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

Creating extracts with the Tableau Hyper engine

On the top right-hand section of the canvas on the data source page, you can change your data connection from live to extract. This will cause Tableau to make a copy of your data and place it in a .hyper file to be managed and queried by the Tableau Hyper engine.

Hyper is a database engine that has been in the Tableau stack since version 10.5, in early 2018. Hyper is designed for high data throughput for both loading data and analytical queries. Tableau allows you to change many settings regarding how data is stored and queried in Hyper within Tableau Desktop and the web user interface. Let’s look at these features and what they mean when it comes to creating data models:

  1. Open Tableau Desktop. When you open Tableau Desktop, you will see the connect pane on the left-hand side of the user interface. From the connect pane, under the To a File section, select Microsoft Excel. Locate the Superstore Sales Orders - US.xlsx...