Tableau 10 Complete Reference

Tableau 10 Complete Reference

by Joshua N. Milligan, Tristan Guillevin
Released December 2018
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781789957082

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Book description

Explore and understand data with the powerful data visualization techniques of Tableau, and then communicate insights in powerful ways

Key Features

  • Apply best practices in data visualization and chart types exploration
  • Explore the latest version of Tableau Desktop with hands-on examples
  • Understand the fundamentals of Tableau storytelling

Book Description

Graphical presentation of data enables us to easily understand complex data sets. Tableau 10 Complete Reference provides easy-to-follow recipes with several use cases and real-world business scenarios to get you up and running with Tableau 10.

This Learning Path begins with the history of data visualization and its importance in today's businesses. You'll also be introduced to Tableau - how to connect, clean, and analyze data in this visual analytics software. Then, you'll learn how to apply what you've learned by creating some simple calculations in Tableau and using Table Calculations to help drive greater analysis from your data. Next, you'll explore different advanced chart types in Tableau. These chart types require you to have some understanding of the Tableau interface and understand basic calculations. You'll study in detail all dashboard techniques and best practices. A number of recipes specifically for geospatial visualization, analytics, and data preparation are also covered. Last but not least, you'll learn about the power of storytelling through the creation of interactive dashboards in Tableau.

Through this Learning Path, you will gain confidence and competence to analyze and communicate data and insights more efficiently and effectively by creating compelling interactive charts, dashboards, and stories in Tableau.

This Learning Path includes content from the following Packt products:

  • Learning Tableau 10 - Second Edition by Joshua N. Milligan
  • Getting Started with Tableau 2018.x by Tristan Guillevin

What you will learn

  • Build effective visualizations, dashboards, and story points
  • Build basic to more advanced charts with step-by-step recipes
  • Become familiar row-level, aggregate, and table calculations
  • Dig deep into data with clustering and distribution models
  • Prepare and transform data for analysis
  • Leverage Tableau's mapping capabilities to visualize data
  • Use data storytelling techniques to aid decision making strategy

Who this book is for

Tableau 10 Complete Reference is designed for anyone who wants to understand their data better and represent it in an effective manner. It is also used for BI professionals and data analysts who want to do better at their jobs.

Downloading the example code for this book You can download the example code files for all Packt books you have purchased from your account at http://www.PacktPub.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.PacktPub.com/support and register to have the files e-mailed directly to you.

Table of contents

  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright
    1. Tableau 10 Complete Reference
  3. About Packt
    1. Why Subscribe?
    2. Packt.com
  4. Contributors
    1. About the Authors
    2. Packt Is Searching for Authors Like You
  5. 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. Conventions Used
    4. Get in Touch
      1. Reviews
  6. Creating Your First Visualizations and Dashboard
    1. Connecting to data
    2. Foundations for building visualizations
      1. Measures and dimensions
      2. Discrete and continuous
        1. Discrete fields
        2. Continuous fields
    3. Visualizing data
    4. Creating bar charts
      1. Iterations of bar charts for deeper analysis
    5. Creating line charts
      1. Iterations of line charts for deeper analysis
    6. Creating geographic visualizations
      1. Filled maps
      2. Symbol maps
    7. Using Show Me
    8. Bringing everything together in a dashboard
      1. Building your dashboard
    9. Summary
  7. Working with 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. Connecting to data in the cloud
      4. Shortcuts for connecting to data
    3. Managing data source metadata
    4. Working with extracts instead of live connections
      1. Creating extracts
      2. Using extracts
      3. Performance
      4. Portability and security
      5. When to use an extract
    5. Tableau file types
    6. Joins and blends
      1. Joining tables
      2. Cross – database joins
      3. Blending data sources
        1. Blending example
    7. Filtering data
      1. Filtering discrete fields
      2. Filtering continuous fields
      3. Filtering dates
      4. Other filtering options
    8. Summary
  8. Moving from Foundational to More Advanced Visualizations
    1. Comparing values across different dimensions
      1. Bar charts
      2. Bar chart variations
        1. Bullet chart – showing progress toward a goal
        2. Bar in bar chart
        3. Highlighting categories of interest
    2. Visualizing dates and times
      1. The built-in date hierarchy
      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
      3. Combination charts
    6. Summary
  9. Using Row-Level, Aggregate, and Level of Detail Calculations
    1. Creating and editing calculations
    2. Overview of the three main types of calculations
      1. Row Level examples
      2. Aggregate Level example
      3. Row Level or Aggregate – why does it matter?
    3. Level of Detail calculations
      1. Level of Detail syntax
      2. Level of Detail example
    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. Achieving flexibility with data blends
    6. Ad hoc calculations
    7. Performance considerations
    8. Summary
  10. Table Calculations
    1. Overview of table calculations
      1. Creating and editing table calculations
    2. Quick table calculations
    3. Relative versus fixed
    4. Scope and direction
      1. Working with scope and direction
    5. Addressing and partitioning
      1. Advanced addressing and partitioning
    6. Custom table calculations
    7. Practical examples
      1. Year – over – Year growth
      2. Ranking within higher levels
      3. Late filtering
    8. Data densification
      1. When and where data densification occurs
      2. An example of leveraging data densification
    9. Summary
  11. Formatting a Visualization to Look Great and Work Well
    1. Formatting considerations
    2. Understanding how formatting works in Tableau
      1. Worksheet level formatting
      2. Field-level formatting
      3. Additional formatting options
    3. Adding value to visualizations
      1. Tooltips
    4. Summary
  12. Telling a Data Story with Dashboards
    1. Dashboard objectives
    2. Example - is least profitable always unprofitable?
      1. Building the views
      2. Creating the dashboard framework
      3. Implementing actions to tell the story
    3. Designing for different displays and devices
    4. How actions work
      1. Filter actions
      2. Highlight actions
      3. URL actions
    5. Example - regional scorecard
    6. Stories
    7. Summary
  13. Deeper Analysis - Trends, Clustering, Distributions, and Forecasting
    1. Trending
      1. Customizing trend lines
      2. Trend models
      3. Analyzing trend models
    2. Clustering
    3. Distributions
    4. Forecasting
    5. Summary
  14. Making Data Work for You
    1. Structuring data for Tableau
      1. Good structure - tall and narrow instead of short and wide
        1. Wide data
        2. Tall data
        3. Wide and tall in Tableau
      2. Good structure - star schemas
    2. Techniques for dealing with data structure issues
      1. Restructuring data in Tableau connections
      2. Union files together
        1. Originals
        2. Prequels
        3. Sequels
      3. Cross-database joins
      4. Working with different Level of Detail
    3. Overview of advanced fixes for data problems
    4. Summary
  15. Advanced Visualizations, Techniques, Tips, and Tricks
    1. Advanced visualizations
      1. Slope chart
      2. Lollipop chart
      3. Waterfall chart
      4. Sparklines
      5. Dumbbell chart
      6. Unit chart/symbol chart
      7. Marimekko chart
    2. Sheet swapping and dynamic dashboards
      1. Dynamically showing and hiding other controls
    3. Advanced mapping techniques
      1. Supplementing the standard in geographic data
      2. Manually assigning geographic locations
      3. Creating custom territories
        1. Ad hoc custom territories
        2. Field – defined custom territories
      4. Some final map tips
    4. Using background images
    5. Animation
    6. Summary
  16. 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
    5. Summary
  17. Catching Up with Tableau 2018
    1. Tableau Desktop
      1. Data Source improvements
        1. Normalized extract (2018.3)
        2. Spatial join (2018.2)
        3. Other Data Source improvements
      2. Visualization improvements
        1. Density Mark (2018.3)
        2. Step and jump lines (2018.1)
        3. Worksheet transparency (2018.3)
        4. Dual Axis mapping (2018.1)
        5. Nested sort (2018.2)
        6. Hierarchy filtering (2018.1)
        7. Other improvements
      3. Dashboard improvements
        1. Extensions (2018.2)
        2. Dashboard navigation button (2018.3)
        3. Navigation action (2018.3)
        4. The Change Set Values action (2018.3)
        5. Automatic Mobile layouts (2018.2)
        6. Grids (2018.2)
    2. Tableau Server/Online
      1. Interacting
        1. Mixed content (2018.3)
        2. Mobile preview (2018.3)
        3. Comments (2018.2)
      2. Web authoring
        1. Connecting to data (2018.1)
        2. Other web authoring improvements
      3. Administration
        1. Tableau Service Manager (2018.2)
        2. Other administrative improvements
    3. Summary
  18. Deal with Security
    1. Tableau Server security
    2. User Filters
    3. Row-level filters
    4. Summary
  19. How to Keep Growing Your Skills
    1. The Tableau Community
    2. Tableau Public
    3. Community projects
    4. Ambassadors, Zen Masters, and Iron Viz
      1. Ambassadors
      2. Zen Masters
      3. Iron Viz
    5. Summary
  20. Other Books You May Enjoy
    1. Leave a review - let other readers know what you think

Product information

  • Title: Tableau 10 Complete Reference
  • Author(s): Joshua N. Milligan, Tristan Guillevin
  • Release date: December 2018
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781789957082