Leaning Into Your Tableau Learning
Tableau recently celebrated their 20th anniversary which prompted a lot of people to reflect on their journey with the tool and the community. You can view mine here but the short of it is it took me over a year since I opened Tableau for the first time to really start seeing progress. Part of that is due to focus and part due to the exposure (or lack thereof) that I had. But when thinking back about it, I thought of all the things I’d do differently to expedite my growth, and I thought I’d share that with you.
Don’t Underestimate the Power of People
The community around Tableau is like no other. There's a wide range of people from a variety of professional backgrounds and points within their journey who have all come together to celebrate a wonderful tool. Investing in the community and taking advantage of all of its resources earlier would have helped serve me in my journey in two ways. Firstly, it would have given me greater access to the types of content I needed to be inspired and challenged as I was learning more about tableau. When I first started I was so focused on what was right in front of me I didn't know all of the possibilities that were out there. There are so many talented and tenured people within the community who dedicate time to sharing their learnings and their creations with each other and it took time for me to be introduced to it. Once I started reading blogs (like the Flerlage twins) and seeing creative vizzes (like the ones from Judit Bekker) I really began to step my game up. The second reason joining the community earlier would’ve helped me grow is the support system it provides. Not only are members of the #datafam invested in progressing the tool and sharing their knowledge, they’re also deeply committed to uplifting others who want to do the same. Being surrounded by people who cheered me up when I made a mistake, told me to keep going when I was struggling, and frequently helped me get unstuck gave me the courage and motivation that is required when learning something new.
And there are layers to this; if you’re reading this blog you’re part of the community already! In my opinion, anyone who engages with the other practitioners to some degree is in the community. If you’re looking to get even more integrated, I recommend joining a TUG near you.
Foundational Knowledge for Success
You’re connected, now what? It can be hard to decide what to work on if you're not sure what you're working towards. In this section, I want to outline the four types of knowledge that I think are important to make a good Tableau developer. I’m coining this VAST knowledge (for no other reason than acronyms make me happy).
Visual
If you don’t think design is important to data visualization, go stand in the corner and think about what you’ve done. Then come back and read the rest of my blog please. When I say design I mean anything I can see with my eyeballs or is read with a screen reader. This is not about how the numbers came together or what you did with them, this is about how you present them to the end user. And it matters. You can have the most advanced forecasting and profound insights your audience has ever seen but if they don’t understand the findings or how to get to them because it wasn’t set up in a user friendly way or they don’t revisit the dashboard because it’s unappealing and difficult to look at it it’s not going to matter as much. Investing time in improving the design is investing time furthering the impact of it.
Analytical
This has nothing to do with Tableau specifically but is important if you’re using Tableau nonetheless. Understanding how to perform analytics and the rules around it is crucial to producing responsible and ethical dashboards. This comes in two ways, the way you’re calculating your findings and the way you’re representing it. When calculating, not all mathematical operations can be performed on all types of data (e.g., not everything can be averaged). When displaying, it’s important to be intentional about what you are inferring and whether or not that’s a reliable conclusion to come to based on the data you had access to. I could write an entire separate blog on this but here it’s just worth noting that this foundation is necessary to create data visualizations professionally or recreationally.
System
A lot of people overlook the importance of this one and struggle because of it. Tableau is not Excel is not PowerBI is not Looker. Get ‘under the hood’. If I’m keeping with the car analogy (not that I’m at all qualified to do so) figure out what kind of gas your car needs, kick the tires a little. You’ll use Tableau better when you know HOW it works. When I started I was just shoving data in, pressing a button, and hoping something pretty (and accurate) came out. People who struggle with some of the more technical aspects (outlined next) like table calculations and Level of Detail (LODs) calculations normally do so because they don’t have conceptual knowledge of how Tableau actually works. Know the order of operations, know what data structures are going to be the most beneficial, understand how blends work and then never use them please (I’m mostly kidding). It’s going to take a lot of the guesswork out of trying to accomplish things.
Technical
This is where the pen is hitting the paper or the calculation is hitting the data pane, however you want to call it. By technical, I mean the actual processes you’ll need to generate the results that you want. And this one is probably the most obvious or intuitive and is often people’s primary focus when approaching this discipline. People want to know calculations they need and what techniques they can use. And this is important, don’t get me wrong. But it’s not getting you anywhere without the other pieces.
Figure Out Where You’re Starting From
Taking stock of the above list, now we have to do some introspection to see what we’re bringing to it. You may have a strong design background but aren’t exactly sure how you’d approach a year-over-year calculation; or you may have a background in data science but don’t know much about color theory; or maybe you’re starting from scratch. Any of those are fine. But knowing what gaps you have will make it easier to create a more targeted skill up plan. This is one thing I definitely did not do. I was just trying things with no clear direction. And I did get there, eventually. But I wish I thought more about what I needed and what I was missing.
Get Started and Share the Wealth
There was a lot of pre-work but now we’re ready to get started. I maybe should have also put it earlier to make a Tableau Public profile. Iron sharpens iron. Getting feedback from others is going to increase your learning. Share your journey as you’re creating your first vizzes. Unsure what you should create? Well there’s community challenges that align to almost all of the above needs. Here’s some I recommend based on what you need to work on and where you are with it.
Visual:
Beginner: Back to Viz Basics
Intermediate: Makeover Monday
Advanced: Iron Quest
Analytical/Technical:
Beginner-Intermediate: Workout Wednesday
Intermediate-Advanced: RWFD
Practice Makes Perfect
You’ve done the things. Now keep doing the things. Set goals for yourself (but have grace). Another wonderful thing about the community is all the great challenges that exist. I listed the ones above that I think best map to getting starting picking up core knowledge but the way to really drive it home is continue to use those learnings. And if there’s something you’re interested in there’s probably a crew for you. Like music? Check out DataPlusMusic from Sean Miller. Like games? Try GamesNightViz from Will Sutton. The possibilities are endless. Really ready to show all out? Enter the next Iron Viz. And lean into the fun part of learning and growing. When I begin teaching Tableau at work, people want to make business dashboard after business dashboard. If you make a career out of this, I promise you’ll have the rest of your life to make business dashboards. Making vizzes on subjects you’re passionate will help you maintain motivation and lead to more thorough and thought through outputs because it was something you were genuinely curious about! Unless you are genuinely curious about Superstore then go for it!
Give Back
Be a part of what makes the Tableau so great. Write a blog. Start a challenge. Answer questions on the forum. Give feedback to others. A rising tide lifts all boats. There’s so many ways to contribute to the tool and the community.
Well those are all the thoughts I had. I hope if you’re new you found something helpful here. If you’re a veteran, I hope this helps you guide future newbies. I’ll leave you with some words of wisdom by others in community:
When asked ‘If you could give a piece of advice to people just starting their Tableau journey, what would it be?’, this is what people said:
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Adam is an ambassador, visionary, all around swell guy. They don’t call him the datafam mayor for nothing. He’s welcoming and encouraging to all. Follow him here.
My advice is when you start your journey, make the time to learning and practicing the tool consistently. Use the Tableau community; the resources, tools, tips and participate in at least one community initiative to exposure to approaches to a dataset to help expedite your learning curve. Also, seek feedback from the #DataFam (and it’s respected if one asks for private feedback) for your work and support others who participate in the community.
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Allen is a social ambassador and if Adam (above) is the mayor of the datafam then Allen Hillery is the constable of data literacy. Follow him here.
My advice to those starting their data journey is to carve out time to join the various challenges that are our there. Even if you don't initially share your creations, try building them for you and your growth. Also team up with a few learners to keep yourself accountable and make it fun. One last thing I would recommend is to browse Tableau Public for inspiration. Then download workbooks and reverse engineer data vizzes that catch your eye. The more you get your hands dirty, the better for you!
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Brittany might be a Public Ambassador but no one advocates for ideas on the forum quite like she does. She’s an inspiration in many ways. Follow her here.
For me, I would tell my past self to try to not put people up on pedestals. It’s really easy to turn people into larger than life figures, but they’re really just learning alongside everyone else.
Another thing I’d say is it can be tempting to feel pressure to find one niche or “style” of viz, and I’d worry less about that and more about making sure you’re enjoying the process. If creating a personal style sparks joy, great! But it’s not a requirement for doing well.
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This Tableau Public ambassador couldn’t miss even if we took the target away. Follow him here to see his always creative vizzes.
1. It will be difficult to get good enough to consistently produce quality work without putting in many hours.
With that said, I'd say join the #datafam community, practice publicly, and practice often so you get solid feedback to help improve faster.
2. If you want to stand out, learning the principles of design and incorporating UI/UX principles into your work is something to consider once you get comfortable with the basics of Tableau and dashboarding.
And check out this wonderful video on Tableau for Beginners from Visionary Tim Ngwena. It will help you think about a wholistic approach to learning Tableau.
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The C in CJ stands for cool. This Visionary and Ambassador is always doing new things and sharing his techniques. Follow him here.
For me it was a hobby (turned work obsession) so I was fairly comfortable taking passion projects and playing around, seeing what sticks. It wasn’t the most structured learning but was based on what i saw others do and applied it to datasets I enjoyed in sports. My main takeaway was having fun and building some fantastic connections around the world.
If you want to go from zero to hero in lightening speed I’d recommend the tableau e learning platform, and more structured community resources like the Workout Wednesdays and Makeover Mondays.
All the above being said my one piece of advice is, slowly you’ll find your own path of content, authored work just embrace what you’re doing and most importantly do it because you enjoy it.
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The man of few words but many vizzes and blogs has had an invaluable impact on the community. He’s so good the universe had to make him twice. Follow him here.
My answer to your question is simple, engage with the community on social media and Tableau Public.
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Tableau Public Ambassador and VOTD juggernaut. Kimly has such a thoughtful approach to making vizzes and it shows. Follow her here.
My advice for people just starting their Tableau Journey would be to connect to the community - whether it is joining Twitter and sharing your work, attending a local Tableau User Group or participating in the communication forums. You'll learn and grow more than you'll ever expect from people who are so generous with their time and Tableau knowledge.
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Michelle loves to give back. She’s part of the reason I joined the community and I’ll be forever grateful for it. If you’re looking for feedback as you’re learning attend the feedback sessions she co-leads! Follow her here.
I definitely would recommend getting involved with community projects, engaging and interacting with the community and taking advantage of all offers of help and feedback. There are a lot of people who offer their time and expertise and it is a great way to learn and improve. We actually get very few takers at office hours and it is a shame as it is a small session where you get interactive feedback.
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Nicole leans into the two f’s: fun and feedback. Catch her chatting about her initiative datafamcon or helping out the community at Tableau office hours. Follow her here.
Find data you're passionate about. It's a lot easier to learn when you're interested in the topics. The community projects provide a lot of data to play with as well as a community of people learning with you, which will help you grow even faster.
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There’s a character limit too high to note all of Sean’s contributions. Ambassador, Visionary, TUG leader, 3x community initiative lead. He does it all. Follow him here.
An open letter to the folks just getting started in Tableau:
It all boils down to 3 words: Find your fun
Tableau is an amazing piece of software that will unlock talents inside you that you never realized were there to begin with. Go to the work-provided trainings and I would also encourage to participate and share your journey with the community. There are way more projects out there than you can imagine. Think about what you enjoy and I guarantee there’s 1) data for it and a dataviz community ready to support you along the way!
I can’t wait to see what you create on your journey.
