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)

Pivoting columns to rows using wildcards

If your data is subject to changes over time, particularly the introduction of new columns, your flow may not produce the output expected or even produce an error. When scheduling a flow for recurring execution, it is important that you can rely on its execution being successful. One of the ways in which the Pivot function can achieve this goal is by using wildcards. Wildcards can be used to identify columns that need to be pivoted, based on a header pattern, rather than an exact match. In this recipe, we'll pivot columns to rows using wildcards.

Getting ready

To follow along with this recipe, download the Sample Files 6.2 folder from this book's GitHub repository.

How to do it…

Start by opening the SalesData.csv file from the Sample Files 6.2 folder in Tableau Prep, then follow these steps to pivot columns to rows using wildcards:

  1. Add a Clean step to your flow, then expand the bottom pane to observe the...