Book Image

The Tableau Workshop

By : Sumit Gupta, Sylvester Pinto, Shweta Sankhe-Savale, JC Gillet, Kenneth Michael Cherven
Book Image

The Tableau Workshop

By: Sumit Gupta, Sylvester Pinto, Shweta Sankhe-Savale, JC Gillet, Kenneth Michael Cherven

Overview of this book

Learning Tableau has never been easier, thanks to this practical introduction to storytelling with data. The Tableau Workshop breaks down the analytical process into five steps: data preparation, data exploration, data analysis, interactivity, and distribution of dashboards. Each stage is addressed with a clear walkthrough of the key tools and techniques you'll need, as well as engaging real-world examples, meaningful data, and practical exercises to give you valuable hands-on experience. As you work through the book, you'll learn Tableau step by step, studying how to clean, shape, and combine data, as well as how to choose the most suitable charts for any given scenario. You'll load data from various sources and formats, perform data engineering to create new data that delivers deeper insights, and create interactive dashboards that engage end-users. All concepts are introduced with clear, simple explanations and demonstrated through realistic example scenarios. You'll simulate real-world data science projects with use cases such as traffic violations, urban populations, coffee store sales, and air travel delays. By the end of this Tableau book, you'll have the skills and knowledge to confidently present analytical results and make data-driven decisions.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)
Preface

Handling Null Values while Creating and Using Calculations

Often, you might deal with data containing null values. These could be genuine entries in the data. For example, there may not be any Sales value to report against a particular product—even though it is part of the inventory, it may not have been sold yet. These nulls could also be because of some data entry errors. Most likely, you would identify and take care of these nulls at the data preparation stage. However, that may not always be the case. At times, you may need to tackle them within Tableau Desktop using calculations. Null values tend to pose a problem when used in calculated fields, simply because when doing arithmetic operations on fields, it may result in the output being null in Tableau. Refer to the following screenshot:

Figure 7.51 – A screenshot showing the Excel data and the output of the calculation on fields with null values

The preceding screenshot is a quick mockup...