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

Advanced Modeling Functions in Tableau Prep Builder

In the previous chapter, we learned about extending our data model by adding rows via unions and adding columns via joins. We also learned about pivoting columns to rows to transform our data into the format that works best with Tableau, and about the level of detail in data sources and how we can aggregate a data source to join with other data sources with the same level of detail.

In this chapter, we will cover two advanced modeling functions, namely, adding new rows and pivoting rows to columns. Sometimes, our data will be too sparse to enable a smooth analysis experience. In this case, we will want to add rows to our data model to make it much easier for analysts and dashboard developers when they use our model in Tableau Desktop. Our source data might also have multiple measures in the same column, making the measures conditional.

Dealing with conditional measures in Tableau Desktop requires calculations that both slow...