Learning Tableau 2019 Third Edition Tools for Business Intelligence, data prep, and visual analytics Joshua N Milligan BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI Learning Tableau 2019 Third Edition Copyright © 2019 Packt Publishing All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing or its dealers and distributors, will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to have been caused directly or indirectly by this book Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information Commissioning Editor: Vedika Naik Acquisition Editor: Joshua Nadar Content Development Editor: Chris D'cruz Technical Editor: Sagar Sawant Copy Editor: Safis Editing Project Coordinator: Hardik Bhinde Proofreader: Safis Editing Indexer: Rekha Nair Graphics: Tom Scaria Production Coordinator: Deepika Naik First published: April 2015 Second edition: September 2016 Third edition: March 2019 Production reference: 1220319 Published by Packt Publishing Ltd Livery Place 35 Livery Street Birmingham B3 2PB, UK ISBN 978-1-78883-952-5 www.packtpub.com mapt.io Mapt is an online digital library that gives you full access to over 5,000 books and videos, as well as industry leading tools to help you plan your personal development and advance your career For more information, please visit our website Why subscribe? Spend less time learning and more time coding with practical eBooks and Videos from over 4,000 industry professionals Improve your learning with Skill Plans built especially for you Get a free eBook or video every month Mapt is fully searchable Copy and paste, print, and bookmark content Packt.com Did you know that Packt offers eBook versions of every book published, with PDF and ePub files available? You can upgrade to the eBook version at www.packt.com and as a print book customer, you are entitled to a discount on the eBook copy Get in touch with us at customercare@packtpub.com for more details At www.packt.com, you can also read a collection of free technical articles, sign up for a range of free newsletters, and receive exclusive discounts and offers on Packt books and eBooks Contributors About the author Joshua N Milligan is a five-time Tableau Zen Master, the highest recognition of excellence from Tableau Software for masters and teachers of Tableau and collaborators within the community He was one of three Iron Viz Global finalists in 2017 He is passionate in serving others through data visualization and analytics As a consultant with Teknion Data Solutions since 2004, he has extensive real-world experience across many industries In addition to authoring every edition of Learning Tableau, he was a technical reviewer for Tableau Data Visualization Cookbook and Creating Data Stories with Tableau Public He shares Tableau and Tableau Prep tips on VizPainter and his Twitter handle is @VizPainter He lives with his family in Tulsa About the reviewers Dave Dwyer has a BSc in information systems from RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology), an MBA from Drexel University, and is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt and PMP In his 20+ years as an IT professional, he has worked in a wide range of technical and leadership roles, in companies ranging from start-ups to Fortune 100 enterprises A chance introduction to reporting and analytics 10 years ago got him hooked and he never left Dave believes that the data science landscape of analytics, visualization, big data, and machine learning will drive more genuine changes in business over the next 10 years than any other area Dmitry Anoshin is an expert in the field of analytics with 10 years of experience He started using Tableau as a primary BI tool in 2011 in his role as a BI consultant for Teradata He is certified with both Tableau Desktop and Server He leads probably the biggest Tableau user community with more than 2,000 active users This community has 2-3 Tableau talks every month, headed by the top Tableau experts, Tableau Zen Masters, and Viz Champions In addition, Dmitry has previously written three books with Packt and reviewed a further seven Finally, he is an active speaker at data conferences and helps to adopt cloud analytics S e c u ri ty G o o d U s e s The Tableau Server administrator may create sites, projects, and users and adjust permissions for each Access to the underlying data can be restricted, and downloading of the workbook or data can be restricted Internal dashboards and analytics and/or use across departments/ divisions/clients through multitenant sites The Tableau Server administrator may create projects and users and adjust permissions for each Access to the underlying data can be restricted, and downloading of the workbook or data can be restricted Internal dashboards and analytics Sharing and collaboration with remote users By default, anyone may download and view data; however, access to these options may be restricted by the author Sharing visualizations and dashboards using embedded views on publicfacing websites or blogs Publishing to Tableau Public You may open workbooks and save to Tableau Public using either Tableau Desktop or the free Tableau Public client application Please keep the following points in mind: In order to use Tableau Public, you will need to register an account With Tableau Desktop and the proper permissions, you may save and open workbooks to and from Tableau Public using the Server menu and selecting options under Tableau Public With the free Tableau Public client, you may only save workbooks to and from the web Anyone in the world can view what you publish Selecting the option to Manage Workbooks will open a browser so you can log in to your Tableau Public account and manage all your workbooks online Workbooks saved to Tableau Public may contain any number of data source connections, but they must all be extracted and must not contain more than 15 million rows of extracted data each Publishing to Tableau Server and Tableau Online Publishing to Tableau Server and Tableau Online is a similar experience To publish to Tableau Server or Tableau Online, from the menu select Server | Publish Workbook If you are not signed in to a server, you will be prompted to sign in: You must have a user account with publish permissions for one or more projects Enter the URL or IP address of the Tableau server or the Tableau online URL, your username, and password Once signed in, you will be prompted to select a site, if you have access to more than one Finally, you will see the publish screen: You have multiple options when you publish: Select the Project to which you wish to publish and Name your workbook If a workbook has already been published with the same name as the selected project, you will be prompted to overwrite it You may give the workbook a Description and use Add Tags to make searching for and finding your workbook easier You may also specify which Sheets to include in the published workbook Any sheets you check will be included; any you uncheck will not You may Edit user and group Permissions to define who has permission to view, interact with, and alter your workbook By default, the project settings are used You may Edit properties for data sources The options are described in detail in the next section You also have the option to Show Sheets as Tabs When checked, users on Tableau Server will be able to navigate between sheets using tabs similar to those shown at the bottom of Tableau Desktop This option must be checked if you plan to have actions that navigate between views Show Selections indicates that you wish any active selections of marks to be retained in the published views Editing the Data Sources gives you options for authentication and scheduling: For each data connection used in the workbook, you may determine how database connections are authenticated The options will depend on the data source as well the configuration of Tableau Server Various options include embedding a password, impersonating a user, or prompting a Tableau Server user for credentials You may specify a schedule for Tableau Server to run refreshes of any data extracts Any live connections or extracted connections that will be refreshed on the server must define connections that work from the server This means that all applicable database drivers must be installed on the server; all network, internet connections, and ports required for accessing database servers and cloud-based data must be open Additionally, any external files referenced by a workbook (for example, image files and non-extracted file-based data sources) that were not included when the workbook was published must be referenced using a location that is accessible by Tableau Server (for example, a network path with security settings allowing the Tableau Server process read access) Interacting with Tableau Server After a workbook is published to Tableau Server, other users will be able to view and interact with the visualizations and dashboards using a web browser Once logged in to Tableau Server, they will be able to browse content for which they have appropriate permissions These users will be able to use any features built into the dashboards such as quick filters, parameters, actions, or drill-downs Everything is rendered as HTML 5, so the only requirement for the user to view and interact with views and dashboards is an HTML 5-capable web browser The Tableau Mobile app, available for iOS and Android devices, can enhance the experience for mobile users Use Tableau's device designer to target layouts for specific devices For the most part, interacting with a workbook on Server or Online is very similar to interacting with a workbook in Tableau Desktop or Reader Quick filters, parameters, actions, and tooltips all look and behave similarly You will find some additional features: The top menu gives you various options related to managing and navigating Tableau Server Below that, you'll find a breadcrumb trail informing you which workbook and view you are currently viewing Beneath that, you'll find a toolbar that includes several features: Undo and Redo give you the ability to step backward and forward through interactions Revert gives you the ability to undo all changes and revert to the original dashboard Refresh reloads the dashboard and refreshes the data However, this does not refresh any extracts of the data Pause allows you to pause refreshing of the dashboard based on actions, filter selections, or parameter value changes until you have made all the changes you wish View allows you to save the current state of the dashboard based on selections, filters, and parameter values so you can quickly return to it at a later point You can also find your saved views here Alert allows you to set up a conditional alert When a mark in a view reaches a threshold you define, you will receive an alert through email Subscribe allows you to schedule periodic emails of a screenshot of the dashboard Administrators may also subscribe other users Edit allows you to edit the dashboard The interface is very similar to Tableau Desktop The Tableau Administrator can enable or disable web editing per user or group and also control permissions for saving of edited views Share gives you options for sharing the workbook These options include a URL you can distribute to other licensed users, as well as code for embedding the dashboard in a web page The Download button allows you to download the data, images of the dashboard, the pdf, or the workbook, as described earlier Comments gives you the ability to collaborate with other Tableau Server users by making comments on the view and responding to the comments of others Full Screen allows you to view the dashboard or view in full screen mode Additional distribution options using Tableau Server Tableau Server provides several other options for sharing your views, dashboards, and data Along with allowing users to sign in to Tableau Server, you might consider the following options: Dashboards, views, and story points can be embedded in websites, portals, and SharePoint Single-sign-on options exist to allow your website authentication to integrate seamlessly with Tableau Server Tableau Server allows users to subscribe to views and dashboards and schedule email delivery The email will contain an up-to-date image of the view and a link to the dashboard on Tableau Server The tabcmd utility is provided with Tableau Server and may be installed on other machines The utility provides the ability to automate many functions of Tableau Server including export features, publishing, and user and security management This opens up quite a few possibilities for automating delivery The REST API allows programmatic interaction with Tableau Server Summary Tableau is an amazing platform for exploring, prepping, and cleaning your data as you create useful and meaningful visualizations and dashboards to understand and communicate key insights We've considered how to connect to the data, write calculated fields, and design dashboards In this chapter, we considered how to share the results with others You now have a solid foundation At its core, Tableau is intuitive, transparent, and easy to use As you dive deeper, the simplicity becomes increasingly beautiful As you discover new ways to understand your data, solve complex problems, ask new questions, and find new answers in your data, your new Tableau skills will help you uncover new insights hidden in your data Other Books You May Enjoy If you enjoyed this book, you may be interested in these other books by Packt: Tableau 2019.x Cookbook Dmitry Anoshin ISBN: 9781789533385 Understand the basic and advanced skills of Tableau Desktop Implement best practices of visualization, dashboard, and storytelling Learn advanced analytics with the use of build in statistics Deploy the multi-node server on Linux and Windows Use Tableau with big data sources such as Hadoop, Athena, and Spectrum Cover Tableau built-in functions for forecasting using R packages Combine, shape, and clean data for analysis using Tableau Prep Extend Tableau’s functionalities with REST API and R/Python Mastering Tableau 2019.1 - Second Edition Marleen Meier, David Baldwin ISBN: 9781789533880 Get up to speed with various Tableau components Master data preparation techniques using Tableau Prep Discover how to use Tableau to create a PowerPoint-like presentation Understand different Tableau visualization techniques and dashboard designs Interact with the Tableau server to understand its architecture and functionalities Study advanced visualizations and dashboard creation techniques Brush up on powerful Self-Service Analytics, Time Series Analytics, and Geo-Spatial Analytics Leave a review - let other readers know what you think Please share your thoughts on this book with others by leaving a review on the site that you bought it from If you purchased the book from Amazon, please leave us an honest review on this book's Amazon page This is vital so that other potential readers can see and use your unbiased opinion to make purchasing decisions, we can understand what our customers think about our products, and our authors can see your feedback on the title that they have worked with Packt to create It will only take a few minutes of your time, but is valuable to other potential customers, our authors, and Packt Thank you! .. .Learning Tableau 2019 Third Edition Tools for Business Intelligence, data prep, and visual analytics Joshua N Milligan BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI Learning Tableau 2019 Third... In addition to authoring every edition of Learning Tableau, he was a technical reviewer for Tableau Data Visualization Cookbook and Creating Data Stories with Tableau Public He shares Tableau and Tableau Prep tips on VizPainter and his Twitter handle is... up signs that read I ♥ Tableau and excitedly share data visualizations on social media? Why do so many organizations turn to Tableau as the gold standard for visual analytics? How can an analytics platform be so fun,