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

Use case 1 – finance user with quarterly financial reporting

In this and the next three use cases, we will look at the scenario and then the Tableau modeling steps.

Scenario:

We have an analyst in finance who must produce monthly financial reporting that is available to the finance department and the executive team. The reports contain profit and loss, balance sheets, and cash flow information. It is combined with the data from the main competitors, who are publicly listed on stock exchanges.

The data comes from both internal and external sources. All internal data is sourced from internal systems and exported to Microsoft Excel. External sources come from PDF documents that competitors need to make available as part of their regulatory requirements and are available on the investor relations pages of their websites.

The company uses Tableau Cloud and has a secure project set up for these reports that limits access to the finance department and the executive team...