In this Tableau tutorial for beginners, you will learn Tableau online from the basics. Tableau is a powerful business intelligence and data visualization tool. It is extensively used for creating and distributing highly interactive and powerful reports and dashboards that depict the data in a visually appealing form like trends, variations, charts, graphs, plots, and so on.
Tableau tutorial will be covering the following topics:
Tableau Tutorial for Beginners
With data serving as the brick and mortar of modern-day organizations, it has become inevitable for them to make the maximum sense of data sources. However, data is made available in its complex raw form. Therefore, understanding it with the basic human eye becomes difficult. This is where Tableau comes in. This effective Tableau data visualization tool takes in data and generates intuitive reports based on data inputs. Many successful enterprises are using Tableau. The average salary of a Tableau expert is around $106,000.
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Tableau Tutorial for Beginners Tableau Tutorial for Beginners
Tableau can connect to a large number of files, relational and big data files to acquire and process the data. The tableau tool can blend all types of data like relational, unstructured and big data sources for acquiring and processing of data.
In this Tableau for beginners’ blog, you will learn Tableau which makes it easy for business professionals to work with real-time collaboration and making it easy for analysis. Tableau is a distinct leader in the business intelligence and analytics platform as per the Gartner Magic Quadrant.
Prepare yourself for the industry by going through this Top Tableau Interview Questions and Answers!
What is Tableau?
Tableau is one of the top business intelligence and analytics tool as confirmed by none other than Gartner. It is extensively used by organizations to make sense of data in a visually insightful format. Tableau can work with any kind of data be it structured, unstructured and semi-structured. Also, Tableau is able to connect with a lot of other tools, platforms like Hadoop, R Programming and so on. You don’t need any technical knowledge to learn Tableau.
| Criteria |
What makes Tableau unique |
| Technical skills |
No technical skills needed to work with Tableau |
| Get fast answers |
Possible |
| Types of data |
Tableau can work with any type of data |
| User experience |
Extremely user-friendly |
In this Tableau dashboard tutorial, you will get a step-by-step understanding of this top business intelligence and tableau data visualization tool.
Using Tableau, you can answer any business question provided the data exists for it in some format. Tableau has scores of features using which you can dice and slice the data and then convert it into stunning visualizations. Once the data is depicted in the form of bars, charts, graphs, plots you will be able to shed more light on the same data. You can detect hidden patterns, relationships, trends, and new meaning so that you can make a well informed and valuable business decision.
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Tableau Tutorial for Beginners Tableau Tutorial for Beginners
Why Tableau
This is the most important topic that every Tableau Tutorial has. Below are some of the features of Tableau that makes it different from other Business Intelligence tools:
Tableau connects with multiple data sources and supports larger datasets for accurate visualization. It uses a drill-down approach to reach that reveal the relationship between the independent variables. Also, the user can jump between different visualizations without any problem.
Compared to other Data Visualization tools, Tableau enables the user to show the relationship between different data variables using the various shapes, figures, labels, colors, etc.
Tableau can connect with more data sources and handle huge datasets without affecting the performance of the data engine. In addition, the augmented analytics helps users with different skill sets perform data cleaning and visualization.
Tableau has many ways to find out the solution to the questions asked by the user. From basic trends to advanced ‘what if’ queries, Tableau has the best features for data discovery and predictive analytics.
Tableau has a growing community of experienced data scientists and business analysts from all around the world. Unlike other BI tools, you can easily find the solution to the problems you’re facing in Tableau without having much trouble. Also, you can grasp knowledge on Tableau through various open-source projects on GitHub.
To save your time and efforts in Tableau, you can create processing and apply the same
Calculations on different visualizations. For example, you can create a field by adding a formula and apply it to all the rows in that data source. For recurring processes, its’ an easy and effective way of creating visualizations.
Tableau supports the most data sources which makes it easier to connect, clean, and identify hidden patterns in the raw data. It can access large datasets and from both On-premise and On-cloud sources without stressing out the system. It supports both the live-connection and In-memory data extraction process.
In live-connection, the data gets refreshed periodically and the visualizations get updated accordingly. Whereas, In-memory loads up the entire dataset in the Tableau interface and proceed to the visualization process.
Learn more about Tableau in this insightful content on Tableau training!
Importance Of Data Visualization
Data visualization in Tableau is an important part of the data analytics process. It helps the data scientists to present the raw information in an understandable format So much so, that even an anon-technical user can use the visualization to make better decisions. Therefore, a data scientist should master data visualization skills to better communicate with the end-users.
Data visualization allows the data scientists to effectively convey the outcome of data analysis with the end-users, which enables them to identify the hidden patterns in the data. It also helps the decision-makers to comprehend the exact situation and performance of the business, so that they can make better decisions.
To companies, visualizing the raw information enables them to discover the factors affecting their growth and the areas they want to improve in. In addition, it helps them to identify the relationship between the independent variables and calculate the risks of changing them.
Data Visualization Tools
Below are some of the best Data visualization tools used by various enterprises around the globe:
- Tableau: Tableau is a popular BI tool used by various organizations for data analysis, visualization, report generation, and publication. It has a simple and easy-to-use interface that allows the users to connect, clean, and transform the raw data into meaningful insights.
Tableau can connect with both On-premise and On-cloud data sources such as Excel Spreadsheets, CSV files, Open Database Connectivity(ODBC), Oracle, Azure, Google BigQuery, etc. Tableau is used by many companies for tasks such as sales data analysis, consumer segmenting, tracking budget expenses, customer behavior analysis, categorizing data, predictive modeling, etc.
- Excel: Excel is a popular spreadsheet application that carries some of the best visualization tools under its hood. A skilled professional can perform complex calculations and data visualization in Excel.
For internal use, Excel can be used to quickly explore the information stored in the spreadsheets and visualize it in the form of charts and graphs. However, it is limited in terms of data connectivity and graphics used to create professional reports and dashboards.
- Microsoft Power BI: Power BI yet another powerful tool used by various companies to implement BI capabilities. It’s a collection of various tools and techniques that allows the user to perform data analytics and visualization to make visually interactive reports and dashboards.
Power BI uses AI tools such as Power Query and Power Q&A that allow the user to visualize raw information and create highly customized reports. Even the non-technical users can use Power BI to find the hidden patterns in the business data.
- Domo: Domo is a cloud-based BI platform that allows the business to perform data analytics and make data-driven decisions for better performance. Domo’s business cloud is an open-source platform that connects the user with varied sources of both structured and unstructured data.
Domo provides the ability of real-time data visualization which can be used to create live dashboards and reports. The excellent UI features enable the user to create an interactive display with sparklines, dashboards, and useful widgets.
- Qlikview: Qlikview is a real-time operational BI environment used for visual data analytics. Compared to other BI tools, Qlikview cannot perform the same level of visualization. However, you can analyze your data in multiple dimensions with the help of its dynamic models.
Qlikview provides multiple ad hoc queries that result in quick decision making and easy access to the information. Also, it can connect with multiple data sources and combine them into single dashboards and reports by visualizing the raw information.
Applications of Tableau
Tableau is such a powerful tool that it can be used in any industry since the best part is that Tableau can work with any kind of data. So here in this Tableau for beginners blog, we will list some of the applications of Tableau in the real world.
- Come up with quick visualizations and insights on disparate sources of data
- You can leverage the power of your databases& optimize query performance
- Work with statistical analysis like trending and forecasting features
- Deploy extreme data discovery and come up with unknown insights
- Easily connect with computer programming languages for powerful table calculations
- Work with data in the most intuitive, interactive manner through Tableau dashboards
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Why should you learn Tableau?
Tableau is one of the most demanded business intelligence tools in the industry today. So due to the widespread use of this top data visualization tool, there is a shortage of professionals who can work with this tool. Thus, the salaries for Tableau professionals are among the best in the IT industry. This is one of the most powerful reasons why you should learn Tableau. Other than that, you should learn Tableau online for the following reason:
- Data visualization and predictive analytics is a norm in every industry today
- Tableau can work with any data warehousing and ETL tool making it highly versatile
- Tableau is constantly updating making the future for a career in Tableau highly promising
- Tableau has a big growing community thus making it easy to learn Tableau and excel
- You don’t need any specialized skills or programming languages for learning Tableau.
If you have any doubts or Queries related to Tableau, get it clarifies from Tableau Experts on Tableau Community.
Tableau Product Family
There are different Tableau products that work in conjunction and help the user seamlessly transfer the data and create data visualizations and generate reports. Below are the Tableau products or components:
Tableau Desktop allows the user to connect the data from different sources and build, dashboards, stories, and workbooks, With the Tableau Desktop and website, you can share all the insights with other users and publish the workbooks on the Tableau site.
On Tableau Desktop, the user can run direct queries on the datasets without writing the codes. You just have to write the columns you want to include and type in the visualizations such as a chart, table, graph, and map. Moreover, Tableau Desktop combines multiple views from varied data sources in single dashboards.
Tableau Server is used for publishing the reports and workbooks created on the Tableau Desktop. It enables the user to access workbooks and reports from anywhere in the world.
With Tableau Server, you can access the latest content and gain live access to workbooks and reports generated by other users. Also, the administrator of Tableau Server can set an authorization on certain projects, views, workbooks, and data sources to maintain security.
It’s a free application that you can install on your desktop and use to view the data visualizations built by the users on Tableau Desktop. On Tableau Reader, you can view, interact, add filters, and drill down the data without altering the original datasets and visualizations.
This Tableau Public tutorial also demonstrates how it’s free software that anyone can use to analyze the data and create visualizations. You can create workbooks or reports and save them in the Tableau Server, but anyone can see those visualizations as its open for everyone.
Tableau Online is a cloud platform that makes it easy to publish and share the dashboards with other users. It helps you and your colleagues to work on a project and extract valuable information that can convert them into visually interactive workbooks. These visuals can be accessed by the website, Tableau Desktop, and Tableau mobile applications.
How To Use Tableau
This is another topic that is present in any of the Tableau tutorials. You have to follow three basic steps to use Tableau Desktop for creating data visualizations:
- Connect the data
- Play around with the Interface
- Create data visualizations
Connect the Data
On the left side of Tableau Desktop, you will the options to connect your data from different sources. You can connect your Tableau Desktop with the local file and the server.
Some of the Tableau supports various data sources such as Excel spreadsheets, local databases, statistical, text, and CSV files. You can also connect with the data servers like the Tableau Server, Google Analytics, Google BigQuery, Hadoop Hive, Oracle database, MySQL, IBM DB2, and SAP at higher speeds.
After connecting the datasets, you can play around with your data, clean it, and integrate various datasets for better insights.
Go through our blog on Tableau Parameters to learn more in detail
Play around with the Interface
After loading your datasets, an interface will appear on the screen with various features and datasets. Below is the image of the user interface where you can play around with your data and proceed to the workbooks section from the bottom left corner.
Create Visualizations
The workbook interface will show all the features required to create stunning visualizations. The variables of your datasets will appear on the left side and visuals being on the right side under the Show Me section.
Now, you can select the data variable and Tableau will highlight the visualizations compatible with the variables. For example, Tableau will highlight the maps and geographical visuals if you select a country variable.
The table below shows the appropriate applications of the popular visuals:
| Visualization |
Application |
| Line Graph |
Mainly used for continuous dimensions |
| Bar Graph |
Used when the dimension is not continuous |
| Dual Axis Graph |
Used to present two different variable or measures together |
| Geographical Graph |
Used to measure the sales and other plots on geographical maps |
| Area Graph |
Used to compare the measures |
| TreeMap |
Used to present the quantities in nested rectangles |
| Heat Map |
Used for measuring the variations across various categories |
Tableau Charts Tutorial
Data Scientists use Tableau to create vibrant and interactive reports that can be understood by almost anyone. Tableau offers a variety of charts, graphs, and maps used for analyzing business data. Tableau charts to visualize the data as per the requirements and simply present the data.
Below is the list of Tableau Charts that are available in Tableau Desktop:
- Text Label: These charts are used to create crosstabs or Pivot data, where the dimensions are kept in their respective columns and rows.
- Heat Maps: It shows the data in tabular format with different colors.
- Highlight Table: Highlight tables are used to display the categorical with colors.
- Symbol Maps: Used to visualize geographical data in the form of bubbles.
- Maps: Visualize geographical data displayed on the maps.
- Pie Chart: Used to visualize the data in conditioned with two or more data variables/dimensions.
- Horizontal Bars: Mainly used to compare one dimension with another, For example, charts comparing the sales in different years.
- Stacked Bars: Further divides the horizontal to add multiple dimensions.
- Side-by-Side Bars: Used to compare independent variables by grouping them.
- Circle View: The circle view displays the numerical data in circles instead of bars.
- Line Chart: Used to show the latest trends, demand, or sales of the products and services.
- Dual Lines: Used to compare two or more products and trends.
- Area Chart: Graphically represents the quantitive data.
- Discrete Area Charts: Used to show quantitive data in discrete areas.
- Scatter Plot: Scatter plot is used to find the relationship between two variables. It is also used to create regression models.
- Histogram: Used to visualize the statistical data in the specified range.
- Gantt Chart: Used to determine the duration of any activity or event.
- Bullet Graph: Used to compare various measures and dimensions and visualize them.
- Bubble Chart: Used to compare two variables and represent the data in the form of bubbles. For example, higher sales in certain areas will be in the bigger bibbles as compared to other areas with fewer sales.
Learn about the difference between Tableau’s Heatmap and Treemap in our blog at Tree Map vs Heat Map!
Tableau Maps Tutorial
Tableau maps are the most convenient way to visualize geographical data. Maps are mainly used for visualizations that compare two or more dimensions. Below is the list of popular Tableau maps with varied applications:
- Proportional Symbol Maps: These maps are mainly used to visualize the quantitative data for particular locations. Here, you can add data of two or more quantities or variables per location. For example, the data on Earthquakes that occurred in the previous decade with the magnitude can be represented as proportional symbol maps.
- Choropleth Maps: Also known as filled maps, choropleth maps represent statistical or ration data of geographical areas in the form of sharing patterns. For example, Choropleth maps can be used to represent the climate changes, pollution level, gender distribution, literacy level, in various countries or the entire globe.
- Point Distribution Maps: They represent the data points are shared in particular locations. Point Distribution maps are also used to visualize the events that occurred at a specific time. To create the distribution maps, your data source should have information about the latitude and longitude.
- Heat Map: Also known as density maps, heat maps are generally used to visualize large volumes of data and spot trends that help the user to make better decisions. For example, you can create a heat map of your site data and see the users coming on your site from different locations.
- Flow Maps: Flow or path maps in Tableau shows the path or the journey of a particular thing from one place to another. Thunderstorm or hurricane would the best example for this one. The flow map of a hurricane will show its path from the origin to the end over a period of time.
- Spider Map: These are best known as the origin-destination maps, which show the path for multiple destinations and single-origin or location. A perfect example of a spider map would the visualization of migrants’ data, who moved from one area or country to different locations.
Tableau Top Features and Strengths
Here we list some of the most important strengths and salient features of Tableau which makes it a highly desired tool in the corporate world today:
- Highly interactive tableau data visualization
- Easily implementable
- Handling large amounts of data
- Use of other scripting languages
- Responsive dashboard and support
- Different products for different users
- High-performance technology
- No need of any technical expertise.
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Tableau learning provides solutions for all kinds of industries, departments, and data environments. Following are some unique features that enable Tableau to handle diverse scenarios.
- High-speed analysis: It requires a high level of programming knowledge. If you have access to data then you can start deriving value from it.
- It is reliable: It does not need a complex software setup. The desktop version is used by most for installing the features for starting and completing the data analysis.
- Visual Discovery–This is a top feature of Tableau that helps you explore and analyze the data using various parameters like charts, colors, trend lines, and graphs. All the aspects are done by drag and drop and very little scripting is required.
- Blending Diverse Data Sets–You will be able to blend the various data sets like relational, non-relational, structured, semi-structured data sets without the need for integrating the data. You can do all these without knowing how this data is stored.
- Device agnostic– Tableau works exceedingly well with various kinds of devices. You don’t have to worry about the various software and hardware configurations.
- Collaborate in real-time– You can collaborate with your peers in real-time and come up with stunning visualizations.
- Real-Time Collaboration− Tableau can filter, sort, and discuss data on the fly and embed a live dashboard in portals like SharePoint site or Salesforce. You can save your view of data and allow colleagues to subscribe to your interactive dashboards, so they see the very latest data just by refreshing their web browser.
- Centralized Data − Tableau server provides a centralized location to manage all of the organization’s published data sources. You can delete, change permissions, add tags, and manage schedules in one convenient location. It’s easy to schedule extract refreshes and manage them in the data server. Administrators can centrally define a schedule for extracts on the server for both incremental and full refreshes.
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Recommended Audience
This step-by-step Tableau tutorial for beginners is designed for all those learners who want to grasp knowledge on tableau for free and work in the business intelligence domain. Anybody who wants to be in data analytics, data visualization, project managers can go through this Tableau Desktop tutorial for beginners and learning tableau will become easy. There are no prerequisites as such to learn from this Tableau basic tutorial.
If you have a basic idea of various visualization options like graphs and charts, then it is beneficial. While going through Tableau topic, you must have come across a few important questions related to tableau such as Is Tableau easy to learn, what is Tableau tool and Can I use Tableau for free?
Let me clarify all these questions for your better understanding.
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Is Tableau easy to learn?
Tableau is one of the fastest evolving data visualization tools which is majorly used in BI i.e. Business Intelligence industry. It is very fast to deploy, easy to learn, user-friendly and very intuitive to use for a customer
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What is Tableau tool?
Tableau is an emerging powerful and fastest-growing data visualization tool that is widely used in the Business Intelligence Industry. It helps to simplify raw data into a very easy and understandable format. Tableau does data analysis very fast and the visualizations created are in the form of dashboards.
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Can I use Tableau for free?
Tableau Public is free software that allows you to connect to a spreadsheet or file and you can also create interactive data visualizations for the web. Tableau Reader is also free and allows you to open and interact with data visualizations that are built in Tableau Desktop