Page 2: Business Intelligence

Business intelligence (BI) combines business analytics, data

mining, data visualization, data tools and infrastructure, and
best practices to help organizations to make more data-
driven decisions.
It is the process where strategies and technologies are used
for analyzing current and historical data, with the sole purpose
of improving strategic decision-making. By using this useful
information, the business will know what is working, what is
not, what is the future, and how can you improve your
business.

Page 3: Tableau is one such BI tool, other popular ones are

qlickview, OBIEE, Power BI, Microstrategy etc.

Page 4: Tableau is a data analytics and visualization tool used

widely in the industry today.
Tableau's ease of use comes from the fact that it has a drag
and drop interface.
Tableau is also compatible with multiple sources, including
Excel, SQL, and cloud-based data repositories which make it
an excellent choice for Data analysts.
Tableau is so popular and leader in its industry because:
 It can connect to 40+ data sources
 Can build interactive reports, charts, graphs and
dashboards with few clicks
 Simple analytics like trends and forecasting

Page 5: Tableau Desktop: All your development is done here.

This is the tool where we develop all the reports and
dashboards. But this is a client application.
Tableau Server:- Reports are published from desktop to
server. Different clients can get to those Dashboards by
signing on Tableau Server.
Tableau Public:- It's a free product from Tableau. It is similar
to Tableau desktop but with some restrictions like does not
have connectivity with all kinds of data sources and anything
you save in Tableau Public will be saved on Tableau Public
Sever which anybody can download (no secrecy).

Tableau Online:- Similar to Tableau server but everything is on

tableau cloud and not on enterprises premises.
Tableau Reader: is Read only access.
Page 6:
Tableau Workspace:
The Tableau workspace is a collection of worksheets, menu
bar, toolbar, marks card, shelves and a lot of other elements
about which we will learn in sections to come. Sheets can be
worksheets, dashboards, or stories. The image highlights the
major components of the workspace. More familiarity will be
achieved once we work with actual data.

Page 7:

Data sources: It can be connected to more than 40

data sources.

Page 8:
These are the file extensions that tableau files are stored as.
Twb is the most important , it stores sheets, dashboards and
stories. These are nothing but saving the workbooks.
.tbm is for single sheet, .tbwx is for workbook with
data, .tde is for local copy of data extract, .tds is for
shortcuts to often used data sources. Tdsx is for data source
file along with any other files

Page 9:
Lets learn some dataware housing terms:
Dimensions, Measures and Agreegates.
Dimensions are qualitative data(blue color – discrete label),
measures are quantitative (green color – continuous label).

Page 11:

We shall be working with a sample data set names Superstore

dataset, that comes pre-loaded with Tableau Desktop.
I’ll provide the data source to you guys for public tableau.

The data is that of a superstore. It contains information about

products, sales, profits, etc. Our aim as Data Analysts is to
analyze the data and find critical areas of improvement within
this fictitious company.
Steps
1. Import the Data into tableau workspace from the
computer.

2. Under the Sheets Tab, three sheets will become visible

namely Orders, People, and Returns. However, we will
focus only on Orders data. Double click on Orders Sheet,
and it opens up just like a spreadsheet.

Sheet : 1 visualization at a time

Dashboard : Pull multiple sheets to show multiple
visualizations at a time
Story: Allows you to show a Sequence of visualizations
that tells a story

Dimensions are qualitative data, such as a name or date. By

default, Tableau automatically classifies data that contains
qualitative or categorical information as a dimension, for
example, any field with text or date values. These fields
generally appear as column headers for rows of data, such as
Customer Name or Order Date, and also define the level of
granularity that shows in the view.
Measures are quantitative numerical data. By default,
Tableau treats any field containing this kind of data as a
measure, for example, sales transactions or profit. Data that is
classified as a measure can be aggregated based on a given
dimension, for example, total sales (Measure) by region
(Dimension).

Aggregation is the row-level data rolled up to a higher

category, such as the sum of sales or total profit.

Tableau automatically sorts the fields in Measures and

Dimensions. However, we can change it manually too.

Dimensions are on the top and measures are on the bottom.

Why Rowid is in dimensions: It is because only those that

need to be performed as some calculations are measures or
that allows you to aggregate it sometime.
Blue dimensions ( discreet label) and green is measures
( continuous label)

Measures are agregatable. And its sum by default ( you can

Change the default aggregation in settings).

Double click dimensions ( Region ) will move it to row

Double click on quantity and sales will move it to marks as
sum
You can move region to columns as well.

Move sum of quantity and sum of sales to columns and rows

respectively. You will see that both are in green color not
change the sum of quantity to discrete and it will change to
blue color.

Continuous fields produce axes

Discrete fields create headers

Average sales by region

Move region to column and sum of sales to rows

Then move region to colors ( each has different color)

Then move sales to region ( it shows continous color where

higher sales are marked with darker color)

Move the region back to color. Then move sales to size. It will
size the bar by sales. Remove sales and click on size and slide it
to increase or decrease

Now drag sales and put it to label.

Drag region to the label

Tooltip shows hovering text

Change the sum of sales on the row to average

Then change the label sum of sales to average

Click on the label to show min/max or show just min or change

the color of the font

Change the automatic on the marks and select some other

chart type manually. This can be used when you are not using
show me.

Marks options change with the chart type

Now lets see the scattered plot.

For that we need 2+ measures and 0+ dimension

Add sales on the row and discount on the column and then add
order id in the detail.

Unlike dropping a dimension on the Rows or Columns shelf,

dropping it on Detail on the Marks card is a way to show more
data without changing the table structure.

Here this shows which order got more sales vs discount.

However, this does not show me any pattern, so lets change
that to product name. just place product name on top of order
id. Now this shows the patter on which product is getting more
dollars vs products which are highly discounted. This shows
that products with more discounts are not bringing more
dollars. Which is obvious? Now lets add category on the shapes.

You can highlight selected items from the right side on the
category. The highlighted option also comes on most of the
mark items when clicked on arrow.

Add category to the color. This will color by the category.

Now lets create another sheet.

Add profit to the rows and sub category to the columns. This
shows which sub category is profitable and which is in the loss.
Now to make it more visualizable. Add sub category to the
colors. Now click on the color and change automatic to red to
green.

Now lets see this by category. Here order matters a lot. So

move category before subcategory on the column. If we move
category after sub category. It will not show presentable result.
You can right click on the x axis and click on rotate label to
rotate them from vertical to horizontal and vice versa. Now
right click on the sheet name and rename it . This will change
the title. Also y axis does not show the $ sign, so either right
click on the y axis and select format or click on sum of profit in
the row shelve and click format. Now change scale to custom
currency an select decimal place to 0 and dislay units to
thousands

To hide category/subcategory from the title on the top. Right

click and click hide field labels for columns. To bring them back ,
click on analysis > Table Layout and click on show field labels for
column

Now lets create a hierarchy.

Category>subcategory>Product Name.
Lets learn first what this is. Pull sales to marks in the text. And
product name to the rows in a new sheet. This show sales by
product name.

Now lets add sub category and then category in the front on
the row shelf

This shows the hierarchy. But how about creating a hierarchy.

For that drag sub category on thop of category and name this
as product hierarchy. Now drag product name to the
subcategory name in the product hierarchy.

Now remove category, sub category and product name from

the row shelf. And add the product hierarchy. Click on the +
button to show or collapse each hierarchical item. This is very
useful when you want to show details

For eg; add category and sub category to the filtersa and click
show filter. Now lets say I want to see only technology t, so
select that filter , now lets say I want to see only phones
withing sub category , so select that , now within phones which
phone has highest sales. You can sort them accordingly.

Now, lets add more fun to this chart. Lets select all to all fielters
first , then drag region and dop it on to column. This shows
sales by region which is drillable. Now drag sales to color and
change the mark from automatic to square. This automatically
applies the color combination by sales. Rename sheet to sales
by product
Now lets see the hierarchy which is by default in tableau.

So create a new sheet and rename it to profit by year. Now lets

drag order date to columns and sales to row. Now dates can be
expanded to see by quarters and then by months. Now you can
add category to the color. Now you can see that technology
keeps going higher but there was a drop in Q2 in 2020.

This can be changed to continuous pattern. Remove all except

year from the column. Now click drop down on the year and
you will see that year , month and quarters etc are repeated.
Select the second one. Now expand year and see the fun.

Now lets create a calculated field. Click on the drop down arrow
on the data side bar, next to search and click create calculated
field. Or right click on the white space in the measure and click
create calculated field. Now give the name as profit ratio and
drag profit and sales to the white space in the field and make
the formula as sum(profit)/sum(sales).

Now in a new sheet, add profit ration to the column and region
to the row, color this by region, add profit and sales to the
column as well. Now we want sales per customer. So create
another calculated field.

Lets name it total customer with formula

Countd(customerid). Now add one more calculated field called
sales per cutomer. Now mke it sum(sales)/total number of
customer

Now add this to the row as well. Sum of sales by total number
of customer in each region.

Lets create another sheet, this time we will control click 2

fields, sales and region and then click on tree maps in show me.
Then add color to be based on discount or profit

Now lets create another sheet, double click on state and you
will see that all states are maked not double click on sales ( it
moved it to shapes) and now move profit to color.

Lets create another sheet. Move sales to row and category to

column, this will create a bar char, change automatic to bar,
then move profit to row, this will create another bar chart,
change the color or add sales to color, then click on this card
and change to circle. Now click on second column(profit) on the
row and make it dual axis.

Now we will create our first dashboard:

On the left side under dashboard tab, we have the type of

screen it is getting designed for

1) Default
2) Phone

Then you can specify the size:

Under range drop down we have fixed size, automatic size
and range
We will use fixed size and specify 1400 by 1000

Now go to sheet and drag

1) Treemap showing sales by region on left
2) Sales profit by states on right
3) Sales by category on left down
4) And details on right down

Then click on the treemap sales by region on left and

click on the use as filter. Now this becomes the filter
that will work for all the other visuals as well. You click
on south and all will change.
Now if you click on central you will notice that sales is
higher in central then in south but profit is lower from
the south. So les dig deep and find out whats causing
that issue.
When clicking on central, we can see that texas is our
problem area.
Lets add use as filter on all 3 sheets
5) Treemap showing sales by region on left
6) Sales profit by states on right
7) Sales by category on left down
So then when clicking on texas, you can see that there is
negative profit on furniture and office supplies
Control click on furniture and office supplies and then
you can see on the right sheet that binder and
appliances have lowest profit.
Click on the plus sign on the sub category to see all the
products that are having low profits

Now lets create parameters and sets

So click on new sheet and add customer name on the
rows and sales on the columns
Then click on the drop down next to search field above
tables
And click create parameter, give the name as Top N
customers by sales, then click on the float drop down
and change it to integer, make current value to 5
Change allowable values to range then give max as 20
and min as 5 and step size as 5.
Then you will see parameters options will show up
below measures
Right click on the parameter and say show parameter
this will put the parameter on the right side. But it will
not work as of now
. So now you need to create a set, right click on the
customer name and click create and then select set then
click on Top tab, select by field click on 10 drop and
change it to newly created parameter “top n customers
by sales” then you will notice that a set will be created
in the table below the customer name as customer
name set.
Drag this to the filter and now change the parameter on
the right to see values changing on hthe graph. You can
choose to have slider on the parameter by right clicking
and selecting slider on the parameter