Tableau 10 Business Intelligence Cookbook

Key Features

• Cook your favorite Tableau 10 business intelligence recipe with the help of this easy-to-follow book
• Build beautiful, interactive dashboards and visualizations in Tableau 10 that help you make informed decisions
• This rich collection of independent recipes cover everything needed to become an advanced Tableau user and get an edge over other Tableau users

Book Description

Tableau is a software tool that can speed up data analysis through its rich visualization capabilities, and help uncover insights for better and smarter decision making. This book is for the business, technology, data and analytics professionals who use and analyze data and data-driven approaches to support business operations and strategic initiatives in their organizations.

This book provides easy-to-follow recipes to get the reader up and running with Tableau 10, and covers basic to advanced use cases and scenarios. The book starts with building basic charts in Tableau and moves on to building more complex charts by incorporating different Tableau features and interactivity components. There is an entire chapter dedicated to dashboard techniques and best practices. A number of recipes specifically for geospatial visualization, analytics, and data preparation are also covered.

By the end of this book, you’ll have gained confidence and competence to analyze and communicate data and insights more efficiently and effectively by creating compelling interactive charts, dashboards, and stories in Tableau.

What you will learn

• Become familiar with the Tableau interface
• Build basic to more advanced charts with step-by-step recipes
• Use filters, calculated fields, parameters, and actions to add interactivity to charts and dashboards
• Prepare and transform data for analysis using Tableau’s built-in tools and functions
• Create effective and compelling dashboards and story points
• Leverage Tableau’s mapping capabilities to visualize location and shape data
• Integrate analytics and forecasting to enhance data analysis
• Get to know tips and tricks to work more quickly and effectively in Tableau
• Increase your confidence and competence in creating rich, interactive visualizations in Tableau

About the Author

Donabel Santos is a self-confessed data geek. She loves working with data, writing queries and developing reports on her SQL Server databases, and exploring and visualizing data with Tableau.

She is the principal and senior Business Intelligence Architect at QueryWorks Solutions, a Tableau Learning and Alliance partner in Vancouver, BC, Canada providing consulting and training services. She has spent years in consulting and has developed a variety of solutions for clients in different verticals—finance, manufacturing, healthcare, legal, higher education, and local government.

Donabel is a multi-year Microsoft Data Platform MVP (previously known as SQL Server MVP) and has extensive experience in SQL Server in different areas, such as development, administration, data warehouse, reporting (SSRS), tuning, troubleshooting, XML, CLR, integration with ERPs and CRMs using PowerShell, C#, SSIS, and Power BI.

One of Donabel's passions is teaching and sharing her love for data. She is a Tableau Certified Professional and a Tableau Accredited Trainer, delivering Tableau public and on-site client training. She is also the lead instructor for a number of courses at British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT), including Applied Database Administration and Design (ADAD) and Applied Data Analytics (ADA) programs. She teaches SQL Server Administration, Development, Integration (SSIS), Data Warehouse Foundations, and Visual Analytics with Tableau.

Donabel has also authored three other books with Packt Publishing: SQL Server 2012 with PowerShell V3 Cookbook, PowerShell for SQL Server Essentials, and SQL Server 2014 with PowerShell V5 Cookbook. She also contributed a chapter in Manning Publications' PowerShell Deep Dives. Her blog is located at www.sqlbelle.com and her Twitter handle is @sqlbelle.

Table of Contents

1. Basic Charts
2. Advanced Charts
3. Interactivity
4. Dashboards and Story Points
5. Maps and Geospatial Visualization
6. Analytics
7. Data Preparation
8. Calculated Fields Primer
9. Resources