TTDTAB006: Tableau Desktop Fundamentals
About this Course
Tableau Desktop Fundamentals gives you the hands-on experience you need to start building clear, useful data visuals with confidence. Tableau is one of the most trusted tools for exploring data, answering real business questions, and sharing insights in a way that actually gets used. If you are new to Tableau and want a practical, engaging way to learn the tool while building skills you can use right away, this course is designed for you.
Led by a live expert, this class is focused on doing—not just watching. You will spend over half your time working through real-world projects that help you build charts, maps, and dashboards from the ground up. Along the way, you will learn how to shape your data, apply filters, create calculated fields, and organize your results so they are clear, focused, and ready to share. Each activity is designed to reflect the kind of questions and tasks you face on the job, so you can start applying what you learn immediately.
By the end of the course, you will be able to create polished, interactive dashboards that help your team make better decisions. You will know how to take raw data and turn it into something meaningful, visual, and easy to explore. This course helps you build real Tableau skills that support business reporting, analysis, and day-to-day communication. No previous experience with Tableau, reporting tools or data visualization is required.
NOTE: The Tableau Training Series is independent-format training that can be tuned and adjusted to best meet your needs. Our materials are flexible, comprehensive, and are always instructed by a senior instructor with a deep understanding of Tableau and its most current features, benefits and functionality in a wide array of uses. This is not Official Tableau Training.
Audience Profile
This introductory-level course is designed for new users who want to start using Tableau for data analysis and business reporting. It is a great fit for anyone curious about business intelligence tools, including analysts, project managers, operations staff, and other professionals who work with data in their roles. There are no specific requirements for the course. Just a few business skills you should be familiar with, as listed below.
At Course Completion
The goal of Tableau Desktop Fundamentals is to help you build confidence and real skills using Tableau to turn data into useful, easy-to-understand visuals that support better decisions at work. By the end of the course, you will be able to:
Understand the basics of working with Tableau, including how to navigate the interface, use key features, and get comfortable with visual analytics tools.
Connect to different types of data sources and understand how Tableau handles live and static data.
Create and customize a variety of charts, such as bar charts, scatterplots, line charts, pie charts, and heat maps to answer real business questions.
Organize and manage your data using filters, groups, hierarchies, and calculated fields to control what your audience sees.
Work with dimensions, measures, and marks to shape and format your visuals in a way that is clear and informative.
Design interactive dashboards that bring your findings together and allow others to explore the data with filters, tooltips, and clean layouts.
Save, publish, and share your work so your team can use your insights, and manage your data sources with confidence.
Need different skills or topics? If your team requires different topics or tools, additional skills or custom approach, this course may be further adjusted to accommodate. Please see our Tableau Training Suite for additional Tableau, reporting, data analytics, visualization and other related topics that may be blended with this course for a track that best suits your needs.
Outline
Please note that this list of topics is based on our standard course offering, evolved from typical industry uses and trends. We will work with you to tune this course and level of coverage to target the skills you need most. Course agenda, topics and labs are subject to adjust during live delivery in response to student skill level, interests and participation.
Getting Started with The Tableau Environment
Tableau Products
What is a Data Visualization?
The Viz
The Start Page
The Tableau Interface
Workbooks and Sheets
Navigating Workbooks and Sheets
Connecting to Data
The Role of Data in Tableau
Static vs. Live Data Sources
Types of Data Sources
Establishing a Data Connection
Editing a Data Source
Data Source Page
Data Grid vs. Metadata Grid
Refreshing a Data Source
What Happens When You Connect to Data?
Creating a Visualization
The Data Pane
Data Types
Changing Data Types
Dimensions and Measures
Tableau-Generated Fields
Understanding Dimensions
Understanding Measures
Searching for a Field
Understanding Shelves
Building a View
The View Area
What is Show Me?
Saving, Publishing, and Sharing
Saving Visualizations
Publishing Visualizations
Saving Data Sources
Location of Saved Data Sources
Publishing Data Sources
Chart Types and Uses
Tabular Data (Crosstabs or Pivot Tables)
Pie Charts
Line Charts
Bar Charts
Heat Maps (Density Maps)
Highlight Tables
Treemap Charts
Gantt Charts
Bullet Graphs
Scatterplots
Types of Correlation
Outliers
Histograms
Discrete vs. Continuous
Discrete vs. Continuous
Converting Fields Between Discrete and Continuous
Using Totals and Aggregation
Understanding Discrete and Continuous Time
Convert a Measure to a Dimension
Adding Visual Details
Understanding Marks
Marks Card
Text Mark
Shape Mark
Bar Mark
Line Mark
Titles and Captions
Legends
Tooltips
Tooltip Command Buttons
Annotations
Creating Annotations
Formatting Annotations
Formatting Basics
Formatting a Workbook
Themes
Editing Axes
Changing Axis Range
Editing Tick Marks
Formatting Fields
Formatting Field Labels
Formatting Numbers and Null Values
Resizing Tables and Cells
Working with Multiple Measures
Working with Multiple Measures in a View
Adding Individual Axes for Each Measure
Creating Combined (Blended) Axis Charts
Understanding a Dual Axis Chart
Creating a Dual Axis Chart
Organizing, Filtering, and Sorting
Hiding Fields
Data Properties
Renaming Fields
Creating Aliases
Sorting Data
Sorting Options
Creating Folders
Creating Hierarchies
Using Hierarchies
Drill Up or Down a Hierarchy
Understanding Filters
Creating Filters
Applying a Filter
Filtering Qualitative Data (Dimensions)
Filtering Quantitative Data (Measures)
Creating Groups
Creating Sets
Mapping Data Geographically
Understanding Mapping Concepts
Latitude and Longitude
Working with Location Data
Creating a Simple Map
The View Toolbar
Using Calculations
Understanding Calculations
Creating a Calculated Field
Formatting Calculations
Working with Functions
Working with Aggregates
Applying Quick Table Calculations
Creating Dashboards
What is a Dashboard?
Building a Dashboard
Dashboard Interactivity
Creating Dashboards for Different Devices
Dashboard Size Options
Tiled vs. Floating Items
Switching Between Tile or Float
Creating Stories
What is a Story?
The Story Workspace
Creating a Story
Prerequisites
This course is designed for new users who want to start using Tableau for data analysis and business reporting. It is a great fit for anyone curious about business intelligence tools, including analysts, project managers, operations staff, and other professionals who work with data in their roles. No prior experience with Tableau, reporting tools or data visualization is required.
To get the most out of this course, you should be comfortable with:
Basic computer skills and navigating software applications
Reading and interpreting simple data tables or spreadsheets
Understanding the kinds of questions your team or business is trying to answer with data
TTDTAB010
Getting Started with Tableau Prep