Learning Tableau 2020 - Fourth Edition

Learning Tableau 2020 - Fourth Edition

by Joshua N. Milligan
Released August 2020
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781800200364

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Book description

Publisher's note: This edition from 2020 is outdated and does not make use of the most recent Tableau features. A new fifth edition, updated for Tableau 2022, is now available.

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

Product information

  • Title: Learning Tableau 2020 - Fourth Edition
  • Author(s): Joshua N. Milligan
  • Release date: August 2020
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781800200364