Why is Tableau the next big skill to learn

"TABLEAU HELPS PEOPLE SEE AND UNDERSTAND THEIR DATA"

Tableau is a data visualization product focused on Business Intelligence (BI). The biggest advantage with Tableau is the “ease of development”.  

Let's learn the basics of Tableau. 

What to download?

1. Tableau Server: Needs to be installed on Windows (only). General administration tasks (e.g. maintaining user & permissions, monitoring server usage, report access frequency etc.) can be done from there. Other users shall be able to access the Reports, for which they have required access. http://www.tableausoftware.com/products/server 
2. Tableau Desktop: This needs to be installed on Windows Desktop, for development purposes. Once you develop a Workbook/Sheet, you can publish the same to the Project on the Tableau Server using required credentials. http://www.tableausoftware.com/products/desktop 

How to set up the ground? 

1. Install the Tableau server on a Windows Server machine. Once set you will get the  URL to distribute to users, for viewing the reports on Tableau portal/site. 
2. Install Tableau desktop on the Developers windows desktops. They can develop and publish from there to the server. 

What types of authentication and authorization does it support? 

Tableau can integrate LDAP authentication, and hence domain credentials could be easily used with it. Alternatively, username & passwords could be created on Tableau server and distributed to users. 

What are possible data sources? 

Tableau supports many, ranging from Excel, access to Oracle, Salesforce, Teradata, Google Analytics etc. Please see complete list on the website. 

What is Tableau Public? 

Tableau Public is an option for guys who have considerably less data. It supports only excel, text files etc. as data-source. The results could be published on Tableau Public website, by creating an account. Thereafter, these can be embedded in web-pages, emails etc. 

What are the ways to connect to Data Source? 

There are three options: 

1. Connect Live: Tableau doesn’t import any data in this case; rather it refers to the structure of data from the data source. This mode should be chosen when you have more  frequently-changing data and good-speed database. 
2. Import All: This option will import complete data to tableau’s repository, and Tableau saves it in its proprietary format. Provides good compression though. This mode should be chosen when we have and slow-speed databases. Hence, there won’t be any load on DB, less frequently-changing data every time a user tries to generate the report. The queries would be running on the Tableau extract. 
3. Import Some: This is the third option where you can import some data (applying filter conditions) to Tableau. 

Is it possible to connect multiple data sources in a view? 

Yes it is possible. Multiple data sources can be combined and relationships can be defined between the columns from different sources. E.g. certain data coming from Oracle, and related data from Teradata too. 

What are the types of Users? 

From the point of view of consuming reports, there are 2 types of users: 

1. Interactor: The users with this role shall be able to do drill down etc. with the report/graph. They shall also be able to save a particular state of the report (a deeper level), and just refer that view in future (no more drilling down daily). 
2. Viewer: Users with this role shall be able to view the report as an image, where they cannot filter  or drill down. 

Though, options of  exporting to PDF & crosstab, sharing & embedding shall be available to both.

From development point of view, there are many roles: 

E.g. Project Leader, Publisher, Editor, Viewer, Interactor etc. Rights differ as to how much changes they can make to a report/workbook. 

What about Licensing? 

Server: With server license, Tableau restricts the number of Interactors & viewers (report consumption POV) 

Desktop: This is per installation instance on a desktop. 

How to learn Tableau, right from scratch?

Tableau team has put up a series of Online Free Video Tutorials on their website, for anybody to learn Tableau from the scratch. Please start learning Tableau here. 

What if I have to change the data source to a newer version or to a different instance? 

If the structure and naming convention of the old and new data sources are same, this is an easy job to do. Just the data-connection could be changed, rest all would work the same way. 

What about the cleansing or transformation during data import? 

Certain amount of SQL can be applied while you connect (or extract) to data source. But, really complex transformations are not possible. Joins etc. work fine; it tries to match the columns automatically too, based on naming and data-types. 

Where do I actually see the results? 

Admin has to add and give permissions to your user for required workbooks/sheets. Then you may login to the Tableau portal through your browser (on desktop or mobile), and view the same. 

What are Workbook & Sheets? 

While development, we create Workbooks which are nothing but collection of sheets. Once published to the server, these sheets are displayed as tabs. 

What is Dashboard? 

Dashboard could be logically thought as a special sheet which can accommodate more than one already built sheet. Common Quick-filters can be implemented in dashboards, which allow change to multiple graphs at a time.