Data

Visualization
with Tableau

Day 5
Course Content
Data warehousing concepts
Introduction to SQL and SQL Commands
SQL Functions
Introduction to Data Visualization
Tour The Tableau Environment
Connecting to Data Sources
Basic Visualizations
Build Data Views
Mapping and Geocoding
Course Content
Calculations
Playing With Time
Advance Analysis
Data Blending
Present your Work
Dashboards & Story
24 Charts
Advance Visualizations
Performance Tuning & Publishing your Work
 Day 5

Connecting to your Data Sources

Getting Started

The start page in Tableau Desktop is a central location from

which you can do the following:
Connect to your data
Open your most recently used workbooks, and
Discover and explore content produced by the Tableau
community.

The start page consists of three panes: Connect, Open, and

Discover.
Data Source Page
Connect To Data
Opening and Closing the Application
Open Tableau:
On a Windows computer, open Tableau by selecting All
Programs > Tableau 10.0 on the Windows Start menu, or by double-
clicking the desktop shortcut.

On a Mac computer, open Tableau by selecting the Tableau icon in

the Applications folder in Finder, by typing Tableau into Spotlight, or
by clicking the Dock shortcut.

Tableau opens to the start page.

The start page contains sample workbooks and data sources. After
you've used Tableau to connect to data or create a view, your recently
used workbooks and saved data connections appear on the start page
as well.
Opening and Closing the Application
Open Tableau ( Contd..) :

You can always return to the start page after you have started
working in the data source page, or in a workbook or worksheet, by
clicking the Tableau logo in the upper-left corner.

Close Tableau:

When you are complete working in Tableau then you should save your
task and close the application. To close the application follows these
steps:

Click the Close icon located in the right corner of the application
title bar. After that Select File > Exit. If your workbook has not been
saved, you will be asked whether you want to save it.
Connect to Data
The first step in Tableau Desktop is to connect to the data you want to
explore.

On the start page under Connect, click Excel

Connect to Data - Excel
In the Open dialog box, navigate to the Sample - Superstore Excel file on your
computer at /My Documents/My Tableau Repository/Data sources and open it.

After you have connected to the Excel data, the data source page shows the
sheets in your data. You drag one or more sheets to the canvas. You can combine
sheets on the canvas to form the data source from which you will build your view.

At the top of the data source page, select how you want to connect to the data.
You can select from the following options:
Live Creates a direct connection to your data. The speed of your data source
will determine performance.
Extract By default, this option imports the entire data source into Tableau fast
data engine as an extract. The extract is saved with the workbook. If you prefer
to import a subset of the data, click the Edit link. This option requires you
specify what data you want to extract using filters.
Connect to Data - Excel

At the bottom of the data source page, preview the data in your data source in
the grid. You can make the following changes in the grid:
Hide or rename a column by clicking the column header drop-down arrow.
Change the data type by clicking the data type icon in the column header.

Click the sheet tab to go to the new worksheet and begin your analysis
Connecting to Excel File
 Connecting to Database

On the start page under Connect, click Access and browse for the appropriate data.

Once you are

connected to
the database,
repeat the same
steps as the one
used to connect
to Excel files
Live Connection

Data connectors of Tableau control your available data infrastructure by

transferring dynamic SQL or MDX statements straightly to the source
database except importing every data.

This leaves the detail data in the source system and sends the
aggregate outcomes of query to Tableau.

In addition, this means that Tableau can effectively utilize unlimited

amounts of data.

Tableau is the front-end analytics client to several of the largest

databases in the world.

Tableau has optimized every connector to receive advantage of the

unique characteristics of every data source.
In-Memory/Extract Connection

Tableau presents a fast, in-memory Data Engine to optimize for

analytics.

You can connect to your data and after that, with one click, extract you
data to get it in-memory.

Tableaus Data Engine fully consumes your entire system to attain fast
queries answers on millions of rows of data on commodity hardware.

Data Engine can use disk storage as well as RAM and cache memory, it
is not confined with the quantity of memory on a system.

This is not essential that an entire data set be loaded into memory to
attain its performance objectives.
Extract Connection De Mystified

Data Base

Data Refreshed either Fully

or Incrementally

Tableau Data Extract (.tde)

Using and Refreshing Extracts

After you create an extract, the current workbook begins using the
extract. However, the extract connection is not saved with the workbook
until the next time you save.

That means, if you close the workbook without saving first, the
workbook will connect to the original data source the next time you open
it.

You may want to create an extract with a sample of the data so you can
set up the view and then switch to the whole data source, thus avoiding
long queries every time you place a field on the shelf.

You can remove an extract at anytime by selecting a data source on the

Data menu and then selecting Extract > Remove.

You can see when the extract was last updated and other details by
selecting a data source on the Data menu and then selecting Extract >
History.
Refreshing Extracts

When the underlying data changes, you can refresh the extract by
selecting a data source on the Data menu and then selecting Extract >
Refresh.

Extracts can be configured to be fully refreshed, replacing all of the

data with whats in the underlying data source, or incrementally
refreshed, adding just the new rows since the last refresh.

Full Refresh
Tableau presents a fast, in-memory Data Engine to optimize for
analytics.
By default, extracts are fully refreshed. That means that every time you
refresh the extract, all of the rows are replaced with the data in the
underlying data source.
It can sometimes take a long time and be expensive on the database
depending on how big the extract is.
Incremental Refresh

Incremental Refresh
Rather than refreshing the entire extract, you can set it up to only add the
rows that are new since the last time you extracted data.

Follow the steps below to set up an extract to be incrementally refreshed.

Select a data source on the Data menu and then select Extract.

In the Extract Data dialog box, select All rows as the number of Rows to
extract Incremental refresh can only be defined when you are extracting
all rows in the database. You cannot increment a sample extract.
Incremental Refresh

Select Incremental refresh and then specify a column in the database that will be
used to identify new rows. For example, if you select a Date field, refreshing will add
all rows whose date is after that last time you refreshed. Alternatively, you can use an
ID column that increases as rows are added to the database.
Clipboard Data

Sometimes you want to pull in data from an outside source for some quick
analysis. Rather than create a whole data source and then connect in Tableau, you
can copy and paste the data directly into your workbook.

Tableau automatically creates a data source that you can begin analyzing when
you paste data on the data source page.

You can copy and paste data from a variety of office applications including
Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word. You can also copy and paste HTML tables from
web pages.

Select File > Save to save the data source.When you save the workbook, the data
source either becomes a part of the existing data source or is added to your
repository, depending on which of the methods you choose.

If you paste the data as a data source, the data source is saved with the
workbook when you save the workbook as a packaged workbook (.twbx)
Clipboard Data
Tableau Workspace
Tableau Workspace

A. Workbook name.
B. Cards and shelves - Drag fields to the cards and shelves in the workspace to add data
to your view.
C. Toolbar - Use the toolbar to access commands and analysis and navigation tools.
D. View - This is the workspace where you create your data visualizations.
E. Go to the start page.
F. Side Bar. The side bar provides two panes: the Data pane and the Analytics pane.
G. Go to the data source page.
H. Status bar - Displays information about the current view.
I. Sheet tabs - Tabs represent each sheet in your workbook. This can include
worksheets,
dashboards and stories.
Tableau Workspace

The Side Bar

The Side Bar provides two panes: the Data pane
and the Analytics pane.

The Data pane is organized into several areas:

Dimensions - fields that contain data like text or
dates. This is called category data.
Measures - fields that contain numbers.
Numerical data can be aggregated.
Sets - subsets of data that you define.
Parameters - dynamic placeholders that can
replace constant values in calculated fields and
filters so that view designers can give data
consumers choices about what they see.
Tableau Workspace

Analytics Pane

The Analytics pane provides quick and easy access to

common analytic features in Tableau.
You can drag reference lines, box plots, trend lines
forecasts, and other items into your view
from the Analytics pane, which appears on the left side
of the workspace.
Dimensions and Measures

When you connect to a data source, Tableau assigns each field in the data source as playing
one of two possible data roles: dimension or measure.

Dimensions
When you first connect to a data source, Tableau assigns any fields that contain
discrete categorical information (for example, fields where the values are strings or
Boolean values) to the Dimensions area in the Data pane.

Any field you drag from the Dimension area will initially be discrete when you add it
to a view, with a blue background.

But Date dimensions can be either discrete or continuous, and all measures can be
discrete or continuous. A field's background color indicates whether it is discrete (blue)
or continuous (green).
Dimensions and Measures

Measures
When you first connect to a data source, Tableau assigns any fields that contain
quantitative, numerical information (that is, fields where the values are numbers) to
the Measures area in the Data pane.
Any field that you drag from the Measures area will initially be continuous when you
add it to the view, and so its background will be green.
Tableau will always aggregate measures.

Generated Fields

Latitude and Longitude (generated):

If you have defined any fields to be geographic fields, that is, they can be used with maps,
Tableau automatically geocodes your data and includes Latitude (generated) and Longitude
(generated) fields. You can use these fields to overlay your data on live maps.
Generated Fields

Latitude and Longitude (generated):

If you have defined any fields to be geographic fields, that is, they can be used with maps,
Tableau automatically geocodes your data and includes Latitude (generated) and Longitude
(generated) fields which would reside in Measures Window. You can use these fields to
overlay your data on live maps.

Measure Names:
The Measure Names field always appears at the bottom of the Dimensions area of
the Data pane and contains all the names of the measures collected into a single dimension

Measure Values:
The Measure Values field always appears at the bottom of the Measures area of
the Data pane and contains all the measures of your data collected into one field.

Number of Records:
Data pane contains a Number of Records field that is also not part of the underlying data.
This field represents the number of rows in the data source. It is useful when you are
working with a data source that is primarily categorical resulting in very few measures.
Generated Fields