane. Fields
from the secondary data source used in the view have an orange check
mark.

Differences between joins and data blending

Data blending simulates a traditional left join. The main difference between
the two is when the aggregation is performed. A join combines the data and
then aggregates. A blend aggregates and then combines the data.