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Tableau 8: The Official Guide

Tableau 8: The Official Guide

by George Peck
Publisher: McGraw-Hill
Release Date: August 2013
ISBN: 9780071816786
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Book Description

Present a unified view of complex BI using the entire Tableau 8 toolkit

Create and distribute dynamic, feature-rich data visualizations and highly interactive BI dashboards—quickly and easily! Tableau 8: The Official Guide provides the hands-on instruction and best practices you need to meet your business intelligence objectives and drive better decision making. Discover how to work from the Tableau GUI, load BI from disparate sources, drag and drop to analyze data, set up custom visualizations, and build robust dashboards. This practical guide shows you, step by step, how to design and publish meaningful business communications to end users across your enterprise.

  • Navigate the Tableau user interface and data window
  • Connect to spreadsheets, databases, and other sources
  • Select data fields and drag them to desired screen locations
  • Work with pre-defined visualizations and sample workbooks
  • Display background maps and perform geographic analysis
  • Add calculated fields, graphs, charts, tables, and statistics
  • Combine multiple data sources into real-time dashboards
  • Export your visualizations to the Web or in various file formats

Electronic content includes:

  • Videos that demonstrate the techniques presented in the book
  • Sample Tableau workbooks

Table of Contents

  1. Cover 
  2. About the Author
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright Page
  5. Contents at a Glance
  6. Contents 
  7. Acknowledgments
  8. About the Media Included with This Book
  9. Chapter 1: Introduction to Tableau 8
    1. What Is Tableau?
    2. Tableau User Interface
      1. The Data Window
      2. Shelves and Cards
    3. Basic Tableau Design Flow
  10. Chapter 2: Basic Visualization Design
    1. Using Show Me
    2. Choosing Mark Types
    3. Color, Size, Shape, and Label Options
      1. Choosing Color Options
      2. Setting Mark Size
      3. Choosing Shapes
      4. Text Tables and Mark Labels
    4. Formatting Options
    5. Evaluating Multiple Measures
      1. Shared Axis Charts
      2. Dual Axis Charts
  11. Chapter 3: Data Connection Details
    1. Connecting to Various Data Sources
      1. Adding and Joining Multiple Tables from the Same Database
    2. Customizing Your View of the Data
      1. Modifying Tableau’s Default Field Assignments
      2. Hiding, Renaming, and Combining Fields
      3. Changing Default Field Appearance
      4. Using Hierarchies, Groups, and Sets
      5. Saving and Sharing Metadata
    3. Extracting Data
    4. Data Blending
    5. Moving from Test to Production Databases
  12. Chapter 4: Top 10 Chart Types
    1. Bar Chart
    2. Line/Area Chart
      1. Tableau 8 Forecasting
    3. Pie Chart
    4. Text Table/Crosstab
    5. Scatter Plot
    6. Bubble Chart
    7. Bullet Graph
    8. Box Plot
    9. Tree Map
    10. Word Cloud
  13. Chapter 5: Interacting with the Viewer
    1. Filtering Data
      1. Basic Filtering
      2. Interactive Filtering
      3. Quick Filters
    2. Parameters
      1. Creating a Parameter
      2. Displaying a Parameter
      3. Using a Parameter in a Worksheet
    3. Worksheet Actions
      1. Filter Actions
      2. Highlight Actions
      3. URL Actions
  14. Chapter 6: Tableau Maps
    1. Geocoded Fields
      1. Geographic Hierarchies and Ambiguity
      2. Custom Geocoding
    2. Background Maps and Layers
      1. Map Options
      2. Web Map Services
    3. Mapping and Mark Types
    4. Custom Background Images
      1. Generating Your Own Coordinate System
      2. Adding a Custom Background Image
  15. Chapter 7: Calculated Fields, Table Calculations, and Statistics
    1. Creating Calculated Fields
      1. Numeric Calculations
      2. String Manipulation
      3. Date Calculations
      4. Logic Constructs
      5. Creating Binned Fields
    2. Table Calculations
    3. Reference Lines, Bands, and Distribution
      1. Single Reference Line
      2. Reference Band
      3. Reference Distribution
    4. Trend Lines
  16. Chapter 8: Creating Dashboards
    1. Creating a Simple Dashboard
      1. Tiled Placement
      2. Floating Placement
      3. Associated Dashboard Elements
    2. Advanced Dashboard Elements
      1. Layout Container
      2. Blank
      3. Text
      4. Image
      5. Web Page
      6. Setting Dashboard and Element Sizes
    3. Dashboard Actions
      1. Highlight Action
      2. Filter Action
      3. URL Action
  17. Chapter 9: Distributing and Sharing Your Visualizations
    1. Exporting Worksheets and Dashboards
      1. Printing to PDF Format
      2. Exporting Worksheet Data
      3. Exporting Worksheet Images
      4. Exporting Dashboard Images
    2. Using Tableau Reader
    3. Publishing to the Web
      1. Sharing on Tableau Public
      2. Publishing to Tableau Server and Tableau Online
      3. Using Tableau with iPad, Android, and Other Smartphones and Tablets
  18. Appendix: Function Reference
    1. Number Functions
      1. ABS
      2. ACOS
      3. ASIN
      4. ATAN
      5. ATAN2
      6. COS
      7. COT
      8. DEGREES
      9. EXP
      10. LN
      11. LOG
      12. MAX
      13. MIN
      14. PI
      15. POWER
      16. RADIANS
      17. ROUND
      18. SIGN
      19. SIN
      20. SQRT
      21. SQUARE
      22. TAN
      23. ZN
    2. String Functions
      1. ASCII
      2. CHAR
      3. CONTAINS
      4. ENDSWITH
      5. FIND
      6. ISDATE
      7. LEFT
      8. LEN
      9. LOWER
      10. LTRIM
      11. MAX
      12. MID
      13. MIN
      14. RIGHT
      15. RTRIM
      16. SPACE
      17. STARTSWITH
      18. TRIM
      19. UPPER
    3. Date Functions
      1. DATEADD
      2. DATEDIFF
      3. DATENAME
      4. DATEPART
      5. DATETRUNC
      6. DAY
      7. ISDATE
      8. MAX
      9. MIN
      10. MONTH
      11. NOW
      12. TODAY
      13. YEAR
    4. Type Conversion Functions
      1. DATE
      2. DATETIME
      3. FLOAT
      4. INT
      5. STR
    5. Logical Functions
      1. CASE
      2. IF
      3. IFNULL
      4. IIF
      5. ISDATE
      6. ISNULL
      7. ZN
    6. Aggregate Functions
      1. ATTR
      2. AVG
      3. COUNT
      4. COUNTD
      5. MAX
      6. MEDIAN
      7. MIN
      8. STDEV
      9. STDEVP
      10. SUM
      11. VAR
      12. VARP
    7. Pass-Through Functions
      1. RAWSQLAGG_BOOL
      2. RAWSQLAGG_DATE
      3. RAWSQLAGG_DATETIME
      4. RAWSQLAGG_INT
      5. RAWSQLAGG_REAL
      6. RAWSQLAGG_STR
      7. RAWSQL_BOOL
      8. RAWSQL_DATE
      9. RAWSQL_DATETIME
      10. RAWSQL_INT
      11. RAWSQL_REAL
      12. RAWSQL_STR
    8. User Functions
      1. FULLNAME
      2. ISFULLNAME
      3. ISMEMBEROF
      4. ISUSERNAME
      5. USERDOMAIN
      6. USERNAME
    9. Table Calculation Functions
      1. FIRST
      2. INDEX
      3. LAST
      4. LOOKUP
      5. PREVIOUS_VALUE
      6. RUNNING_AVG
      7. RUNNING_COUNT
      8. RUNNING_MAX
      9. RUNNING_MIN
      10. RUNNING_SUM
      11. SIZE
      12. TOTAL
      13. WINDOW_AVG
      14. WINDOW_COUNT
      15. WINDOW_MAX
      16. WINDOW_MEDIAN
      17. WINDOW_MIN
      18. WINDOW_STDEV
      19. WINDOW_STDEVP
      20. WINDOW_SUM
      21. WINDOW_VAR
      22. WINDOW_VARP
  19. Index