By: Eric Parker
Eric Parker lives in Seattle and has been teaching Tableau and Alteryx since 2014. He's helped thousands of students solve their most pressing problems. If you have a question, feel free to reach out to him directly via email. You can also sign up for a Tableau Office Hour to work with him directly!
Are you having trouble getting your data to work in Tableau the way you want? Join us to learn how to prepare data for analysis in Tableau!
You can find a thousand tutorials on how to use Tableau, but they're all worthless until your data is structured for analysis in the format that Tableau likes. Don't get stuck in your analysis journey because Tableau doesn't like your data.
6 data formats to avoid, 8 key rules for structuring data, and 1 video you can't miss. Check out the recording to learn about the key concepts you can utilize to prepare for your data for Tableau.
Resources:
•Restaurant Database Example Excel Workbook (From Walkthrough)
•Preparing Messy Crosstab Data for Tableau
•How to Validate Join Results in Tableau Desktop
•How to Clean Dirty Data with Tableau Prep
•8 Data Formats Tableau Doesn't Like
•Fill in trailing blanks in a data set: How to Fill in Missing Trailing Values in a Data Set
•Here are 3 Things Tableau Prep Can’t Do (2018)
•How to Unpivot (Transpose) Data in Tableau Prep
•Joins, Blends and Unions in Tableau. What's the difference? (Webinar Recording)
•Tableau Relationships vs. Joins Webinar Recording
•Data Blending in Tableau – How it Works and When You Need it
Concepts Covered in Video
16 Source Data Formats to Avoid
0:00 Intro
4:30 16 Source Data Formats to Avoid
5:30 1. Multiple Values in the Same Cell
6:50 2. Dimensional Column Sections
7:35 3. Header Rows with Trailing Blanks
8:22 4. Merged Cells
8:42 5. Multiple Tables in One Sheet
9:37 6. Multiple-Row Column Names
10:21 7. Measures on Rows
11:30 8. Blank Headers and Titles in Table
12:45 9. Multiple Dimensions in the Same Cell
14:28 10. Total Rows and Columns
15:14 11. Dimension Running Across Columns
16:18 12. Duplicate Column Names
17:26 13. Sectional Row Titles
18:07 14. Pre-Writing Aggregation Calculations
19:30 15. Repeating Header Rows
20:00 16. Dates on Columns
Data Vocabulary
21:32 Fact Tables
22:56 Dimension Tables
23:50 Dimensions and Measures
8 Key Rules for Structuring Data
24:40 1. First Row of Table Contains Column Names
24:58 2. Each Unique Field Gets its Own Column
25:25 3. Use Consistent Field Names Across Tables
26:14 4. No Blanks (Nulls) Unless Necessary
27:25 5. Tableau Often Functions Best When Data is Combined in a Super Table
28:25 6. Fact Tables Should be Unioned (Not Joined)
29:47 7. Dimension Tables Should be Joined (Not Unioned)
30:27 8. Mixed Tables can be Categorized as Fact Tables
Walkthrough & Wrap Up
31:00 Example Data Preparation Walkthrough
40:25 Resources, Q&A