Welcome to Tableau

You'll find all the resources you need to get started as an Explorer

What is Tableau?

Tableau offers a suite of products for business intelligence that scales actionable, data-driven insights everywhere, for everyone.

See Tableau in action

Step 1: Get to know your site

Take action and keep data at the heart of every decision, right in the flow of work. When you sign into Tableau, the first page you see will include the Projects, Workbooks, Views, or Data Sources menus. As you click these options, each page shows related content you can access. As Creators and Explorers share workbooks, your site will begin to build a content library full of useful data. Exploring this content is easy.

Get a tour of your new site

Search for content

The quick search field at the top of the page searches your entire site. Filter your search to find matches that are specific to each resource type, such as modified date for workbooks or connection type for data sources. You can also find workbooks or views that you've marked as favorites. Both quick search and filtered search support attributes to help set the scope of the search.

Learn the ins and outs of search

Browse for content

Navigate through your site to find the data that will help you better ask and answer questions. In the navigation bar, move from Projects to Workbooks to Views to Data Sources to find what you’re looking for.

Learn how to interact with content in your site

Step 2: Interact with content

Visualize and explore all of your data to get real-time insights for your entire organization. Want to dig deeper and answer questions the minute they occur to you? Check out these simple interactions.

Navigate to Filter data

Filter data

Filter data to further explore what’s important to you. Use a filter to narrow the timeframe or remove the extraneous data points, so you can zero in on what you need.

Learn more about filtering

Navigate to Sort

Sort

Sort data to get a new perspective. Use the sort functionality to see your data in a new way.

See how to sort data

Navigate to Select Marks

Select Marks

When you select a mark or a subset of marks in the view, you can see information about the marks in the tooltip that appears. You can also quickly filter the marks you select from the view, as well as view their underlying data.

Learn how to select what interests you

Navigate to Comment

Comment

Start the conversation. Adding comments to a view is quick way to collaborate with your team around data. In the toolbar above the view, select Comments, type your message and click post. If you’d like to remove your comment, click the X in the upper right corner.

Join the conversation

Step 3: Stay informed

Find favorites

Favoriting content makes it easy for you keep an eye on the data you need. To favorite a view, click the star to add the content to your favorites list. You can then quickly access your favorites from the top navigation whenever you need them. Mark your favorites

Subscriptions

Using the Subscribe button in the toolbar, you can subscribe to dashboards and get updates delivered directly to your inbox on a set schedule. You can also subscribe other site users if you have the permissions to do so. Subscribe to your favorites

Data driven alerts

Data driven alerts help you keep on top of your most important data. Get an email when a mark crosses a visual threshold. First, select the axis you want to alert on. Then click the Alert button in the toolbar. Finally, choose the trigger condition and when to send it. Set up an alert

Mobile app

The Tableau mobile app is a convenient way to keep your data at your fingertips. Go from question to insight in just a few taps. Ask your own questions, seek out the answers you care about. Select, filter, and drill down with a tap of your finger. Interact with your data using controls that are automatically optimized for touch. Download for iOS and Android.

Keep your data close

Step 4: Build something

As an Explorer in your site, you share the responsibility with Creators to create new content on your site. You can either start with an existing workbook that’s already on your site or start building from scratch.

Start by editing

Navigate to a workbook on your site and open it up. Select the pencil icon next to the workbook title to edit the view.

Edit a view

Start from the data

As an Explorer, you’re able to answer your own questions by exploring data right in the browser. Start by selecting Workbooks from the top navigation. Then the Connect to Data window appears. Connect to published data sources from the On This Site tab, and select your chosen published data source to start building something amazing.

Build a workbook using an existing data source

Use natural language to get answers from your data

Ask Data is a powerful way to interact with your data. Simply type a question and get an answer in the form of automatic data visualizations. Use Ask Data to get started quickly and iterate on your analysis without drag-and-drop or understanding the underlying data’s structure.

Build Views with Ask Data

Build with visual best practices in mind

Discover ways to improve your visualizations to increase understanding about your data and enable faster, more meaningful answers.

The most important step you can take to make a great visualization is to know what you’re trying to say. It is vital that your visualization has a purpose and you are selective about what you include in your visualization to fulfill that purpose. Below are some tips to apply visual best practices to your workbooks. Check out the whitepaper for the full list of tips.

Tableau visual guidebook

Know your audience

When you’re building a visualization it’s important to understand what questions your audience already has. What answers do you find for them? What other questions does it inspire? What conversations will result? Your viewers should take something away from the time they spend with your visualization.

Choose the right chart type

Understanding what you’re trying to convey in your visualization is a critical first step. Knowing which visualization can best convey that purpose is equally important. Whether you’re trying to see trends over time, or comparing and ranking a group of items by a set of criteria, the chart type you choose will help your audience better comprehend the information in your visualization.

Emphasize the most important data

Many chart types let you put multiple measures and dimensions in one view. In scatter plots, for example, you can put measures on the X-or Y-axis, as well as on the marks for color, size, or shape. A rule of thumb is to put the most important data on the X- or Y- axis and less important data on color, size, or shape.

Orient your views for legibility

Sometimes a simple change in how to your labels are oriented can greatly increase how quickly viewers understand what’s being conveyed. If you find yourself with a view that has long labels that only fit vertically, try rotating the view. You can quickly swap the fields on the Rows and Columns shelves to achieve this change.

Step 5. Share and collaborate

Share workbooks and views with colleagues

Sharing is caring. Don’t keep your insights to yourself. Share them with colleagues.

Sharing views with members of your site is easy. Maybe you want to show a coworker a specific Viz within your workbook. It’s easy to share links with others by pasting them into an email. Simply click the share icon in the toolbar, copy the URL in the Link field, and past it into your email.

If you want to be more targeted in what you share, try sharing a Custom View. Rather than sending a link to the original dashboard and describing how to find your specific insight, you can save the specific set of filters and highlights you’ve already created in Tableau. When you are ready to save your custom view, click the Original View button in the toolbar. Give your custom view a name and click Save. Now your team can easily access your custom view by selecting it from the list in the Original View menu. You can also copy and share the URL, just as you did above.

See how to share with your team

Learn, connect and grow with the DataFam

Tableau Community

Looking to get your Tableau questions answered or bring your data skills to the next level? Get started in the Community with just a few steps.