Use Tableau Prep to Join Datasets Together the Way You Want To

Contributed by: Carl Allchin

Difficulty level: Intermediate

Tableau Prep Builder is designed to let you make your and your colleagues’ analysis easier by preparing datasets ahead of loading the data into Tableau Desktop. With more data sources available to us than ever before, a consistent task is to link two different datasets together. This technique is called joining. In this Shortcut, you’ll learn how to simply drag datasets together and ensure the join is configured in the simplest way for you to understand.

The Basics of Joining Datasets

To join datasets together, click on the + icon on the right side of a step and select Join.

Figure 1. Adding a Join step to your flow

Next you will need to drag the Returns step toward the Join step that has been created. When you drag the second dataset toward the Join step, you’ll see an Add section appear to the left of the Join step. When you release the dragged data source over the Add section, a connection will appear between the Returns data and the Join step.

Figure 2. The visual result of connecting the two data sources to a Join step

Joining datasets together allows you to take a record from one dataset and link it with another. To do this, set a join clause that ...