www.it-ebooks.info Tableau Dashboard Cookbook Over 40 recipes on designing professional dashboards by implementing data visualization principles Jen Stirrup BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI www.it-ebooks.info Tableau Dashboard Cookbook Copyright © 2014 Packt Publishing All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information First published: May 2014 Production Reference: 1200514 Published by Packt Publishing Ltd Livery Place 35 Livery Street Birmingham B3 2PB, UK ISBN 978-1-78217-790-6 www.packtpub.com Cover Image by Aniket Sawant (aniket_sawant_photography@hotmail.com) www.it-ebooks.info Credits Author Copy Editors Jen Stirrup Roshni Banerjee Sarang Chari Reviewers Gladson Monteiro Nuno Faustino Adithi Shetty Mike Janecek Nathan Krisanski Project Coordinator Patrick Spedding Venitha Cutinho Commissioning Editor Edward Gordon Proofreaders Simran Bhogal Maria Gould Acquisition Editor Paul Hindle Rebecca Youé Content Development Editor Arun Nadar Hemangini Bari Tejal Soni Technical Editors Production Coordinator Dennis John Sebastian Michael Rodrigues Pankaj Kadam Indexers Melwyn D'sa Cover Work Melwyn D'sa www.it-ebooks.info About the Author Jen Stirrup is an award-winning, internationally recognized business intelligence and data visualization expert, author, data strategist, and technical community advocate She has been repeatedly honored, along with peer recognition, as one of the top 100 most globally influential tweeters on Big Data topics Jen has over 16 years of experience in delivering Business Intelligence and data visualization projects for companies of various scales across the world I want to thank the most important person in my life, my son Matthew I love him to the moon and back…a millionty times I dedicate this book to him I have been inspired by the genius of other people In the words of Sir Isaac Newton, I stand on the shoulders of giants My gratitude to Stephen Few, Edward Tufte, Raj M Ratwani, and Ben Schneiderman The Tableau community has boundless enthusiasm and a sense of fun, which has helped me to keep going A special shout out to Jacqui, Ian Taylor, Dan Murray, and Tom Brown I'd like to thank the great folks at Tableau, especially, Andy Cotgreave and Pat Hanrahan I would also like to thank the following people for their support and love; I appreciate it more than I can say Toby, Gill, and Pippa Smith; Charlie and Joe Withey; Allan, Lesley, and Ewan Mitchell; my parents; and my brother I'd also like to thank the "SQLFamily"—those in the global SQL Server and Microsoft Data Platform community, and of course, the "softies" themselves They are just simply amazing, amazing people They brighten my days and nights more than they know Thank you! I would like to thank everyone at Packt Publishing for their patience and hard work in helping to make this happen: Venitha, Rebecca, and Arun in particular I would also like to thank the reviewers for their diligence and careful questions, and help in shaping this book www.it-ebooks.info About the Reviewers Nuno Faustino has worked in data visualization, harvesting data from all kinds of web sources and databases since 2007 He specializes in QlikView and Tableau for dashboard production, usually after performing statistical analysis/modeling with tools such as R and SPSS He has mainly worked in the pharmaceutical industry for companies such as Cegedim and Johnson & Johnson His skills have also been tested in the banking and insurance market during the challenge he took up to evaluate consumer intelligence in the UK At the academic level, Nuno published his thesis in 2009, in which he analyzed the efficiency of Portuguese pharmacies using Data Envelopment Analysis Mike Janecek has an undergraduate degree in Economics and MBA and has been providing analytical services for nearly 20 years in various institutes such as hospitals and insurance and investment companies He has been following the data visualization movement since 2005 and using Tableau as his main tool of choice to generate visual analysis since early 2007 www.it-ebooks.info Nathan Krisanski is a data analyst, consultant, and entrepreneur with over 10 years of industry experience and five years of experience working with Tableau Desktop and Server applications He currently consults for several large-scale Australian companies, building and maintaining Tableau visualizations and installations for these clients Nathan graduated in 2007 with a Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, majoring in Software Development and Network Communications He has worked in the health, real-estate, and banking and finance sectors, among many others Nathan is a Tableau partner and organizer for the Brisbane Tableau User Group He was also a customer speaker at the 2012 European Tableau User Conference in Barcelona, Spain, and discussed the topic of dashboard integration and automation and spacial techniques Thank you to my girls, Kendall and Isabella You'll are always in my thoughts and heart Patrick Spedding is a thought leader, evangelist, and strategic advisor in the area of Business Intelligence and Analytics Over the 22 years of his career with IBM – Cognos Business Intelligence, SAS Institute, and See-Change Solutions, Patrick had the opportunity to work in a number of roles, both functionally and geographically These include the roles of the Director of Product Management for Cognos Asia-Pacific, Director of Field Marketing for Cognos West US, Area Technical Manager for Cognos West US, and SAS Solution Manager for Business Intelligence and Strategy Management Patrick is the Founder of See-Change Solutions, a Business Intelligence strategic advisory firm and a Tableau business partner See-Change Solutions specializes in complex Business Intelligence deployments, including SAS/Tableau and Cognos/Tableau integration Patrick's qualifications include an MBA degree in Marketing (AIU), diploma in Management (University of Michigan), BSc (Hons) in Mathematics (Loughborough University), and Associate Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management (AFAIM) He is also Pragmatic Marketing Certified www.it-ebooks.info www.PacktPub.com Support files, eBooks, discount offers, and more You might want to visit www.PacktPub.com for support files and downloads related to your book Did you know that Packt offers eBook versions of every book published, with PDF and ePub files available? 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PacktLib is Packt's online digital book library Here, you can access, read and search across Packt's entire library of books Why subscribe? ff Fully searchable across every book published by Packt ff Copy and paste, print and bookmark content ff On demand and accessible via web browser Free access for Packt account holders If you have an account with Packt at www.PacktPub.com, you can use this to access PacktLib today and view nine entirely free books Simply use your login credentials for immediate access Instant updates on new Packt books Get notified! Find out when new books are published by following @PacktEnterprise on Twitter, or the Packt Enterprise Facebook page www.it-ebooks.info www.it-ebooks.info Table of Contents Preface 1 Chapter 1: A Short Dash to Dashboarding! Introduction 5 Preparing for your first dashboard Showing the power of data visualization 12 Connecting to data sources 21 Introducing the Tableau interface 28 Interacting with your first data visualization 34 Sharing your visualization with the world 41 Chapter 2: Summarizing Your Data for Dashboards 49 Chapter 3: Interacting with Data for Dashboards 91 Introduction Arithmetic – the queen of mathematics! Dashboards and dates Grouping your data with calculations Correlation with calculations Using cross-tabs flexibly Simplifying your business rules with customer calculations Introduction Fun with filters – grouping your data with clarity Hierarchies for revealing the dashboard message Classifying your data for dashboards Actions and interactions Drilling into the details Working with input controls www.it-ebooks.info 49 50 58 64 72 79 83 91 92 109 114 120 124 135 ... data Publishing dashboards to Tableau Server Publishing dashboards to Tableau Public Mobilizing your dashboards Mixing Tableau with SharePoint 2013 Power BI Wrapping up with R – dashboards as a.. .Tableau Dashboard Cookbook Over 40 recipes on designing professional dashboards by implementing data visualization principles Jen Stirrup BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI www.it-ebooks.info Tableau Dashboard. .. Creating choices in dashboards using conditional logic 224 Introduction Adding an infographic to your Tableau dashboard String manipulation in dashboards Correcting data exports from Tableau to Excel