Intro to Tableau Desktop

Overview

Time: min

Objectives

• Demo of Tableau Desktop. Connecting to dataset and working with Sheets.

• This is how the tableau desktop looks. On the left hand-side you have options to connect to files and servers. -On the right hand-side you have resources and training material available. To connect to a data source, you can either connect from local device i.e your computer or you can connect via a server.

• This the page that appears when you import data into Tableau. You can see all the sheets in the data source under the Sheets column in the left corner.
• You can drag the sheets you want to work with in the upper part of the page which says, ‘Drag tables here’. You can see the preview of the sheet that you are working with on the bottom part of the page.
• You can view all the fields and data types of the fields as well. You can also perform join operations and join multiple sheets. After you have connected to the desired data source, you can then see a sheet layout.

• This sheet is your working space for your tableau project. On the top you can see rows and columns shelves where you place the items or features you want to visualize. The columns shelf creates columns of the table while rows creates rows of table. You can place any number of fields on these shelves.

• The left corner has a list of measures and dimensions. The variables (or the columns) from the dataset are divided into dimensions and measures. The simplest way to know the difference between them is that all dimensions are categorical/discrete variables and all measures are quantitative/continuous variables. To make it even simpler, measures are the ones on which we can perform arithmetic operations.

• The most powerful element is tableau is the marks card. With the marks cards, you can encode your data with color, size, shape, text and detail. The filter shelf allows you to specify which data to include/exclude.

• You can use measures or dimensions or both at the same time. The page shelf helps you view the visualization into series of pages so you can analyze how a specific field affects the rest of the data. The ‘show me’ on the right corner is like a cheat sheet and it tells you about the variety of charts you can create and what number of dimensions and measures you will require to make that chart.

Key Points