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)

Embedding Python code in a Tableau Prep flow

In the previous recipe, we prepared our machine to work with Python, using the Tableau Python server. In this recipe, we'll create a Tableau Prep flow and embed a Python script in it. This process is largely the same as we've practiced in the recipes for R. Using this script, we'll evaluate a dataset and flag anomalies, that is, outliers.

Getting ready

To follow along with this recipe, download the Sample Files 8.5 folder from this book's GitHub repository.

Important note

The Python scripts in this book serve to illustrate the process of integrating Python and Tableau Prep. Each dataset must be carefully analyzed prior to applying advanced functionality such as anomaly detection. The script referenced in this recipe is purely for illustration purposes and is not intended for real-world use.

How to do it…

Start by opening up Tableau Prep and connect to the sales amount by date.csv file from the...