After being more part of traditional Business Intelligence and Data warehousing projects, recently I made my first job change embracing my aspiration to enter the world of Big Data & Data Visualization. It definitely helps to such Data Integration/reporting background, when it comes to data visualization projects. With the myriad of data sources available nowadays, it is essential for the reporting/Analytics application Client IT organizations and IT vendors are honing their skills day by day in latest Data visualization tools like Qlikview, Tableau and Logi etc available in the industry and the BI/Reporting products were looking forward to enhancing their solution/architecture flexible enough to plug and play the evolving data sources in the day to day business world to derive meaningful insights enhancing the decision making process.
I have a desire to explore Amazon and Public data sets (Which I will get my hands on soon), a treasure trove of Information which can be utilized to extract meaningful insights to help the business.
To start with my journey, I have followed the below 3 steps which I consider are the baby steps.
1) Understand the tool/technology Vocabulary
Tableau File types
File Name/Type | Description |
Workbooks | Tableau workbook files have the .twb file extension and are marked with the workbook icon. Workbooks hold one or more worksheets and dashboards. |
Bookmarks | Tableau bookmark files have the .tbm file extension and are marked with the bookmark icon. Bookmarks contain a single worksheet and are an easy way to quickly share your work. |
Packaged Workbooks | Tableau packaged workbooks have the .twbx file extension and are marked with the packaged workbook icon. Packaged workbooks contain a workbook along with any supporting local file data sources and background images. This format is the best way to package your work for sharing with others who don’t have access to the data. |
Data Extract Files | Tableau data extract files have the .tde file extension and are marked with the extract icon. Extract files are a local copy of a subset or entire data source that you can use to share data, work offline, and improve database performance. |
Data Connection Files | Tableau data connection files have the .tds file extension and are marked with the data connection icon. Data connection files are shortcuts for quickly connecting to data sources that you use often. It's a small XML file with various connection info this last statement is not from the manual |
For More references, refer these links which helped me to understand.
Tableau file types- purpose, features and limitations – https://www.freakalytics.com/blog/2011/08/14/tableau-file-types-purpose-features-and-limitations/
Tableau Community thread on file types – http://community.tableau.com/thread/125511
The Building Tableau Vocabulary Hub – http://community.tableau.com/message/288134#288134
Visual Tableau Dictionary – http://community.tableau.com/ideas/1851
2) Understanding the discrete and Continuous – Behavior of the tool/technology
It is key to understand the data as well as reporting tool/technology to make the reporting applications as success. Now it is time to wear the hat of DW & BI professional (Data warehousing and Business Intelligence), since this has to do with measures and dimensions.
This excellent article titled “Why are some things in Tableau desktop BLUE and other things GREEN?" explains how Tableau treats the data when you place them in different parts of the report layout (Filters, Report column, row etc).
Reference Link - http://www.theinformationlab.co.uk/2011/09/23/blue-things-and-green-things
3) Art of Visualization
No Matter how great your Analytics is, if you didn’t present the data pleasantly in dashboards the effort put together in terms of data analysis will go down.
Equip yourself and fill your quip with mighty tools and arrows (tips and tricks), this will help in creating/applying the visualizations appealing to the business users.
For example this Knowledge Base article explains how to come up with customer color palette and apply them in your data visualizations.
Reference link: http://kb.tableau.com/articles/knowledgebase/creating-custom-color-palettes
Happy Learning!
