Bronze Study Guide

Question 1

What is the difference between these Tableau desktop products: Personal, and Professional?

Answer 1

1. Personal only connects to flat files (Excel, Access, CSV, and Tableau Data Extract.)
2. No publishing to Server with personal.

Question 2

What is the difference between MAINTENANCE on these Tableau server products: Server, Online, and Public?

Answer 2

Tableau Online (no SLA) and Tableau Public are maintained by Tableau, while Tableau Server is maintained by the customer.

Question 3

What is the difference between DATA FLOW on these Tableau server products: Server, Online, and Public?

Answer 3

Any data source can connect directly with Tableau Server. Non cloud based data sources must be pushed to Tableau Online via a data extract.

Question 4

What is the difference between SECURITY on these Tableau server products: Server, Online, and Public?

Answer 4

Data and visualizations are secure in Tableau Online and Tableau Server. Tableau Online complies with SSAE-16 and US-EU Safer Harbor principles, but is not HIPPA or FERPA compliant. Row level data can be protected in Tableau Public, but anyone view can the visualizations published.

Question 5

What is the difference between LICENSING on these Tableau server products: Server, Online, and Public?

Answer 5

Tableau Server is licensed for the entire server. Tableau Online is licensed by the site. Public and Public premium is licensed by the individual user.

Question 6

What is the difference between AUTHENTICATION on these Tableau server products: Server, Online, and Public?

Answer 6

Tableau Public and Online are authenticated via a Tableau generated ID. Server authentication supports authentication or active directory. Server also supports authentication with trusted tickets, or SAML.

Question 7

What is the difference between ENVIRONMENT on these Tableau server products: Server, Online, and Public?

Answer 7

Tableau Server, Online, and Public are all web based methods of sharing content from Tableau Desktop. Reader is desktop application to open and view content from Tableau Desktop.

Question 8

Can I use Tableau Desktop on a Mac?

Answer 8

You sure can! Tableau Desktop can be installed on both Mac and Windows operating systems.

Question 9

I have a Mac work laptop, but they also give us Windows desktop workstations? Am I allowed to install on both?

Answer 9

Yes, as long as you are the only person who uses both of those computers, you can install it on both.

Question 10

When I open Tableau on my Mac I am not able to connect to Netezza (or X database). Am I missing something?

Answer 10

While Tableau Desktop for Mac has all the same functionality as Tableau Desktop for Windows, unfortunately some database vendors have not developed drivers for Macs. Since Tableau uses the native database drivers to connect to all the databases you see in the ‘Connect To Data’ window, it is possible Tableau for Mac may only be able to connect to a subset of the databases you have in your organization.
However, this is a perfect time to use the Tableau Data Server! If another user has published a data source to the Tableau Data Server, you will be able to leverage that data source in your Tableau Desktop to connect to databases that you could not connect directly to from your Mac. In this scenario Tableau Server acts as a Proxy (middle-man) between you and the database to relay all queries and data between the two. This means you do not need to worry about having any drivers on your computer. Yay!

Question 11

If my co-worker who has Tableau Desktop for Windows sends me a workbook file, will I be able to open in in my Tableau Desktop for Mac?

Answer 11

Heck yea! All files are completely interchangeable between Windows and Mac as long as they use extracts. If you need a live connection to a database make sure those drivers are available on Mac.

Question 12

Do Tableau products work in a virtual environment (VM)?

Answer 12

Yes! It’s recommended for dedicated hardware in a VM environment and provision it with minimum hardware requirements.

Question 13

What API support does Tableau offer?

Answer 13

1. Tableau Data Extract API- Create a program to bring data from a non-supported data source into Tableau. The program will automate Tableau Data Extract datasource creation.
2. Javascipt API- For deeply embedding vizzes inside intranet/extranet applications.
3. Rest API- Representational State Transfer API. For server automation such as user/group replication, lifecycle management, portal wrappers.

Question 14

Why use Tableau? What value does Tableau deliver?

Answer 14

Tableau allows anyone to explore and answer questions of their data. We enable powerful analytics with a focus on self-service; this promotes speed, ease, and powerful insights. While there is a learning curve, an Excel literate user will see increased productivity immediately, by spending more time asking questions of their data. The here is that users are able to quickly iterate through an analytical cycle of asking and being able to answer their own questions, which lead to more questions, and the cycle continues, They are able to this both independently and in collaboration with IT resources, Tableau customers have a more complete picture of their projects and more options when decision need to be made.

Question 15

Who usually uses Tableau within a company?

Answer 15

Tableau’s mission is to help people see and understand their data. ‘People’ means anyone with questions about data, from elementary students, scientists, doctors, executives, anyone! There is lots of pent-up anxiety and curiosity that can be resolved through data analysis. Ask around? Who has enough information to feel comfortable making decisions and understanding what is and what is possible?

Question 16

How long does it take to learn Tableau?

Answer 16

It’s extremely easy to install Tableau Desktop or Server, connect to data, and begin exploring data, but every customer has unique requirements. The learning curve really depends on the analysis and the environment where Tableau is deployed. To answer this question more precisely, let’s start a guided evaluation. Participation is mutual. We’ll guide you through a use case of your choosing. In return, we ask for your employee’s participation. You’ll see just how quickly YOUR employees can answer questions THEY have of THEIR own data.

Question 17

We have a BI standard. How does Tableau differ?

Answer 17

Tableau is a qualitatively different software built to a higher standard, a human standard, than legacy tools in the market. We challenge you to find another software that is as easy for business users to ask and answer questions iteratively. Empowering users in this way makes a difference for every employee and for the organizational culture as well. Tableau’s DRIVE methodology tackles organizational and technical issues associated with broad based, self-service analytics roll-out.

Question 18

I have free analytical software, why buy Tableau?

Answer 18

A lot of our customers own free software. They choose Tableau because it’s the highest productivity and most enjoyable tool to use on the market. The Tableau purchase price is far less than the cost of user sanity and time. Tableau helps remedy some of the effects of free tools like a lack of a single source of data, missing collaboration, too many manual reports, or poorly made or missed decisions. Does this sound familiar?

Question 19

How does Tableau help guarantee success?

Answer 19

Overall, Tableau software has one of the highest average customer satisfaction ratings for analytical software. We ensure success with our software in many ways.

1. With your purchase, you enter into a customer success program where we contact you to make sure you are achieving an expected or higher ROI from Tableau.
2. Maintenance that includes first come-first serve tech support help on any issue, including user implementation questions, and no cost upgrades to the latest release.
3. Participation in Tableau’s community forum to share ideas with fellow members.
4. Complimentary resources like A-Z tutorial videos, weekly live training, and articles available through Tableau.com.
5. Tableau’s annual customer conference. We give you the best we have to offer in the form of support, interactive activities, customer speakers and customer collaboration.

Question 20

What separates Tableau from competitors?

Answer 20

1. Time to Value: Tableau takes less time to deploy than many other BI tools. No programming skills are required!
2. Designed for Flow: Making the interface “disappear” has been a design goal since our founding 10 years ago. No other software allows the user to focus on the data as well as Tableau.
3. Visual Analytics: In Tableau Desktop you define both the chart and the query in one step and can do so by directly interacting with the visualization rather than first defining a query, then taking the resulting table and applying it to a chart.
4. Agile Data Connections: Tableau has 40+ tuned, live data connections to on premise, cloud and file based data sources. Keep your data where it is, we’ll connect to it and leverage your investment in data architecture, or you can create data extracts for fast I memory queries and sharing. Plus Tableau supplies a data engine for additional data support right out of the box.

Question 21

What languages does Tableau support?

Answer 21

English, Spanish, French, Simplified Chinese, German, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, and Japanese

Question 22

What is the installation like for a Tableau Server?

Answer 22

This depends on the installation environment and available hardware. A single server is pretty easy. A cluster is relatively easy as well but will take time to align and configure each server within the cluster. For optimum performance always make sure there is more hardware than the minimum requirements. We recommend a guided evaluation to gain a better understanding of your specific environment. It will decrease deployment time and help us troubleshoot any issues in the future.

Question 23

What web browsers is server compatible? Do I need an app?

Answer 23

Tableau Server, Online, and Public are compatible with Android Browser, Internet Explorer, Safari, Mozilla Firefox, and Google chrome for a desktop, laptop, tablets and mobile phones. A free Tableau app is available for Android and iOS tablets, but not necessary for server access. The app provides nothing different than web based access.

Question 24

Does Tableau support email bursting or email subscriptions?

Answer 24

Tableau Server and Tableau Online do support email subscriptions sent to your inbox on a schedule. Email bursting is not supported out of the box. It’s possible to set up with any command-line email program (like febootimail)” …. This leverages the “get” method which can render a report as PDF, PNG, XLS, or TWBX. Point out that there are 3rd party solutions such as Push Intelligence from MetricInsights that add bursting and data-driven alerts.

Question 25

My company is concerned about Data Governance. How can Tableau help me?

Answer 25

“What kind of governance concerns do you have? That means different things to different industries.” Tableau Server provides the governance to prepared content by enforcing entitlements to dashboards and visualizations. Data Server provides governance by enforcing entitlements on the data connection itself.

Question 26

What is the Purpose of Guest Access?

Answer 26

A Guest user is available in Tableau Server to allow unauthenticated users without an account on the server see and interact with an embedded view. When enabled, the user can load a web page containing an embedded visualization without signing in. This option is only available with a core-based server.

Question 27

How is Guest Access enabled?

Answer 27

Server > Settings
Although this setting is server wide you can control guest access on a site by site basis using view permissions. If a view does not have guest access enabled then guests will never be able to see the view.

Question 28

How do I use Search in Tableau Server?

Answer 28

Quick Search searches all content
Filtered Search only shows content relevant to the page you are on. For example if you are viewing the project page a filtered search will finrd projects matching the search terms (and filters)

Question 29

As an administrator, how do I view recently viewed views

Answer 29

Look at the bottom of a view or dashboard on Tableau Server. If you are an administrator there will be a link “Who has seen this view?”
An administrator can also see who has been looking at a particular views from the Tableau Server status page.

Question 30

What authentication models do you support?

Answer 30

Tableau Server supports local authentication and active directory authentication. The models are mutually exclusive. To change models, a Tableau Server will need reconfiguration. A Tableau Server can also work with trusted tickets and SAML for a single sign on experience or Kerberos authentication model.

Question 31

Is it possible to embed the views in Server into another application or a portal?

Answer 31

Yes. It’s possible and easy to embed views into systems like SharePoint or a company portal.

Question 32

Does Tableau support multi-tendancy?

Answer 32

Yes. Tableau accomplishes this through sites.

Question 33

What is a site?

Answer 33

Sites are independent environments for different organizations or groups on a single server system. Each site’s projects, workbooks, data, and user lists are isolated from those of other sites. A system administrator can only see every site and perform actions such as creating sites and making system-wide changes.

Question 34

What is a project?

Answer 34

A project is a collection of related workbooks within a site. When publishing a report to a project, the default action is to copy security from that project to the report. This makes setting up project security an important part of deployment.

Question 35

What is a group?

Answer 35

A group is a collection of Tableau Server users. Groups make it easier to manage multiple users. Create groups locally on the server or import from Active Directory. Active Directory groups will need to be synced on a regular basis to keep the server up to date.

Question 36

Is it possible to edit views?

Answer 36

Yes, web authoring allows permissioned users to have a Tableau Desktop light experience for building or editing views.

Question 37

What is the general permission model Tableau Server follows?

Answer 37

Tableau follows a cascading permissions model. It will first ask if the user has been explicitly allowed, denied, or inherits permission. If inherited, Tableau will go to the group level and ask the same question. If denied or inherited, the user will not have that permission.
Tableau Server has an easy to follow permission visual right in the server. You can see who has permissions and why + easily understand the effects of changing a permission for a group or single user.

Question 38

What is the difference between Tableau Online and Tableau Server?

Answer 38

Tableau Online is simply a cloud based version of Tableau Server; we host it so you don’t have to make a hardware investment.

Question 39

When I try and publish to online I sometimes get an error about needing to take an extract, why is this occurring and why does it only happen occasionally?

Answer 39

You will see this happen when you are trying to publish a workbook that is connected to an internal server or a file stored on a local drive, such as a SQL server within your company’s network. As Tableau Online is not hosted within your network we require an extract to access the data. If you are connecting to a local file such as some cloud based data sources such as Google Big Query; this will not be necessary.

Question 40

How do I update extracts on Tableau Online? Does this have to be a manual process?

Answer 40

1. Start with a question: “What data source are you connecting to?”
2. For cloud applications like Google Analytics or Salesforce.com, Tableau Online can automatically update snapshots of your data (Tableau Data Extracts) on a scheduled-basis. For data warehouses based in the cloud, such as Google BigQuery and Amazon Redshift, Tableau Online can connect directly. This live connection means you do not have to create extracts since BigQuery and Redshift support fast query for large amounts of data over the Internet.
3. For all other data sources you will need to ‘push’ the data to Tableau Online in the form of a Tableau Data Extract (TDE) . Once you have a TDE the data you have three options for updating this. 1. Manually republish the workbook or data source with new data, 2. Refresh the tableau Data Source from your local machine, or 3. You can use the command line tools to update the files locally and push these to Tableau Online on a schedule.

Question 41

What’s the maximum number of rows Tableau can utilize at one time?

Answer 41

Tableau is not restrained by the number of rows in a table. Customers use Tableau to access petabytes of data because it only retrieves the rows and columns needed to answer your question. Let me share some customer use cases focusing on big data.
Example- 100 million rows database. Answer what is the monthly sales trend for the last 2 years? Tableau retrieves 24 rows of data.

Question 42

I have data from 2+ sources. How does Tableau work with disparate data sources?

Answer 42

If the data has common entries and/or field names data blending might work. It’s Tableau creating a query for each datasource, then it blends (aggregates) data based on common fields to both datasources. There are some techniques to help compensate for different field names, but the data may need to be cleaned up to complete the analysis.
Data Blending does not create row level joins and is not a way to add new dimensions or rows to your data. If blending with a cube, a field from the cube must be on the view first to make it the primary data source. Cubes cannot be a secondary data source.

Question 43

Can I use a table of data from a website?

Answer 43

Yes. Select the table and paste into a Tableau workbook via ‘Data’ in the toolbar.

Question 44

I don’t see my datasource listed in ‘Connect To Data’? What are my options?

Answer 44

Use the standard ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) option listed in the data connection window. While this connection option may not be as robust as a native connection, it does provide the ability to use the driver for connecting to your database. If you run into performance issues, I recommend extracting the data into a Tableau Data Extract. We can also provide some guidance to tune the connection.

You may also use Tableau Data Extract API to write program to access and process your data to create a Tableau Data Extract. We support developers on Windows and Linux platforms for Python/C/C++/Java.

Question 45

What is the difference between ‘Connect Live’ and ‘Extract’?

Answer 45

Connecting live to a database leverages it computational processing and storage. New queries will go to the database and reflect new or updates in the data.
An extract will make a static snapshot of the data to be used by Tableau’s data engine. The snapshot of data can be refreshed on a schedule as a whole or incrementally append data. One way to set up these schedules is via Tableau Server.

Question 46

In a live connection, what performance should I expect?

Answer 46

What are your performance requirements? Is performance an issue with your current solution or solutions you’re exploring?
In a live connection, performance speed is based on how fast your data sources can process requests made by Tableau. If live connection to a data source is too slow, it’s possible to increase performance via a Tableau Data Extract (TDE) in the Tableau’s Data Engine.

Question 47

What is a Tableau Data Extract?

Answer 47

This is Tableau’s own file type, which is a snapshot of the data. A TDE is a powerful analytical tool because it compresses the data pulled from any database and use all parts of a computer’s memory. A TDE can be configured to pull a portion of data based on a condition; roll up granular data to a higher aggregation; or pre-filter data before bringing it into Tableau.
Do not use a TDE when live updates are needed, to replace a data warehouse, for more than a couple 100 million rows (data cardinality dependent). Sometimes data is slow and Tableau won’t be able to improve its performance.

Question 48

What is the Tableau data engine?

Answer 48

It’s an analytical database designed to achieve instant query response, predictive performance, integrate seamlessly into existing data infrastructure, and is not limited to loading entire data sets into memory. The core of the structure is columnar-based that compresses the data.

Question 49

Does Tableau support stored procedures?

Answer 49

I know running these subroutines are common, but may I suggest trying Tableau without them first. Often there is better speed performance. If stored procedures are necessary, Tableau supports stored procedures for SAP Sybase, Microsoft SQL Server, and Teradata.

Question 50

I want to write SQL.

Answer 50

To measure performance let’s try a connection where Tableau generated the query. Often custom SQL will fill Tableau Desktop’s cache quicker and slow performance. However SQL will sometimes be faster because it can utilize native, proprietary database filter routines.

Question 51

I can’t connect to my data, help!

Answer 51

Please share the error message you’re receiving with me and Tableau’s technical support. I’ll try to troubleshoot this on the fly, but if I also want to completely solve the issue. Would you mind if I schedule additional support if needed?

Question 52

Do I need to set up any metadata or semantic layers before I can use Tableau?

Answer 52

Nope! Tableau offers very quick and easy direct connectivity to over 40 types of databases (plus tons other through ODBC). Simply point Tableau Desktop directly at your database and you can choose what table(s) and view(s) you’d like to connect to and you are on your way. No pre-configuration necessary.

Question 53

When I make changes to metadata in Tableau, are those changes written back to my database?

Answer 53

No. Tableau is a completely read-only set of products. We preserve the integrity of your underlying datasources while still giving you the ability to rename, re-group, re-alias, etc your data in Tableau.

Question 54

Can I build Hierarchies in Tableau?

Answer 54

Yes, you can easily create a hierarchies in Tableau. The easiest way is to drag and drop a dimension on top of another one- voila! Alternatively you can multi-select a set of dimensions, right-click, and choose ‘Hierarchy’->Create Hierarchy’

Question 55

What is a measure field? What is a dimensional field?

Answer 55

A dimension is a qualitative or categorical field in the data. Dragged into a view, a dimension produces headers in the view. A measure is a quantitative field in the data, meaning that the values in it can be aggregated together and are dependent on how dimension in the view are slicing the values. Measures typically produce and axes. Calculated measures can be qualitative.

Question 56

Whenever I drag and drop one of my Measures it always does a Sum. Can I change it to a Median? *Practice in Bronze Study Workbook

Answer 56

Sure – just right click on a measure (green) or column shelf and choose ‘Measure->Median’

Question 57

How do I replace a measure or dimension on the rows or columns shelf?

Answer 57

Drag and drop field over the current field on the shelf. The new field will replace the other field.

Question 58

What is the difference between discrete and continuous dates? When would you want to use a discrete date vs. a continuous one? *Practice in Bronze Study Workbook

Answer 58

Discrete dates return the DATEPART of the date, irrespective of what year/month/week/day in which it occurred. A discrete month would return Jan, Feb, Mar as discrete elements, while a continuous month would return Jan 14, Jan 15, Feb 14, Feb 15, as continuous points in time.

Question 59

How can I add Totals and Subtotals? *Practice in Bronze Study Workbook

Answer 59

On the left, switch from the Data Pane to the Analytics Pane and drag ‘Totals’ into your view. You will be presented with options for Subtotals, Column Grand Totals and Row Grand Totals.

Question 60

How can I sort by a measure value or a dimension? *Practice in Bronze Study Workbook

Answer 60

In the view, sort on an axis to sort by quantitative values or on dimensional header to sort alphabetically. You can also manually sort on the view by dragging dimension values into a new order. On the toolbar, use the quick sort buttons. Right click on a dimensional field on view card for more sorting options (sort order & sort by) or clear a sort.

Question 61

What are pivot tables like in Tableau?

Answer 61

Pivot tables in Tableau are crosstabs. Make any view a crosstab by right clicking the view tab and selecting “duplicate as crosstab.” Quick features to show are one click swap in the toolbar or totals on toolbar under the Analysis drop down.

Question 62

How do I see the underlying or row level data?

Answer 62

1. In a tooltip, select the icon on the most bottom left (represented by columns.)
2. In the data window, to the left of the field search, select the columnar icon.

Question 63

What is a tooltip?

Answer 63

A tooltip displays data details when you hover over one or more marks in the view. Use them to see data details that are not in the view. Tool tip quickly filter, remove a selection, or view underlying data. Tooltips may be edited to include both static and dynamic text.

Question 64

How are targets or goals added to a chart?

Answer 64

On the left, switch from the Data Pane to the Analytics Pane and drag the reference measure out into the view. Configure reference line to address the table, pane, or cell.

Question 65

What type of statistical analysis do you offer? *Practice in Bronze Study Workbook

Answer 65

What are you looking for? With just a couple clicks, you can access our analytics pane that has multiple options available with a single drag. Complicated analysis like creating trendlines, forecasting, or even Confidence Intervals are at your fingertips.

Question 66

I see that Tableau has a forecasting model. Can I use my own model?

Answer 66

No, Tableau uses a technique known as exponential smoothing. Tableau automatically selects the best of up to 8 models with the best being the highest forecast quality. You no longer need to be a data scientist to see what is in store for the future. In the edit window, turn on and off various options like seasonality. If you are interested in using a different model, I would suggest using our R integration to create your forecast.

Question 67

May I see an ANOVA table for a trendline?

Answer 67

After dragging out a trendline for our analytics pane, right click the trendline and select describe. All stats are now available without even having to calculate them.

Question 68

How do I know if my trend is significant?

Answer 68

Looking at the p-value in the ANOVA table you can determine if a trend is significant. A p-value of 0.05 or less is considered good.

Question 69

I have a low correlation, can I change the shape of my trendline?

Answer 69

Yes, right click any trendline and change it using edit to better fit your data.

Question 70

How do I build a map based on zip codes?

Answer 70

Simply double click on one of your fields that has a blue globe next to it. You can even use a filled map mark type. For specific mapping needs like street addresses, custom sales territories, or international zip codes you can import custom geo-coding if you have the latitude and longitude coordinates in your data.

Question 71

How does Tableau get the “Latitude (generated)” and “Longitude (generated) fields? [This could also be “I need to map zip codes in X country why isn’t it working….?”

Answer 71

Tableau relies on built in geographic roles to generate the latitude and longitude. If you right click on a field in the dimensions pane and select geographic roles you can see a complete list of the geographic roles we support.

Question 72

Show me the capability to drill down into data.

Answer 72

Always ask what kind of drill down a customer is seeking. Tableau provided drill downs in hierarchies, filters, showing the underlying data, and dashboard actions.

Question 73

How can I quickly filter out some data from a field?

Answer 73

Right click the field > Quick Filter

Question 74

(DEMO) I want to map all of the table sales in the east. Is there an easy way to plot just the data points that fall into that category?

Answer 74

You can easily select a mark or a group of marks and create a set – you can then use this set on another sheet to analyze the members that you included in the set.
Sets are custom fields that define a subset of data based on some conditions.

Question 75

We have a long list of products and I want an easy way for my end users to make selections but every time they check or uncheck a value the view updates is there a way for them to make all their selections first and then have the view update?

Answer 75

This can easily be accomplished by customizing your quick filter to add an apply button this will let you make selections that will not be applied until the button is pressed.

Question 76

I have specific sales product types within a higher category is there for me to select a category on a filter and then have the second filter reflect only the products types within that category?

Answer 76

This can be done by setting the second level of filtering to use only relevant values – in this case it would allow you to show only the product types within a category.

Question 77

What are Story Points? How does it different from dashboard?

Answer 77

Story Points is a way to build narrative from data; to tell a story. Story Points focuses on providing a platform for story building. Presenting data in this way can lessen time to communicate insight, increase depth of understanding, and increase memory of key concepts.
Dashboards are for comparing a monitoring data simultaneously.

Question 78

How do I show an image, webpage, or text in a dashboard (dashboard objects)?

Answer 78

All of these options available in the dashboard window on the left of the dashboard user interface, below sheets. Drag and drop onto view. Pre select the option to be tiled or floating.

Question 79

How do I adjust the size of a dashboard?

Answer 79

Dashboard sizing options are on the left side of the dashboard user interface in the lower right corner. Some sizes for blogs, iPads, and laptops make sizing easy for a certain display medium.

Question 80

How do I share results?

Answer 80

Publish secure dashboards to Tableau Server or Tableau Online. A non-secure option is sharing with Tableau Reader.

Question 81

Is it possible to export data or print PDFs?

Answer 81

Of course! Export data as a .csv or as a crosstab to Excel. Printing PDFs is just like using a Microsoft Office product. The caveat is you’ll lose any of the great interactivity built into a view or dashboards. Since the end goal is not to have interactivity become static, Tableau is also not pixel perfect.

Question 82

I’m working with an Excel file in Tableau Desktop and I want to send my completed workbook to my coworker. She doesn’t have access to the data file on her machine, should I send her a .twb or a .twbx file? What is the difference between these two?

Answer 82

You will want to send her a .twbx file. Sending her a .twbx will package the underlying local files with the Tableau workbook so she will not need to have the excel file separately.
The .twb file will contain the information about what is on each sheet/dashboard/story within a workbook – such as what fields are in each view, how measures are being aggregated, the formatting and any other information pertinent to the workbook such as the type of connection and metadata changes you’ve made. The twbx. Contains all of this plus the local data sources.