Tableau Tutorials for Beginners — Segment 4

Hello friends! Hope you have already read and enjoyed the Segment 3 of this tutorial. In case you have not yet, please take out 10 minutes of your valuable time to understand the concepts explained in Segment 3.

You can access it in this link ( Tableau Tutorials for Beginners — Segment 3)

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Today we will cover few basic operational points which are as below (before we start the next segment with the topics on actually creating visualizations) :

• Difference between TWB and TWBX file extensions in Tableau
• Difference between Sheet, Dashboard and Story
• Forward/Backward compatibility of tableau files
• Tableau Reader and why it is required

TWB and TWBX file extensions in Tableau

Tableau has two file types — you can save a tableau workbook either as .twb or .twbx file.

When you save a file as a .twb file — it contains only the structure or the skeleton of the visualizations, fields, dashboards etc that you have created based on the data source. However, if you want to share the .twb file to someone it wont be meaningful without sharing the data also. It is because without the related data source liked to it — a .twb file will not be able to display the output of the visualizations created. Hence, the size of the .twb will always be very small (few KBs at most of the time)

When you save a file as a .twbx file — it not only saves the structure or definitions of the visualizations that you have created, but also packages the data along with it. Hence if you share a .twbx file with someone, that person will be able to view all the elements created in the tableau workbook. Size of a .twbx will almost be equal to the size of the data.

Difference between Sheet, Dashboard and Story

In tableau — the individual charts/visualizations has to be created in a Sheet. You can create several sheets where there are requirement to create multiple different type of visualizations. Each sheet can have its own properties in terms of type of charts, filtering conditions, parameters etc.

If you want to display multiple visualizations objects in a single place — Dashboard is the place to do it. Dashboard can be called a collection of Sheets.

In the same way if you want to club multiple dashboards together in a single view — Story is the place to do it. Story can be called a collection of Dashboards.

Forward/Backward compatibility of tableau files

This is an operation point which need to be remembered, that a Tableau workbook created using a higher version of the software, will not open in a lower version ( i.e. it is not backward compatible) . However it is forward compatible, i.e. a tableau workbook created in a lower version can be opened using a higher version of the software.

Note: If you open a file created with lower version of tableau, using a higher version and then save it — the property of the file will become that of the higher version. You will not be able to open the file any more using the lower version

Tableau Reader and why it is required

Suppose you have shared a .TWBX file with someone from the business/leadership team because you want them to review it. They will be able to open it if they have Tableau Desktop license, but note that their intention is just to review and not to edit anything. In such a scenario getting a Tableau License is not a viable option because license is costly. In such a case, the Tableau Reader is the software to be used. It allows someone to open a tableau workbook in a read only mode and browse those all the visualization elements, perform filtering etc. — but they will not be able to make any edits. This is a free product from Tableau and is a useful one when you are not intending to make and edits to the workbook.