Tableau is one of my favorite tool I use every day to interrogate different data sets for most of assignments I get to handle. Other than being positioned as one of the leaders in Business intelligence according to Garner's report. Personally, I find Tableau easy to learn and use, and it has a vibrant community that makes learning the tool like some sort of fun. I know for the newbie this may not look as it sounds, but by the end it this article you'll learn how easy it is to connect your first data set and build your first chart.
To be ready download your Tableau app, and installed it in your machine for a quick demonstration on how to connect to your first data set. For my case, I am using Tableau desktop professional edition which doesn't differ with Tableau public edition as far as this article article is concern.
Once you've installed the app, double click on the Tableau icon shortcut on your desktop to launch the screen below.
Note that, your screen will be a little different from mine if you're using Tableau public, My screen shot above (Tableau professional edition) has more data connectors. And more connectors can be revealed by clicking on more.. under 'Connect to a server'.. See the other connectors I have..
Therefore, in a short summary from above we can say..
Tableau Professional edition enables it's users to connect to more data sources.
(Not mentioned above) Users of Tableau professional edition can save work locally in their machines unlike in Tableau public which users have to save work in Tableau public servers. (i.e. There is no privacy in your work).
Lets connect to data saved locally..
In my case, I will be connecting to an excel file named 'My Data' saved on my desktop. See the procedure below.
Once you've connected to your data, you can click on Sheet 1 tab and build your first chart as shown below.
And there you've your first chart, fast, simple and clean. See you in the next article as we cover more on Tableau.
Thanks for reading.
