Tableau Business Intelligence
No Code Dashboards

Tableau Basics

Learn how to use Tableau for visual analytics and dashboards using a simple, drag-and-drop workflow.

What is Tableau?

Tableau is a visual analytics platform used for business intelligence (BI). You can connect to data sources, build charts using drag-and-drop, and combine them into interactive dashboards.

Key Tableau Strengths

  • No coding required to build powerful dashboards.
  • Connects to Excel, CSV, databases, and cloud data sources.
  • Great for business users and analysts.

Typical Tableau Workflow

  1. Connect to data – choose Excel/CSV/database and select your table.
  2. Prepare data – clean field names, check data types, and join tables if needed.
  3. Build worksheets – drag dimensions and measures to create charts.
  4. Build dashboards – arrange multiple charts and add filters.
  5. Share – publish dashboards to Tableau Server, Cloud, or PDF.

Example: Sales by Category

Using superstore_sales.xlsx

Steps in Tableau Desktop:

  • Open Tableau and click Connect → Microsoft Excel, choose superstore_sales.xlsx.
  • Go to a new Worksheet.
  • Drag Category to Columns.
  • Drag Sales to Rows.
  • From Show Me, ensure bar chart is selected.
  • Click the sort icon to sort bars by descending Sales.
Adding More Insight
  • Drag Profit to Color to differentiate profitable vs unprofitable categories.
  • Drag Region to Filters to focus on a specific region.
  • Drag Category to Label to show category names on bars.

Key Tableau Concepts

Dimensions & Measures
  • Dimensions: category fields like Country, Region, Category.
  • Measures: numeric fields like Sales, Profit, Quantity.
  • Tableau automatically assigns them, but you can convert if needed.
Filters & Marks
  • Filters limit which rows of data are shown.
  • Marks control how data points are displayed (color, size, label).
  • Use Tooltips to show extra details on hover.
Next: ML Concepts