How to Become a Data Analyst

BTableau Tips

I happen to be a Tableau consultant, so I didn't want to leave the portfolio section of this book without giving you some Tableau‐specific portfolio‐building advice—and Tableau advice in general.

To the entry‐level data analyst, Tableau is often just a tool for doing visualizations of data—maybe some well‐formatted bar charts and line charts put into a dashboard. That's a fine way to look at it, but I invite you to come behind the curtain with me and see how experienced Tableau professionals are leveraging the tool. This will guide you into creating a portfolio that helps you stand out above the rest.

What I Use Tableau For

I've had a dozen clients so far, and they come from different industries. They all have slightly different Tableau needs—from building an externally facing product that is the user interface for their customers, to internal reporting, to newsletter‐embeddable reports. I've worked with nonprofits that are turning to Tableau as a way to share information between state agencies as well as with analysts who need to enable their internal customer support teams to be alerted to negative trends or individual customers that need attention.

The thing that all my clients have in common is that they needed dashboards that inspire and/or facilitate action from their end users. This is the most important distinction between “people who build reports that don't get used” and “people who can build impactful dashboards.” So what is the difference? Let's ...