When conducting Tableau classes and workshops for people seeing Tableau for the first time, I've found demonstrating mapping to always be a big hit, sometimes literally resulting in murmurs of appreciation and surprise. People have told me on multiple occasions that Tableau's mapping capability was the key feature that caused them to take notice and consider the Tableau offering more seriously. Tableau's out-of-the-box mapping capabilities are quite powerful and flexible. You may be surprised at how much you can accomplish without ever leaving the user interface. But these out-of-the-box capabilities are just the tip of the iceberg. With proper guidance (which I will attempt to provide in this chapter), you can expand beyond the native mapping functionality and explore techniques that will greatly enhance your workbooks' functionality and aesthetics.
I would like to draw attention to the work of four individuals who helped make this chapter possible. Joshua Milligan provided...