From The Data Marks
Both internally at work, and externally via social media the question always comes up; “How do I get started with Tableau?”
Everyone learns differently, whether its class room based, videos, books, or hands-on learning, and luckily all those options are available. We should caveat this blog post by saying that your mileage may vary, as the saying goes “You get out as much as you put in” so if you are willing to put in the time, listen to feedback and get plugged in to the community there is no telling how far you go. If you watch a video and expect to be amazing, just stop reading now. Like most life skills, Tableau (and data visualization in general) takes practice and application of skills. You won’t master Data Storytelling in a evening, and you will make mistakes along the way, just make sure you learn from them.
FAIL = First Attempt In Learning
With that, let’s get started…
Tableau is an amazing company, and the Tableau Community is pretty amazing too, and that’s putting it mildly. Thanks to their tireless efforts there are TONS of free training and content to get you started.
Free Training
Tableau.com
This is where you should start. At last count there are 95 videos on Tableau.com, broken in to bite sized chunks for your learning pleasure. There are also videos on Tableau Server and Tableau Online, as well as Administration of those environments.
The Tableau Starter Kit for Desktop is a great place to start that brings together all the Tableau branded learning content.
Also found at Tableau.com is their knowledge base, and extensive instructional area that outlines tons of features, functions and visualization types with descriptions and pictures.
YouTube.com
Searching YouTube for Tableau content is a gold mine, with some videos being worth more than others.
Here are a couple of channels that are worth highlighting:
Edureka
Tableau Training for Beginners Part 1(~ 3 hours long)
Tableau Training for Beginners Part 2 (~3 hours long)
Tableau’s YouTube Channel
The Information Lab’s YouTube Channel
Andy Kriebel’s YouTube Channel
Past those, the best strategy is to search for “Tableau” and the type of activity you are searching for like, calculations, sets, or parameters.
Community Blogs
There is a plethora of blogs written by community members filled with How-To instructions, best practices, tips and tricks, and general Tableau information.
Again Google is your friend, so just search for Tableau along with the thing you are looking for and start exploring the blogging community. Be sure and book mark your favorites!
Overwhelming isn’t it? Here are a few that we use regularly and highly recommend:
Jeffery Shaffer’s Tableau Reference Guide
Andy Kriebel – Viz Wiz
Matt Chambers – Sir Viz-a-Lot
Ryan Sleeper – RyanSleeper.com
Rody Zakovich – Data + Tableau + Me
Books
Books are awesome, mainly because you can always go back to them for reference. There are some great Tableau books on the market and here are a few of our favorites:
Learning Tableau 10 – Joshua Milligan
Practical Tableau – Ryan Sleeper
Communicating Data with Tableau – Ben Jones
In addition, here are some great reference books for data presentation, visualization and storytelling. These are not instructional, these are inspirational.
The Big Book of Dashboards – Steve Wexler, Jeffery Shaffer and Andy Cotgreave
Storytelling With Data – Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic
Art + Data: A Collection of Tableau Dashboards – Decisive Data
Low Cost Learning Options
If you’ve got some cash in your pocket, there are a few online courses at your disposal. This approach will be much more structured than the free options, but you get what you pay for, right?
Up first is Matt Francis’ class on Udemy, and while it’s based on Tableau 9, it’s still super valuable. Many people have started with this course and gone on to done amazing things. Priced at $12 (US), it’s hard to beat and you get lifetime access to the materials. You can check it out here.
Next is Rob Davis’ course; Tableau 10 Desktop Training. Also priced at $12 (US) with life time access, it is one of the most purchased classes on Udemy for Tableau. You can check it out here.
Lastly, we’ll highlight Daniel We’s class; Tableau Fundamentals for Beginners – A Crash Course. While only 2 and a half hours long, it is the highest rated class on Udemy for Tableau. You can check it out here.
Mid-to-High Cost Training
If you are looking for professional level training from the source, then Tableau has you covered. They offer two paths for training; eLearning and Classroom Training. On the eLearning path you have access to two classes; Desktop I: Fundamentals and Desktop II: Intermediate. We do not have pricing information for eLearning and recommend you contact yoru Tableau Sales Representative for that information. If we were to venture a guess, we’d say it will be less than $1,000 (US).
For Classroom Training, you have the options of Desktop I and Desktop II as well as Desktop III: Advanced. There are also courses on Server Admin and Architecture, Web Authoring and Visual Analytics. The costs are the same whether you take the 2 day in-person class or the 5 day virtual class’ $1,400 (US)
Finding Data
If you’ve gone through all these resources, you are probably sick of working with Superstore and you are hungry for more data! Luckily, we live in an age of the open data revolution and data is everywhere. Here are a few more popular resources.
Data.World – Data.World is a fabulous repository full of data for the visualizing. The best part is that they offer a Tableau Web Data Connector on all their data sets making it super easy to use. You can sign up for free, and even create your own datasets and upload them.
Kaggle.com – Kaggle has a bunch of great data sets to grab. Some are more for Machine Learning and other projects outside visualization, but those are pretty easy to spot.
Data.gov – Data.gov is the United States home for Open Data. Anything from Agriculture to Science and Research data can be found here. Currently it houses over 160,000 datasets.
The World Bank – If you are into global development data, The World Bank has you covered.
Open Data : Open Government – OD:OG is Canada’s governmental open data site.
Tableau Public
If you are using Tableau at work, you are allowed to install it at home under the same license key. If you don’t have access to Tableau at work, then Tableau Public is the next best thing. Tableau Public give you access to all the tools functionality minus the massive collection of Data Connectors. Another great learning feature of Tableau Public is the ability to download other people’s visualization and reverse engineer them. Warning, if you do this be sure and give accreditation if necessary. “Steal like and Artist, not Like a Thief.” Click here to sign up for Tableau Public, download the application and start your free portfolio
Community Projects
We mentioned earlier how amazing the Tableau Community is, and it’s true. One of the many great things is the community projects that have popped up over the last few years. These are great learning opportunities and, as you progress in skills, a great way to help other learn and to give back in ways you never thought possible. Here are a few of the community programs that you can jump in to when you are ready.
Makeover Monday – Weekly data set which you get to interpret, learn from and present to the general public. Data sets range from week to week both in subject matter and size. It’s a great project to learn and grow in, and the leaders and other participants are wonderful in regard to feedback.
Workout Wednesday – A weekly dashboard presented to the community to reproduce without reverse engineering. These are intermediate to advanced challenges, but fabulous learning opportunities.
Throwback Thursday – A new data set is presented with data stretching back many decades. The project is a very cool opportunity to see how the world has changed through data. Very similar to Makeover Monday as you are free to visualize the data who you like.
Sports Viz Sunday – If sports and data are your thing, then SVS is for you. Each Sunday a sports themed data set is presented via Data.World to be vizzed as you wish. Sometimes to the two leads have a voting competition to have a bit of fun.
Viz for Social Good – If Social Justice and making the world a better place through data sounds appealing, then V4SG is something to explore. Projects come out as they are available and you create visualization for potential use by non-profit organizations. Projects have included data from the United National Development Group, Project Genius, and Today Tomorrow.
All these community projects exist in the Twitter-verse. If you don’t have a Twitter account, we highly suggest getting one and getting “Plugged-In” to the Tableau Community. From a learning perspective it’s one of the most powerful things you can be attached to, with new things popping up all the time. To get started, just search #Tableau and start following
With all of that, it’s only a bit off the surface of all that is available. What are your favorites? Be sure and share them in the comments below.
Enjoy the journey!