Assuming they are well-designed, star schema data models work very well with Tableau because they have well-defined granularity, measures, and dimensions. Additionally, if they are implemented well, they can be extremely efficient to query. This allows for a good experience when using live connections in Tableau.
Star schemas are so named because they consist of a single fact table surrounded by related dimension tables, thus forming a star pattern. Fact tables contain measures at a meaningful granularity, while dimension tables contain attributes for various related entities. The following diagram illustrates a simple star schema with a single fact table (Hospital Visit) and three ...
