Book Image

Tableau Prep Cookbook

By : Hendrik Kleine
Book Image

Tableau Prep Cookbook

By: Hendrik Kleine

Overview of this book

Tableau Prep is a tool in the Tableau software suite, created specifically to develop data pipelines. This book will describe, in detail, a variety of scenarios that you can apply in your environment for developing, publishing, and maintaining complex Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) data pipelines. The book starts by showing you how to set up Tableau Prep Builder. You’ll learn how to obtain data from various data sources, including files, databases, and Tableau Extracts. Next, the book demonstrates how to perform data cleaning and data aggregation in Tableau Prep Builder. You’ll also gain an understanding of Tableau Prep Builder and how you can leverage it to create data pipelines that prepare your data for downstream analytics processes, including reporting and dashboard creation in Tableau. As part of a Tableau Prep flow, you’ll also explore how to use R and Python to implement data science components inside a data pipeline. In the final chapter, you’ll apply the knowledge you’ve gained to build two use cases from scratch, including a data flow for a retail store to prepare a robust dataset using multiple disparate sources and a data flow for a call center to perform ad hoc data analysis. By the end of this book, you’ll be able to create, run, and publish Tableau Prep flows and implement solutions to common problems in data pipelines.
Table of Contents (11 chapters)

Chapter 2: Extract and Load Processes

Tableau Prep Builder allows you to connect to a large variety of industry-leading data platforms.

When Tableau Prep was initially launched, the only outputs supported were flat files and Tableau native formats TDE and Hyper. However, since the 2020.2.3 release in August 2020, you can output to database platforms such as SQL Server as well, making Tableau Prep a much more appealing tool. It allows you to do the following:

  • Ingest and output to flat files and a variety of database platforms
  • Learn how to work with Tableau extracts

In this chapter, you will find recipes to ingest and output the data you require from and to a wide variety of data types:

  • Connecting to text and Excel files
  • Connecting to PDF files
  • Connecting to SAS, SPSS, and R files
  • Connecting to on-premises databases
  • Connecting to cloud databases
  • Connecting to Tableau extracts
  • Connecting to JDBC or ODBC data sources
  • Writing data to CSV and Hyper files
  • Writing data to databases
  • Setting up an incremental refresh

If you are connecting a BI tool such as Tableau Desktop to your data, selecting the appropriate output type may impact your Tableau workbook performance.