Tableu Overview

Tableau is much more than a data visualization software, it is also a business intelligence
application (BI App). With Tableau, business intelligence becomes a self-service.
Essentially, Tableau is a data visualization software which is focused on business intelligence.

But the idea of simply supporting or helping an organization make its decisions, be it anything
from operational to strategic, with the help of data visualization i.e. presenting data in a visual
form, is what business intelligence is at its core.
Tableau is a clear leader in empowering the entire enterprise of business intelligence with
modern analytics. According to the Gartner’s Magic Quadrant 2017, Tableau is a clear leader in
business intelligence and analytics platforms.
Tableau’s Interface
The anatomy of Tableau’s workspace is pretty easy to understand and it is made with a
simplistic approach, even then it fails to be as simple as simple can be and it may take some
getting used to.
Let us just dive into it.
At the top of the page, we have some drop-downs for the file, data, worksheet, dashboard, et
cetera. And with regular use, you will realize that the most valuable commands exist in these
drop downs.
Underneath these drop-down menus, we have a toolbar and the toolbar includes a number of
useful commands. The first of these is save, add a new data source, pause any auto updates you
have from your data sources, add a new sheet, duplicate and a couple of other commands that
will come into play when we’ve created a visualization.
The Tableau logo command, on the left corner, brings you to the start page which you might
need to return to if you want to connect to another data source.
To return, we simply hit the logo again.
Further, we have the data pane on the left-hand side of the page. If we are on the data tab, we’ll
see that it lists all the open data sources and selects the fields from that data source as either
dimensions or measures.
Measures are continuous variables and, essentially, numbers. Whereas, dimensions are discrete
variables such as text strings and dates.
The data pane will also show any sets or parameters we may have.
If we click on the analytics tab we can bring out pieces of our analysis directly as drag-and-drop
elements. If they’re not relevant to the type of view or visual that we are currently working on,
certain elements will be greyed out. For example, totals on a timeline.
If we select something like a trend line we can bring it out to any of these drop areas to control
aspects of its properties like model type and which measure it should apply to etc.
At the bottom, we have the new sheet tabs. We can create sheets, dashboards, and stories with
these tabs. We can do things like rename the sheets, duplicate sheets, copy formatting, and
many other things.
If the workbook has a lot of sheets we can navigate easily with the controls in the bottom right
corner.
One of the most important parts of the interface is the rows and columns shelf in the right-hand
center of the interface. To create our visualizations, we simply drag our dimensions and
measures from the data pane into the columns and rows shelf. We can also do this by dragging
our dimensions and measures directly onto the canvas and let Tableau segregate the rows and
the shelves for us automatically.
When we drag the dimensions and measures to the columns and rows card we will observe a
particular color scheme. The blue color will be for the dimensions and green will be for the
measures.
For almost every visualization you create we will add dimensions and measures to the columns
shelf and the rows shelf.
This will be clarified more when we take an actual example and a see first-hand application.
Then we have the central work area where the visualizations will appear once there are
measures and dimensions in the rows and the columns shelves.
Here we can give the sheet title, write captions about our visualization, arrange our
visualizations and also do some formatting.
On the top right corner, we have the Show Me option.

If you’re not sure what visualization to create or what options are available in Tableau, you can
click the Show Me option, which will then display various type of visualization you can create
with your selected dimensions and measures or from the data currently housed in columns and
rows.
One nice aspect of the Show Me option is that it tells you automatically which types of charts
are appropriate for the data that you have. Tableau tries to direct you to some best practices in
data visualization.
Now coming to one of the most important parts of the Tableau interface. The pages, filter and
the Marks cards on the center left of the page, next to our rows and columns shelves and the
work area.
Both of these cards, filter, and marks, are used extensively on most visualizations.
Filters allow us to exclude certain data types from our visualization. For example, we might
want to exclude some values from our visualization and the data used for that particular visual.
To do that we can set a range and removes values.
Marks, on the other hand, allow us to format the chart in more detail. Marx card is made up of
several other shelves each of which can have fields placed on them and can be clicked on to edit
their characteristics. Changing the mark type can change the shelves on the marks card such a
selecting shape brings up the shape shelf.
Depending on the composition of the view there can be multiple marks cards, one for each
measure.
Legends such as for color size and shape will automatically be created when a field is placed on
the color size or shape shelf. However, legends can be removed by clicking on the menu and
selecting hide card. To bring a legend back right-click anywhere off the canvas itself select
legend and choose the one you want.

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Tableau is much more than a data visualization software, it is also a business intelligence

application (BI App). With Tableau, business intelligence becomes a self-service.

Essentially, Tableau is a data visualization software which is focused on business intelligence.

Let us just dive into it.

To return, we simply hit the logo again.

On the top right corner, we have the Show Me option.

To do that we can set a range and removes values.

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