You might never have heard of a self join but you might need one. Occasionally, tables in a database are structured so that it makes sense to join a copy of a table to itself…
All in Data
Sometimes you need to use data in Tableau that isn’t in a clean, denormalized format. It might have been exported from an application or prepared by a coworker in a way that Tableau doesn’t like.
I frequently hear the question, “Can Tableau show my missing data?”. Generally when I get this question, people want to either see a 0 or a blank where there should be missing data.
Have you ever found that Tableau Desktop took a long time to load a worksheet or apply a filter? You might have found yourself wondering “Is my data source too large for Tableau?” The answer is…“maybe”.
If you’ve been using Tableau Desktop for a while you probably know that you can join, union and pivot data in the product. When you hear that Tableau Prep helps you “prepare your data” you might wonder what it can do that Desktop can’t.
You don’t.
Tableau Desktop will allow you to union multiple tables from the same database or even multiple .csv files, but you can’t union a table from SQL Server A with a tableau from SQL Server B.
Tableau Prep is a powerful tool but it can’t help solve every data preparation scenario. We focus a lot of our time and effort on what it can do, but we thought it would be worthwhile to cover what it can’t do (yet).
Joins can be a sticky business, especially if…
● You haven’t used them much before.
● You are working with data that is new to you.
● You don’t trust your data cleanliness.
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!
Most data isn’t stored in a manner that is optimal for analysis. It’s frustrating when Tableau doesn’t like your data structure. If you are new to Tableau or working with a new data source, you might run into issues getting columns and rows to display the way you want.
If you’re like most people in the world of analytics, you probably didn’t get a formal education on the topic. Sure, we all know a few data scientists, but most of us came from other backgrounds. When semi-familiar terms are tossed around, it’s easy to nod your head along with the crowd while in the back of your mind wondering, “does that mean what I think it means?”.