Have you ever had an asterisk (*) returned in place of a value in Tableau? This unexpected behavior is the result of what’s called the Attribute function (ATTR). We’ll look into it more here.
All in Tableau General Knowledge
You may have noticed that under “Compute Using” in the Table Calculation dialogue box there is a section called “Specific Dimensions” where you would normally select a scope and direction. You generally only need to use Specific Dimensions when you have 3 or more dimensions in the view.
Data blending is a great tool to have in your Tableau arsenal, but it has its quirks. It's one of the oldest forms of data preparation in the product. There are a lot of unique properties to the data blending feature which are important to understand if you're going to use this method to prepare your data for Tableau.
When creating averages on a measure in Tableau, null values aren’t factored into that average...
Some Tableau dashboards have performance issues. Commonly people will assume it’s because they have too many rows or columns of data, but that’s not always the primary issue. Your dashboards might be hindered by memory, data source type, computer memory, or a number of other factors. Check out the video below to learn about some of the common issues plaguing Tableau dashboard performance and how you can rectify them!
One of the things I found most confusing when I first started using Tableau was trying to figure out what all the different files types do. It’s not exaggerating to say that I lost sleep over it. I want to provide you with a brief overview of the primary file types you’ll encounter and their primary uses.
If you’re ever refreshed an updated Excel file in Tableau and noticed that your data didn’t change, this write-up is for you. The main issue is that when you save your Tableau Workbook as a .twbx packaged workbook file, it will often package the Excel file in a temporary file structure so that it can be easily shipped along with the workbook when shared.
Not only is Tableau a great data analysis tool, it’s also really useful for data discovery. One of the helpful ways you can use Tableau is to uncover inconsistencies and holes in your data structure. I do this by finding out what data unexpectedly has null values.
Tableau is usually the last 20% of any data communication effort. What is the first 80%? This document is meant to provide an example of what the finished output of data preparation for Tableau should look like.
After scouring the internet, I couldn’t find a good reference for beginners on how to prepare your data for Tableau so I figured, it looks like I’m going to have to do this myself! This is meant to be an introductory guide only, if you have more detailed questions feel free to send me an email.