Book Image

Data Modeling with Tableau

By : Kirk Munroe
Book Image

Data Modeling with Tableau

By: Kirk Munroe

Overview of this book

Tableau is unlike most other BI platforms that have a single data modeling tool and enterprise data model (for example, LookML from Google’s Looker). That doesn’t mean Tableau doesn’t have enterprise data governance; it is both robust and highly flexible. This book will help you effectively use Tableau governance models to build a data-driven organization. Data Modeling with Tableau is an extensive guide, complete with step-by-step explanations of essential concepts, practical examples, and hands-on exercises. As you progress through the chapters, you’ll learn the role that Tableau Prep Builder and Tableau Desktop each play in data modeling. You’ll also explore the components of Tableau Server and Tableau Cloud that make data modeling more robust, secure, and performant. Moreover, by extending data models for Ask and Explain Data, you’ll gain the knowledge required to extend analytics to more people in their organizations, leading to better data-driven decisions. Finally, this book will guide you through the entire Tableau stack and the techniques required to build the right level of governance into Tableau data models for the correct use cases. By the end of this Tableau book, you’ll have a firm understanding of how to leverage data modeling in Tableau to benefit your organization.
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
1
Part 1: Data Modeling on the Tableau Platform
4
Part 2: Tableau Prep Builder for Data Modeling
9
Part 3: Tableau Desktop for Data Modeling
14
Part 4: Data Modeling with Tableau Server and Online

Technical requirements

For the complete list of requirements to run the practical examples in this chapter, please see the Technical requirements section in Chapter 1.

All the exercises and images in this chapter will be described using the Tableau Desktop client software except where noted. You can also recreate all the exercises in this chapter using the Tableau web client, which has a very similar experience to the Desktop client.

To run the exercises in this chapter, we will need the following downloaded files:

  • Superstore Sales Orders - US.xlsx
  • Product Database.xlsx
  • Sales Argentina.csv
  • Bicycle_Thefts.csv
  • toronto_crs84.geojson

The files we will be using are based on Superstore data, the sample data that Tableau uses in its products. The exception will be the bicycle thefts and Toronto neighborhood shapefiles. These files came from https://data.torontopolice.on.ca/ and https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/data-research-maps/open-data/ respectively...