Use Tableau Prep to Make Workflow Documentation Easier

Contributed by: Carl Allchin

Difficulty level: Easy

Tableau Prep Builder is designed to allow more people to prepare their own data for analysis without the need for complex coding. You likely need to validate what you have done with others in your organization or potentially hand over the work to someone else to run on a longer term basis. Documenting your work is an important part of the process. The good news is that the visual nature of Prep workflows means you don’t have to work too hard to make it easy for others to understand your logic.

The basic flow you create as you change your input data into your desired output can document the actions you’ve taken. The examples in this Shortcut are all from the demo flow available when you download Tableau Prep Builder.

There are four main ways you can document your flow: by using color, naming the steps, adding step descriptions, and adding calculation descriptions. Let’s walk through each option.

Using Color

You will probably notice that as soon as you add a new data set to a Prep flow, the Input Step icon will be allocated a color.

Figure 1. Input Step allocated a dark blue color

Any subsequent step flowing from the Input Step will be assigned the same color. This makes it easy to trace the input data set through the flow and determine what major changes have been ...