Tableau training course - introduction

Day 1: Understanding Data and Creating Visualizations

Understanding data and visual analysis

• Understanding what data is and how it is used
• Recognizing records, fields, dimensions, and measures
• Identifying common sources of organizational data
• Understanding structured and unstructured data
• Recognizing characteristics of analysis-ready data
• Translating a business question into an analytical question
• Understanding how visualizations reveal comparisons, patterns, trends, and outliers
• Selecting visualizations based on the information being communicated
• Avoiding misleading or unnecessarily complicated visualizations

Getting started with Tableau

• Understanding common uses for Tableau
• Reviewing the Tableau product environment
• Distinguishing Tableau Desktop, Tableau Cloud, Tableau Server, and Tableau Public
• Understanding the basic Tableau workflow
• Opening Tableau and reviewing the start page
• Connecting to a sample dataset
• Creating a first visualization
• Saving a Tableau workbook

Navigating the Tableau Desktop workspace

• Working with workbooks, worksheets, dashboards, and stories
• Navigating the Data and Analytics panes
• Understanding shelves, cards, fields, and pills
• Working with the Marks card
• Understanding dimensions and measures
• Recognizing discrete and continuous fields
• Understanding blue and green fields
• Using the Show Me panel
• Changing the visualization suggested by Show Me
• Undoing, redoing, reverting, and saving work
• Duplicating and renaming worksheets

Connecting to and reviewing data

• Identifying data needed for an analysis
• Connecting to Excel workbooks
• Connecting to CSV and text files
• Reviewing other available data connectors
• Understanding common file and data formats
• Reviewing tables on the Data Source page
• Previewing records and source information
• Understanding live connections and extracts
• Creating and refreshing an extract
• Assigning and correcting data types
• Renaming and hiding fields
• Working with aliases
• Assigning geographic roles
• Recognizing null, missing, and incomplete values
• Refreshing a data connection

Preparing and structuring data

• Understanding how data should be structured for Tableau
• Recognizing headers, field names, records, and summary rows
• Using Data Interpreter to identify usable data
• Removing unnecessary headers and formatting from imported data
• Splitting combined values into separate fields
• Pivoting columns into rows
• Combining similarly structured data with unions
• Understanding the purpose of relationships
• Reviewing the basic difference between relationships and joins
• Recognizing when multiple tables are needed
• Confirming totals and record counts after preparing data

Creating foundational visualizations

• Starting a visualization with an analytical question
• Creating a text table
• Creating a highlight table
• Creating bar and stacked bar charts
• Creating line and area charts
• Visualizing changes over time
• Creating treemaps
• Creating scatter plots
• Changing mark types
• Using Show Me to explore appropriate chart options
• Applying fields to Color, Size, Label, Detail, and Tooltip
• Changing the aggregation applied to a measure
• Editing axes, headers, and titles
• Duplicating and modifying a visualization
• Comparing different visual approaches to the same data

Sorting, grouping, and filtering data

• Sorting data manually
• Sorting by field values
• Creating groups from related values
• Creating bins for numeric data
• Building and using hierarchies
• Drilling into and out of hierarchical information
• Filtering categorical values
• Filtering numeric measures
• Filtering dates and date ranges
• Keeping or excluding selected marks
• Displaying interactive filter controls
• Customizing the appearance of a filter control
• Selecting single-value and multiple-value filter options
• Applying a filter to multiple worksheets
• Clearing and resetting filters

Day Two: Calculating, Formatting, and Sharing Results

Working with calculations and aggregations

• Understanding how Tableau aggregates data
• Working with SUM, AVG, MIN, MAX, and COUNT
• Changing the aggregation used for a measure
• Understanding row-level and summarized values
• Creating a calculated field
• Performing arithmetic calculations
• Creating ratios and percentages
• Building basic conditional calculations
• Using simple IF statements
• Working with basic date calculations
• Handling null values in calculations
• Editing and validating calculated fields
• Applying calculated fields to a visualization
• Using quick table calculations
• Calculating percent of total
• Creating running totals and differences
• Adding totals and subtotals
• Confirming that calculated results are reasonable

Enhancing and Interacting with Visualizations

• Navigating Tableau’s formatting tools and menus
• Formatting an entire worksheet
• Formatting specific fields and parts of a view
• Formatting numbers, percentages, currency, and dates
• Editing fonts, alignment, lines, borders, and shading
• Editing and formatting axes
• Adjusting axis ranges and tick marks
• Formatting headers and gridlines
• Using color to categorize or emphasize data
• Applying accessible and consistent color choices
• Changing mark size
• Adding fields to the Detail property
• Displaying and formatting mark labels
• Creating and customizing tooltips
• Adding explanatory text to tooltips
• Creating annotations for marks, points, and areas
• Highlighting selected values
• Adding reference lines
• Adding basic trend lines
• Reducing unnecessary visual elements
• Maintaining consistency across worksheets

Working with dates and geographic data

• Understanding Tableau date fields
• Distinguishing date parts from date values
• Changing date granularity
• Working with year, quarter, month, week, and day
• Creating continuous and discrete timelines
• Reviewing calendar and fiscal dates
• Assigning geographic roles
• Correcting unrecognized geographic locations
• Creating symbol maps
• Creating filled maps
• Using size and color to represent geographic values
• Adding geographic details and tooltips
• Filtering a geographic visualization

Creating dashboards

• Understanding the purpose of a dashboard
• Identifying the audience and purpose of a dashboard
• Selecting worksheets for a dashboard
• Creating a first dashboard
• Selecting fixed, range, or automatic dashboard sizing
• Adding worksheets, text, images, and navigation objects
• Understanding tiled and floating objects
• Working with horizontal and vertical layout containers
• Adding filters and legends
• Applying filters across dashboard views
• Using a worksheet as a dashboard filter
• Creating basic filter actions
• Creating highlight actions
• Adding navigation between dashboards
• Editing dashboard titles and supporting text
• Testing dashboard interactions
• Designing dashboard layouts for different displays
• Reviewing device-specific layouts

Creating stories and presenting findings

• Understanding the difference between a dashboard and a story
• Identifying the central message of an analysis
• Organizing information to guide the audience
• Creating a first Tableau story
• Adding worksheets and dashboards to story points
• Adding and updating story points
• Sequencing information to explain a finding
• Using titles, captions, annotations, and tooltips to provide context
• Presenting comparisons and trends accurately
• Distinguishing correlation from causation
• Reviewing a story for clarity and consistency

Saving, printing, exporting, and publishing

• Understanding Tableau workbook and data-source files
• Working with .twb workbook files
• Working with .twbx packaged workbook files
• Understanding Tableau extract files
• Saving and packaging a workbook
• Checking whether a packaged workbook contains required data
• Previewing worksheets and dashboards for printing
• Configuring page setup and print options
• Printing worksheets and dashboards
• Exporting visualizations as images
• Exporting worksheets and dashboards to PDF
• Exporting presentation content
• Exporting summarized or underlying data
• Understanding basic publishing options
• Publishing to Tableau Cloud, formerly Tableau Online
• Publishing to Tableau Server
• Understanding the public nature of Tableau Public
• Avoiding the publication of confidential data to Tableau Public
• Sharing a published workbook
• Reviewing a workbook before distribution

Creating and sharing an interactive Tableau dashboard

Participants complete a guided project that includes:

• Identifying the analytical purpose of a dataset
• Connecting to and reviewing the source data
• Preparing fields for analysis
• Creating several complementary visualizations
• Using calculations, sorting, and filters
• Formatting charts and customizing tooltips
• Combining visualizations into a dashboard
• Adding basic dashboard interactivity
• Creating a story point or presentation view
• Preparing the completed workbook for export or publication