Silver Flashcards
If I copy the image to PPT, does it update automatically?
No. Tableau Server provides a great way to deliver interactive – On-Demand analysis to the masses. If you want to embed the interactive Server views in PPT, you can do this via a free 3rd party app called LiveWeb.
How do I share these results with others? (What are all my sharing options?)
This question is best followed with another question asking more about their specific scenario and requirements. Save the file and share it with other Tableau users Right click on a view and copy the image or cross-tab and paste File Print, Export the image, cross-tab or PDF and distribute. Publish it to the Tableau Server so people can run it on demand Use the ‘Share’ button in Server to generate a URL or HTML to paste in e-mail, CMS’s such as SharePoint, or Blogs
Is Tableau a BI platform or an Analytics tool?
Yes. Tableau can be both, choose wisely how you position this with customers. Tableau provides rich functionality for ad hoc reporting, analytics, dashboarding and visualization. All the content created in Tableau can be easily shared via interactive graphical displays in a web browser. Due to the fast, easy nature of Tableau, companies can achieve quick ROIs with anything from a small deployment to an enterprise roll-out
Is Tableau 64 bit?
Yes, the Tableau data engine is 64 bit (or 32 bit if you only have a 32 bit machine). Tableau’s User Interface and the VizQL engine are 32 bit – but they only contain the result set caches, not the raw data so they uses a relatively small amount of RAM.
Does Tableau do 3D Charts?
3D charts provide very eye catching visuals however, they typically hinder or skew the analysis being presented. For example, when dealing with volume or surface area such as a pie chart, a 3D chart can make certain slices seem bigger than they actually are. Because of these problems and they face that they don’t improve the story of the data, pundits do not consider 3D charts to be a best practice visual.
Can I integrate Tableau with other applications?
Yes, Tableau provides both the ability to embed tableau visuals inside applications as well as to call other applications through URLs. Developers creating web applications can richly integrate fully interactive Tableau content into their applications via our JavaScript API.
Who defines the measures and dimensions?
For relational – Tableau determines this automatically. By default, all numeric fields (that are not keys in the database) are measures, everything else is a dimension. The names of the fields are simply the names of the columns in the database. To change their placement, just drag and drop. For Cubes – These are explicitly defined by the author of the cube.
Can I convert a measure to a dimension? Can I convert a dimension to a measure?
Yes. Drag a measure to the dimension pane. For Dimensions, either drag it to the measures pane if you are trying to count the dimension, or change its data type to number if it is the wrong type (right click and choose Data Type) and drag to the measures pane.
What is a cube? Does Tableau support Cubes?
It’s a ‘multi-dimensional’ way to store data. The main benefit over relational databases used to be performance – typically a value is already calculated and stored for every combination of dimensions. Another benefit is increased structure such as hierarchies and predefined relationships. Tableau can connect to cubes generated by Microsoft Analysis Services, Oracle Essbase (Hyperion), SAP BW Be prepared and able to demo against a cube/olap data source.
What’s the difference between using the generic ODBC connection to connect to my data and the connections listed in the ‘connect to data’ dialog window? Are there drawbacks / benefits that I should be aware of?
The connections listed in the ‘connect to data’ dialog window are optimized and tuned by Tableau to assure performance and full functionality of the Tableau feature set. ODBC connections will rely on the driver (likely provided by your database vendor) and may have limited support for the SQL standard. The result is that performance and functionality in Tableau may be degraded.
How do I join together sheets from two excel workbooks?
This is a trick question – but common. Tableau can only join sheets that are in a single workbook. You can use the ‘Edit Move or Copy Sheet’ command in Excel to get all the sheets into a single workbook. Data Blending will also work, but in many cases this will provide limited capabilities. If possible, joins are preferred.
Is Data Blending within a single database the same as using Multiple Tables in the connection dialog?
No, joins (in the multiple tables’ scenario) happen in the database with the raw data as part of one universal query. Blends happen in Tableau with the already summarized (aggregated) data. This means that Data Blending sends a separate query to each database. These queries aggregate the data to the same level of detail – regardless of the level of detail of the raw data. Then the results of the separate queries are blended together by Tableau.
Does Tableau always import the data?
No, this is actually a big differentiator between us and some of our competitors. You have the option to use Tableau’s fast data engine or maintain a live connection to your database, all without any scripting. If your data is already fast, or changes very often, then a direct connection is probably best.
Is any functionality in Tableau dependent on having my data in the data engine?
No. Blending, calculations, table calculations, parameters, actions and all analytics are the same. However, some data sources will get extra capabilities when imported into the data engine (e.g. excel files will be upgraded to have count distinct and median)
What is a packaged workbook?
Packaged workbooks collect all the files related to the workbook and compress them into a single file. This package can then be delivered to other Tableau users without having to separately include data, images and other files referenced by the workbook.
Does packaging automatically save all the data?
No. If your data is on a server, Tableau will not automatically extract the data. The reason is that the database could be zillions of records which is impractical to pull down to the local machine (time and size come to mind). If you want to include data from the server (for example to share with Tableau Reader) you must first extract each data connection separately.
How do I schedule an extract to be refreshed?
Extracts can only be scheduled when using the Tableau Server. During the publish process, choose ‘Schedules & Passwords…’ on the publish dialog. Choose a schedule and then ‘Publish’.If the button is not available, then you are either not currently using an extract (so go create one) or the administrator of the Tableau Server has not enabled this functionality. Schedules are created and managed on the server by a system administrator.
Name at least 8 ways that Tableau makes dates shiny. Be able to demo all of these.
relative date filtering hierarchy reorder hierarchy choose any level of the hierarchy different date parts on different shelves fiscal year continuous dates continuous dates vs. discrete dates and their respective hierarchies
How do I make a monthly trend line span 2 years?
Use the new Continuous Date Hierarchy
How do I display ranks or line numbers?
Create a calculated field: index(). Convert it to ‘discrete’ and add it to your sheet. Right click on the field pill to change its indexing behavior (calculate using….)
When should I use ‘Add to Context’?
The basic recommendation is to use a context filter when a) the filter doesn’t change often; and b) when the data will be reduced to less than 1/10th the number of records. A context filter creates a temp table that contains just the records that match the filter. All subsequent interactions are run against the small subset of data which greatly improves performance. Note: The ‘context’ is created as a temporary table on the database. It is rare, but some users might not have permission to create temp tables. In that case Tableau will extract the data that matches the filter.
Are my calculations written back to the database?
No. Tableau is a very safe environment – it never changes your data. The calculations are computed on the fly based on the current values in the database
Are calculations performed locally in Tableau?
Tableau pushes most calculations back to the database. All aggregations are performed on the database (which includes the data engine). Table Calculations, most reference lines, and some types of filters are performed locally.
I want the top ‘n’ products for each region. How do I do this?
Top N Sales by Subcategory by Region – There are multiple ways of solving this problem. The 2 example solutions below give different results. Sets You can create a set containing region and subcategory and place that set between region and subcategory. Now run a sort on that set by sales descending. Uncheck show header for this set to remove it from the view. Create your top filter on subcategory and create a parameter for this filter. This approach gives you: Top N Subcategories overall, split up by Region Index() you can add the index function to rank the rows on your table. Create a calculated field containing index(). Add the field to the rows shelf between Region and Sub-Category. Edit the table calculation and compute using Region and Sub-Category ordered along the sum of sales descending and restart every region. This will order the Subcategories by sales by region. You can now hide the header and create a calculation and your parameter to filter by top N. This approach gives you: Top N Subcategories for each Region separately
I want to filter out all unprofitable records?
Regardless of the view you have, drag Profit from the measure pane to the filter shelf. When prompted, choose the disaggregated field “# All values” (i.e. there is no aggregation). Drag the slider to 0 or type in 0. Do not use the ‘Show Quick Filter’ option on the field, this will use its default aggregation. The whole point of this question is that Tableau can filter either the raw data or the aggregate data – very powerful.
Does Tableau do small multiples? What are small multiples?
Yes. These are very powerful visuals for comparison. This is what enables true multi-dimensional analysis. It is basically a cross-tab of charts or visuals. Small multiples are a big improvement over the common 3d bar chart. They allow us to see multiple dimensions simultaneously, without obscuring, skewing or hiding any of the data. Tableau’s direct interaction model makes this even better so users can reorganize the output effortlessly or drill down all the way to the raw data. Excel 2010 – default 3d chart. Try to compare heights.
Can I drill down?
Yes, but start with a question like “How do you mean?” Drilling down/into data means different things to different people. Determine what they’re looking for BEFORE you discuss these: Right click on anything to view the raw data. Or you can drill anywhere you want by adding more fields to your analysis. Furthermore, if you want to enable other users to drill to a specific view or set of details, you can use an action to link sheets. What is even more powerful is the user can filter a secondary sheet by hovering, selecting or right clicking on an element in the primary sheet. This gives the user a rich experience with their guided analysis. This approach is far superior to traditional drill down. The sheet that you drill to can be structured to properly display the new level of detail. For example, the user might drill from map to a trend line to see the history. This would be hard or impossible to properly display by just adding time to the existing view. If all you need are hierarchies, then yes. Simply create the hierarchy by dropping the fields on top of each other on the data window. You can select the plus signs it the two locations indicated to drill down to the next level of the hierarchy.
In this screenshot, the first three dimensions are lumped into one field with commas. Why? And how do you fix it?
see screenshot
I want to find the average of my monthly sales.
This sounds like a simple question, but read it carefully. The user wants to sum the sales for each month and then find the average of those sales. Tableau can do this with either a summarized extract or reference lines.
