How to Learn Tableau Fast

5 Steps to Learn Tableau Fast

Without a doubt, Tableau is the current reigning king of business intelligence software and data visualization. It’s become an essential tool for anyone who is dealing a significant amount of data. Outside of the beautiful visualization, practitioners are able to produce, it’s excellent at data mining, cleaning, stats and calculations. In a sense, it’s Excel on steroids. However, like any new tool, it requires time and dedication to master. If you just want to dive into a fast-paced course, check out: Tableau Training and Certification at Edureka 
or follow the guide below:

Page Contents

• Align Motivation with Skill
• Courses to Accelerate Learning
• Dive into the Data
• Avoid the Visualisation Trap
• Good Communities for Instant Help

 I. Align Motivation and Skills

To avoid frustration and burnout, make sure you align your motivation with your skills set. If you have high motivation and low skills, you should focus on developing your Tableau fundamentals. People often get frustrated and give up when they don’t align their motivations and skills.  Ask yourself what’s the goal of learning Tableau. If you find yourself in the low motivation and low skill, you might find that a certification is a good trigger to alter your behavior. You should also jump in and try the software with the Public version. Then you may discover if you actually need deeper skills. Learn the differences between Pubic and Desktop Version of Tableau.

What is your skill level?

II. Courses to Accelerate Learning

I have taken 4 Tableau courses at Udemy. These classes range from excellent to retreads of existing content online. These videos are made by practitioners and allow you to complete tasks step by step. These videos allow you jump into the platform and follow along.

1. Tableau 10 A-Z Hands on Training for Data Science

This class moved my knowledge from a 0 to 100 in a matter of days. This is the most efficient and effective online course in Tableau. I find myself constantly going back to it to cover the fundamentals and for tips.
Who is the course designed for? People with  basic practical knowledge of Tabeleau.( High Motivation and Low Skill).

Visit the Course Page

• • Ratings 4.6 out of 5 stars from 1,823 reviews
  • Real live data sets to play with
  • Excellent instructor which walks you through practical examples.
  • Cost-effective
  • Completion time 1 week to 2 weeks if you are dedicated

2. Tableau 10 Advanced Training: Master Tableau in Data Science

This is an absolute must for anyone who has a working knowledge of Tableau. This class allowed me to move my skills needle significantly in terms of analytics and visualisation. There is a lot of information on advanced techniques such as set theory, forecasting, calculations, animations. Who is this course designed for? People with work basic working knowledge of Tableau. See the Course Details

• Ratings on the platform: 4.5 out of 5 stars from 453 reviews.
• Challenging practical data sets that allow you to solve a business problem.
•  Create beautiful interactive dashboards
•  Excellent instructor who is able to make advanced concepts understandable
• Cost Effective
• Completion time: 2 weeks if you are dedicated.

Coursera– This is a great online platform where top universities classes are offered. There is a very high standard with academic rigour. So as in any academic environments, there is homework, tests and peer review.

3. Data Visualization and Communication with Tableau–Duke University 

This is a very comprehensive course that allows you to work with a real data set. It provides a very holistic view of how business intelligence and insights can be shaped with Tableau. However, it can be challenging for beginners due to the heavy emphasis on theory. I felt rushed into the more practical elements such as calculation, parameters and sets.  Who is the course designed for? People who would like a highly structured course with academic rigor and theory. Also, those looking for a tangible certification

• Ratings 4.6 out of 5 from 200 reviews.
• Heavy Emphasis on theory
• Peer Reviews and Final Project
• Homework
• Cost Effective
• Completion in 5 weeks

Tableau Online Training Videos

This is an excellent resource for anyone who owns a copy of Tableau. You can quickly find everything you need to create advanced calculation and visualizations. If you are a beginner, there isn’t a lot of structure here. However, this is a great source to help you improve your skills. If you like to follow this route, I’d recommend following sequence for a beginner:

1. Getting Started
2. Data Connection
3.  Dashboards and Stories
4.  Maps
5. Calculations
6. Visual Analytics
7.  How -To

III. Dive into the Data

One of the best ways to learn Tableau fast is to jump right into the data. You can use large and clean data sets to produce a wonderful visualization. Tableau Public Gallery allows to down Tableau workbooks. These workbooks contain all the data visualization sheets and data extracts. You can quickly mimic the formulas, filters, and graphs to improve your skills. You can also start fresh with a dataset and look for trends, insights and relationship. Create vizzes to communicate your finds. Pay it forward by publishing to the public gallery. Check out this list of great places to get free datasets:

1. Tableau Public Gallery
2. Kaggle
3. Reddit Data Sets
4. Data.gov

IV. Visualisation Traps

Focus on Data

Tableau is a a powerful program that can build amazing visuals that rival art. However, first and foremost this platform was designed to communicate data insights through visuals.  It’s important to focus on developing your analytics skills and ploughing for insights. Charts and diagrams should be selected for effectiveness. Don’t get lost trying to make things pretty. Tableau does a wonderful job in limiting the user from selecting charts that are not in line with visual best practices. However, when you are creating your dashboards, you can use Abela’s Visual Chart Selector to guide you.

V. Find Help in the Community

If you are stuck on how to create a visualisation, there are wonderful communities filled with data scientist, hobbyist and visual data artist. Lean on these communities for support. Google is great for hunting for clues. However, I find that my problems can be answered instantly in these communities.

1. Reddit Tableau Community
2. Tableau Online Help

VI. Pick up a Book:

Some people learn better from books. Luckily, there are a lot of good resources in print for Tableau. The key would be to select a book that is current and allows you practice your skill on the latest version Tableau. One of the best technical publisher is Oriely Press.

Here is a list of great books that will help you learn tableau quickly.

1.  Communicating with Tableau, Ben Jones
2.  Mastering Tableau