Book Image

Tableau 10 Complete Reference

By : Joshua N. Milligan, Tristan Guillevin
Book Image

Tableau 10 Complete Reference

By: Joshua N. Milligan, Tristan Guillevin

Overview of this book

Graphical presentation of data enables us to easily understand complex data sets. Tableau 10 Complete Reference provides easy-to-follow recipes with several use cases and real-world business scenarios to get you up and running with Tableau 10. This Learning Path begins with the history of data visualization and its importance in today's businesses. You'll also be introduced to Tableau - how to connect, clean, and analyze data in this visual analytics software. Then, you'll learn how to apply what you've learned by creating some simple calculations in Tableau and using Table Calculations to help drive greater analysis from your data. Next, you'll explore different advanced chart types in Tableau. These chart types require you to have some understanding of the Tableau interface and understand basic calculations. You’ll study in detail all dashboard techniques and best practices. A number of recipes specifically for geospatial visualization, analytics, and data preparation are also covered. Last but not least, you'll learn about the power of storytelling through the creation of interactive dashboards in Tableau. Through this Learning Path, you will gain confidence and competence to analyze and communicate data and insights more efficiently and effectively by creating compelling interactive charts, dashboards, and stories in Tableau. This Learning Path includes content from the following Packt products: • Learning Tableau 10 - Second Edition by Joshua N. Milligan • Getting Started with Tableau 2018.x by Tristan Guillevin
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Title Page
About Packt
Contributors
Preface
8
Deeper Analysis - Trends, Clustering, Distributions, and Forecasting
Index

Chapter 5. Table Calculations

Table calculations are one of the most powerful features in Tableau. They enable solutions that cannot be achieved in any other way (short of writing a custom application or complex custom SQL scripts!):

  • Table calculations make it possible to use data that isn't structured well and still get quick results without waiting for someone to fix the data at the source
  • They make it possible to compare and perform calculations on aggregate values across the rows of the resulting table
  • They open incredible possibilities for analysis and creative approaches to solving problems

Table calculations range in complexity from incredibly easy to create (a couple of clicks) to extremely complex (requiring an understanding of addressing, partitioning, and data densification). In this chapter, we will start off simple and move toward complexity. The goal is to gain a solid foundation for creating and using table calculations, understanding how they work, and to see some examples of...