Tableau

March 14, 2022

• Open Tableau Desktop.
• Notice the types of files and servers you can connect to. Tableau uses the language of connection because the tool doesn’t change your original dataset.

• Open the World Bank C02 dataset I sent you. What do you notice about the data? Notice the tabs along the bottom. Each tab represents different datasets.
• Connect to the C02 dataset.
• When it opens, you’ll notice something interesting. What happened to the tabs?
• Use Data Interpreter. This tool cleans data based on its interpretation. Sometimes it will cause errors, which is why Open Refine is great.

• Drag the tables you want to analyze. We will analyze C02 Data Cleaned and C02 in Kilotons.
• Select a common column shared by both tables. In this case, country name should work!

• Select a relationship between the two datasets.

WORKSHEET

• Worksheets are represented by the first tab at the bottom of the screen. This is the space where you will create visualizations from your data.

• Drag datasets from the left panel onto the blank space in the center of the screen. Or you can drag them onto the top or bottom panels at the top to represent either columns or rows.

• At any time, you can remove a dataset by clicking on the down arrow and selecting remove. This way you can try visualizations and remove them if they don’t work.

• Tableau visualizes data according to four types: text (Abc), numbers (hashtag), date (calendar) or geographical (represented by a globe). Blue pills are considered discrete data (i.e. a list of countries) whereas green pills are considered continuous (i.e. a range of numerical values).
• Select the Show Me pane on the far right corner.

• This panel will show you all the visualization options based on the data you have dragged into the operations area. If a visualization is “grayed out” it means you don’t yet have the right data dragged into place. Each visualization will also tell you which data you need to make it work.

• You’ll also see a panel called “Marks” which changes the way our data is visualized. Dragging data onto the various marks cards will change the appearance and interactivity of your data in various ways. For example, let’s drag country name onto the column area and SUM(CO2(kt)) onto the rows (note that Tableau will automatically sum numerical data but you can change that by click on the down area and change to average or median).

• The marks cards allow you to add layers as extra information in the visualization. By dragging a data column onto the marks card, you can change the color to match the various data points, add labels based on the data points, change the size based on data points, change the level of detail based on data points, or add data tooltips that arene’t visible until clicked on. This adds complexity to the interactive chart.

• Now let’s drag CO2(kt) onto the color marks card and see what happens:

• Now I have a chart with colors representing CO2 output for various countries. Why is mine red? I clicked on the color marks card and select red/gold as a range for my data. Now you can begin to see the power of Tableau!
• If you want to fit all your data on the screen, you can select the size at the top from a drop-down menu.

• Try creating a map in a new worksheet by using the Country Name data with CO2(kt) and selecting the map.

• You can easily save these visualizations to your Tableau Public account.
• Rename your visualization by right clikcing on the Sheet 1 and selecting Rename.
• You can also do this by double-clicking on Sheet 1 at the top your map and opening the text editor.

• Now create a second sheet. I will create one showing the evolution of CO2 over time by adding the year data to columns, the sum of C02 per capita to rows. This will show a trend line of the total CO2 of ALL countries over the years.
• But I can also visualize this data by country by using the detail button. The detail marks card determines the level of detail in the chart.

DASHBOARD

• Once you’re happy with one or two visualizations, select the dashboard icon (the second icon at the bottom of the screen).

• The dashboard is an area where you can further work with the data visualizations you created in worksheets. You will see the various sheets you’ve selected on the left.

• Here we have options on how to develop interactive dashboards for our data. We can add text or images to the visualization or, most importantly, we can filter or data.
• We can drag and drop the sheets so they are side by side or one on top of the other. Change the size to Automatic to expand the visualization.
• Tip: If you need to make a change once you’ve created a dashboard, you can change the original sheets and the dashboard will update!

• But we can also filter one sheet by the other. Thus, if a reader clicks on a data point in one visualization, it will show in the other too. This helps researchers connect various data points.
• To filter, select the filter icon on the sheet you want to be the filter.

• Now when you click on a data point on that sheet, it will isolate the same data point in the other.

STORY

• The final tab is the story tab. Here, you can combine all your visualizations and dashboards into one overarching narrative presentation.

• You will see that we have access to our sheets and our dashboards on the left hand side. Drag sheets onto the center screen, and they become content in your project. You can add captions and a title.

• Click Blank under new story point to add new pages to your presentation. Once you add a few items, you will see menu buttons appear. Select Layout to change the style of your menu.
• When you’re done editing your story, you can present it using the presentation mode at the top.
• If you want to share the visualization, save it to Tableau Public which will give you options to share and embed.