Learning Tableau 2020: Create effective data visualizations, build interactive visual analytics, and transform your organization, 4th Edition

✍ Scribed by Joshua N. Milligan

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2020
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 667
• Edition: 4ed
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Gain a solid foundation to learn Tableau, and develop the skills and abilities required for an advanced mastery of the tool. Whether you're new to Tableau or have been using it years, you will benefit from this book.

Key Features

• Explore the latest Tableau 2020 features and redefine business analytics for your firm
• Understand visualizing data and creating interactive dashboards to gain meaningful insights
• Learn implementing effective data storytelling to redefine how your business leverages data and makes decisions

Book Description

Learning Tableau strengthens your command on Tableau fundamentals and builds on advanced topics.

The book starts by taking you through foundational principles of Tableau. We then demonstrate various types of connections and how to work with metadata. We teach you to use a wide variety of visualizations to analyze and communicate the data, and introduce you to calculations and parameters. We then take an in-depth look at level of detail (LOD) expressions and use them to solve complex data challenges. Up next, we show table calculations, how to extend and alter default visualizations, build an interactive dashboard, and master the art of telling stories with data.

This Tableau book will introduce you to visual statistical analytics capabilities, create different types of visualizations and dynamic dashboards for rich user experiences. We then move on to maps and geospatial visualization, and the new Data Model capabilities introduced in Tableau 2020.2. You will further use Tableau Prep's ability to clean and structure data and share the stories contained in your data.

By the end of this book, you will be proficient in implementing the powerful features of Tableau 2020 for decision-making.

What you will learn

• Develop stunning visualizations to explain complex data with clarity
• Explore exciting new Data Model capabilities
• Connect to various data sources to bring all your data together
• Leverage Tableau Prep Builder's amazing capabilities for data cleaning and structuring
• Create and use calculations to solve problems and enrich the analytics
• Master advanced topics such as sets, LOD calculations, and much more
• Enable smart decisions with data clustering, distribution, and forecasting
• Share your data stories to build a culture of trust and action

Who this book is for

This Tableau book is for anyone who wants to understand data. If you're new to Tableau, don't worry. This book will simplify Tableau for beginners to build on the foundations to help you understand how Tableau really works and then builds on that knowledge with practical examples before moving on to advanced techniques.

Having a bit of background with data will help, but you don't need to know scripting, SQL or database structures.

Table of Contents

1. Taking Off with Tableau
2. Connecting to Data in Tableau
3. Moving Beyond Basic Visualizations
4. Starting an Adventure with Calculations and Parameters
5. Leveraging Level of Detail Calculations
6. Diving Deep with Table Calculations
7. Making Visualizations That Look Great and Work Well
8. Telling a Data Story with Dashboards
9. Visual Analytics – Trends, Clustering, Distributions, and Forecasting
10. Advanced Visualizations
11. Dynamic Dashboards
12. Exploring Mapping and Advanced Geospatial Features
13. Understanding the Tableau Data Model, Joins, and Blends
14. Structuring Messy Data to Work Well in Tableau
15. Taming Data with Tableau Prep
16. Sharing Your Data Story

✦ Table of Contents

Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
Download the example code files
Download the color images
Conventions used
Get in touch
Reviews
Taking Off with Tableau
Connecting to data
Foundations for building visualizations
Measures and dimensions
Discrete and continuous fields
Discrete fields
Continuous fields
Visualizing data
Bar charts
Iterations of bar charts for deeper analysis
Line charts
Iterations of line charts for deeper analysis
Geographic visualizations
Filled maps
Symbol maps
Density maps
Using Show Me
Putting everything together in a dashboard
The dashboard interface
Building your dashboard
Summary
Connecting to Data in Tableau
The Tableau paradigm
A simple example
Connecting to data
Connecting to data in a file
Connecting to data on a server
Using extracts
Connecting to data in the cloud
Shortcuts for connecting to data
Managing data source metadata
Working with extracts instead of live connections
Creating extracts
Performance
Portability and security
When to use an extract
Filtering data
Filtering discrete (blue) fields
Filtering continuous (green) fields
Filtering dates
Other filtering options
Summary
Moving Beyond Basic Visualizations
Comparing values
Bar charts
Bar chart variations
Bullet chart
Bar-in-bar chart
Highlighting categories of interest
Visualizing dates and times
Date parts, date values, and exact dates
Variations of date and time visualizations
Gantt charts
Relating parts of the data to the whole
Stacked bars
Treemaps
Area charts
Pie charts
Visualizing distributions
Circle charts
Jittering
Box and whisker plots
Histograms
Visualizing multiple axes to compare different measures
Scatterplot
Dual-axis and combination charts
Summary
Starting an Adventure with Calculations and Parameters
Introduction to calculations
The four main types of calculations
Creating and editing calculations
Data types
Additional functions and operators
Example data
Row-level calculations
Simple example
More complex examples
Extending the example
Planning for data variations
Aggregate calculations
Why the row level versus aggregate difference matters
Parameters
Creating parameters
Practical examples of calculations and parameters
Fixing data issues
Extending the data
Enhancing user experience, analysis, and visualizations
Meeting business requirements
Ad hoc calculations
Performance considerations
Summary
Leveraging Level of Detail Calculations
Overview of level of detail
Level of detail calculations
Level of detail syntax
Level of detail types
FIXED
INCLUDE
EXCLUDE
An illustration of the difference level of detail can make
Examples of fixed level of detail calculations
Was a member ever at risk?
Latest balance for a member
Example of include level of detail expressions
Average loans per member
Alternative approaches
Example of exclude level of detail calculations
Average credit score per loan type
Summary
Diving Deep with Table Calculations
An overview of table calculations
Creating and editing table calculations
Quick table calculations
Relative versus fixed
Scope and direction
Working with scope and direction
Addressing and partitioning
Working with addressing and partitioning
Custom table calculations
Meta table functions
Lookup and previous value
Running functions
Window functions
Rank functions
Script functions
The Total function
Practical examples
Year over year growth
Dynamic titles with totals
Table calculation filtering (late filtering)
Summary
Making Visualizations That Look Great and Work Well
Visualization considerations
Leveraging formatting in Tableau
Workbook-level formatting
Worksheet-level formatting
Field-level formatting
Custom number formatting
Custom date formatting
Null formatting
Additional formatting options
Adding value to visualizations
Tooltips
Viz in Tooltip
Summary
Telling a Data Story with Dashboards
Introduction to dashboards
Dashboard definition
Dashboard objectives
Dashboard approaches
Designing dashboards in Tableau
Objects
Tiled versus floating
Manipulating objects on the dashboard
A dashboard to understand profitability
Building the views
Creating the dashboard framework
Implementing actions to guide the story
Context filtering
Designing for different displays and devices
Interactivity with actions
Filter actions
Highlight actions
URL actions
Go to Sheet actions
Parameter actions
Set actions
Sets
A set action example
A regional scorecard dashboard
Stories
Summary
Visual Analytics – Trends, Clustering, Distributions, and Forecasting
Trends
Customizing trend lines
Trend models
Linear
Logarithmic
Exponential
Power
Polynomial
Analyzing trend models
Exporting statistical model details
Advanced statistics and more with R and Python
Clustering
Distributions
Forecasting
Summary
Advanced Visualizations
Advanced visualizations – when and why to use them
Slope charts and bump charts
Waterfall charts
Step lines and jump lines
Sparklines
Dumbbell charts
Unit/symbol charts
Marimekko charts
Animated visualizations
Enhancing analysis with animation
Enhancing data storytelling with animation
Summary
Dynamic Dashboards
Show/Hide buttons
Sheet swapping
Basic principles of sheet swapping
Using sheet swapping to change views on a dashboard
Automatically showing and hiding other controls
Summary
Exploring Mapping and Advanced Geospatial Features
Overview of Tableau maps
Rendering maps with Tableau
Customizing map layers
Customizing map options
Using geospatial data
Including latitude and longitude in your data
Importing definitions into Tableau's geographic database
Leveraging spatial objects
Leveraging spatial functions
MAKELINE() and MAKEPOINT()
DISTANCE()
BUFFER()
Creating custom territories
Ad hoc custom territories
Field-defined custom territories
Tableau mapping – tips and tricks
Plotting data on background images
Summary
Understanding the Tableau Data Model, Joins, and Blends
Explanation of the sample data used in this chapter
Exploring the Tableau data model
Creating a data model
Layers of the data model
Using the data model
The new data pane interface
Data model behaviors
Using joins
Types of joins
Joining tables
Other join considerations
Join calculations
Cross-database joins
The unintentional duplication of data
Using blends
A blending example
When to use a data model, joins, or blends
Summary
Structuring Messy Data to Work Well in Tableau
Structuring data for Tableau
Well-structured data in Tableau
Wide data
Tall data
Wide versus tall data in Tableau
Star schemas (Data mart/Data warehouse)
The four basic data transformations
Overview of transformations
Pivots (along with some simple data cleaning)
Unions
Joins
Aggregation
Overview of advanced fixes for data problems
Summary
Taming Data with Tableau Prep
Getting ready to explore Tableau Prep
Understanding the Tableau Prep Builder interface
Flowing with the fundamental paradigm
Connecting to data
Cleaning the data
Unioning, merging mismatched fields, and removing unnecessary fields
Grouping and cleaning
Calculations and aggregations in Tableau Prep
Row-level calculations
Level of detail calculations
Aggregations
Filtering data in Tableau Prep
Transforming the data for analysis
Options for automating flows
Summary
Sharing Your Data Story
Presenting, printing, and exporting
Presenting
Printing
Exporting
Sharing with users of Tableau Desktop and Tableau Reader
Sharing with Tableau Desktop users
Sharing with Tableau Reader users
Sharing with users of Tableau Server, Tableau Online, and Tableau Public
Publishing to Tableau Public
Publishing to Tableau Server and Tableau Online
Interacting with Tableau Server
Additional distribution options using Tableau Server or Tableau Online
Summary
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Index