How to Learn and Get Started with Tableau

An overview with many links.

Recently, I’ve had a few people ask me what steps I would recommend that they follow to facilitate their learning of Tableau and create their very own dashboard. This blog post should help you get started in making your very first visualisation (viz).

First of all, this link here has a detailed list to follow: Author a Viz in Tableau Desktop

Author a Viz in Tableau Desktop

It is hard to pinpoint an exact way to learn and get started with Tableau. Personally, my experience consisted of a lot of trial and error. I followed most of the steps under author a viz in Tableau and then watched a lot of YouTube videos (I will be sharing these later in the blog). My early vizzes are very cluttered, and you can probably see how excited I was to build and cram as much as I could. After joining the Information Lab, I learned how important it is to story tell rather than cram everything as well as the importance of chart choice. I will share some steps, key resources and tips to help you get started!

Download Tableau Desktop

Tableau Desktop

It’s free!

• You need this to build your vizzes.

Create a Tableau Public Account

Tableau Public

This will be the place where you post your vizzes and act as your portfolio.

• Whilst you’re here, follow lots of people for inspiration, search for things that you are interested in and even favourite a viz or two so that you can come back to it later.
• Check out the Viz of the Day:

https://public.tableau.com/app/discover/viz-of-the-day

• A lot of the work published on Tableau Public is downloadable. You can open up somebody’s work and pick it apart. I find that this is a great way to learn by reverse engineering.

Find some Data

Find data that you enjoy working with. I highly recommend this when starting out because you will understand the data enough not to have to worry about referencing a data dictionary constantly and your analysis will most certainly come across in a much more coherent manner.

• Sample Superstore Data: You will find this in your data connections pane as you can see:

A curated dataset, in a useable format that is easy to learn by using due to its diversity and richness in qualitative and quantitative data.

• Google Dataset Search

Dataset Search

• Kaggle

Kaggle: Your Machine Learning and Data Science Community

• Gov Websites

Find open data

Data.gov

• Sample Data

Resources

• Makeover Monday

Data is in a useable format. Less data preparation stress!

Data Sets | Makeover Monday

• Real World Fake Data:

Real World Fake Data

• Back to Viz Basics

Data is in a useable format. Allows you to focus in on a single area.

Back 2 Viz Basics's datasets

• Diversity in Data

Data is in a useable format. I love bringing awareness to issues through data so this is a great one.

DiversityinData's datasets

• Games Night Viz

GitHub - wjsutton/games_night_viz: #GamesNightViz is a 6-weekly Tableau community project focusing…

• ANYTHING. If you play any sports, you can collect and use your own data, or if you want to visualise your Netflix viewing data, you can do that too.
• This is simply a small list, there are a lot of community initiatives out there so do check them out here:

Community Projects

• I started out using a lot of Gov.uk data. The first real community project that I took part in was Makeover Monday. For me, #MakeoverMonday gave me a chance to pick on a chart and think about how best to articulate some data than worry too much about the data preparation. The initiative #BacktoVizBasics works in a very similar way.

Tidy that data

• If you are new to the world of data visualisation/ data you will learn really quickly that this is a key step before visualising.
• When I started, I used a lot of Gov.uk data which was structured with many columns, footnotes and table titles.
• Do you need all of the data columns for your analysis? Can you remove any unnecessary titles or footnotes?
• Import your data, drag the relevant sheet to the white space that says ‘Drag tables here’ and you will see the view populate.
• Here’s a tip. You can import your data, and then use Tableau’s Data Interpreter option to clean your data as much as possible. You can also use the data page to hide any unwanted columns. I’ve highlighted these in blue in the screenshot below.

• If you are familiar with ETL tools like Alteryx or Tableau Prep, you can use these to transform your data beforehand. It is really important to shape your data for your needs, but when starting out learning Tableau, I had enough on my plate that this process would have slowed it down entirely. Small transformations and additional columns could be added to excel very easily. My advice would be to pick a dataset that is already quite clean e.g. from Makeover Monday or even from downloading somebody’s viz from Tableau Public — If you do use their viz or data for inspiration or a build, ensure that you give them adequate credit.

You can now click on a worksheet and start building.

• Tableau is incredibly easy to pick up with its simple drag-and-drop interface.
• This is what you will see when you click on sheet 1. I have used Sample Superstore Data:

• I could break this down into every component to give you an explanation of your data pane, sheets, marks card, show me pane and more. You can also get this information from Tableau in the starter kit. I want to give you a good overview and the knowledge and ability to have a go.
• I learned through trial and error. I think that there is a balance of awareness and understanding as well as just doing it.
• You can use the show me pane to prompt you with what to drag and drop, but you may also want to build some charts without it.
• This is what I watched, paused and followed along: Andy Kriebel’s Tableau Zen Master Tips & Tricks — Charts Edition:

• There are SO many videos recorded by Andy. Makeover Monday follow-along videos, Tableau Tips, Interviews. I found it a lot easier to follow along with a YouTube video. If my view didn’t match, I just had to wind the video back and see what I may have missed. This helped me become more familiar with using the interface.
• Why not find one of the brilliant videos and build as many charts as you can? I promise you, you will come out of it feeling more knowledgeable.

I have my charts! How do I compile them?

• Create a dashboard or a story.
• You will notice that the icons at the bottom differ for a dashboard and a story. My personal preference is to create a dashboard but it entirely depends on what it is that you want to present and how you want to convey it.
• You can see the dashboard view below:

• It's important to note that there are many features within this section that could mean going into a lot of detail. Use the Tableau Resources to help you.
• When starting out, you will want to use the floating method or the typical containers to build your dashboard. The best way to lay your dashboard out is to use containers in this way as demonstrated by Curtis Harris:

• The reason I recommend this video is because if you are floating and then decide to increase the size of your dashboard, everything that you very carefully lined up moves.
• Hit ‘G’ on your keyboard to see the grid which can help with alignment.
• You can drag your sheets from the pane on the left into your canvas.
• You can add text, backgrounds, pictures and so much more from the objects pane.
• Use space carefully to separate your sections. Don’t go overboard with colour.

Let's publish this to Tableau Public!

• Hit Server > Tableau Public > Save to Tableau Public As

• Give this an appropriate name and voila! This will then appear in your Tableau Public page.
• You can then save over this at a later stage if you want to make any changes.
• If you want feedback, I highly recommend joining the data twitter community. Post a tweet saying that you are open to feedback, where to find your viz and post the hashtag #datafamfeedback. Don’t forget to connect with many people and say hi if you are new — everybody is very nice and welcoming.

I just want to reiterate that there is a lot of detail that I could go into for each part. I don’t know if you would want that all when you start and whether it may make it very hard to keep up. I wanted to give a good overview of the process and provide relevant links. If you are interested in hearing more about any area above, or about how to use Tableau public, navigating a worksheet and so on, please do let me know through a comment below or you can message me on:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/alishadhillon__

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisha-dhillon-146552142/

Good luck vizzing!

Resources

Tableau Starter Kit

https://www.tableau.com/learn/starter-kits/author/desktop

Tableau Free Training Videos

https://www.tableau.com/en-gb/learn/training/20221

Tableau Resources — How to videos/ Sample Data/ Community resources

https://public.tableau.com/en-gb/s/resources

Tableau Community Projects:

https://www.tableau.com/community/community-projects

Tableau Viz of the Day:

https://public.tableau.com/app/discover

Blue things and Green things by Tom Brown

https://www.theinformationlab.co.uk/2011/09/23/blue-things-and-green-things/

Things I know about Tableau Layout Containers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1gC05jyMS8&t=495s

Tableau Zen Master Tips & Tricks — Charts Edition

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5QN-fK2-wU

Free Tableau Training

https://www.theinformationlab.co.uk/training/tableau-essentials/

The Flerlage Twins — Useful blogs

https://www.flerlagetwins.com/