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Quick and dirty analysis with Tableau 6 (in thirteen lucky steps)
Let’s face it: in the daily world of work, you often are asked to provide an answer to a new problem in less than a day. Of course, your boss tends to forget about the other three project deadlines you are currently facing, so you really have only 10 or 20 minutes to squeeze in a quick and dirty analysis.
If this sounds familiar to you, this cheat sheet includes thirteen flexible steps that can take you from being clueless to looking smart in just a few minutes, with a little help from Tableau. Hopefully you’ll be able to obtain enough information to come up with ideas for an e-mail update or talking points for the unexpected meeting that is looming large over your day, showing your boss and colleagues that you can deliver great results in time to be useful.
So, if you’re already a user of Tableau, this cheat sheet will guide you to do the analysis. Even if you are totally new to Tableau, you can see the possibilities of what you can accomplish in a short amount of time, once you get started.
Download a printer-friendly version of this article here.
1 What question will you examine?
Okay, in reality this step might take hours or even days! But let’s assume you have your question, and if it is complex, break it down into several, simpler questions.
2 Grab the closest, readily available dataset that is relevant Read the rest of this entry »
Top Freakalytics articles of 2011
#5 Examining data over time (7 ways with Netflix stock prices)
#4 Bullet charts & enhancements: making Stephen Few's invention even better
Read the rest of this entry »
Add Your Comment HereHelping a state government agency – a dashboard of poverty rates in Utah
We are always excited to see new people using visual analytics with data in the public interest. After seeing some great poverty analysis work from the Utah Department of Workforce Services, we wanted to share some ideas that might provide inspiration to them.
Here is the original chart Read the rest of this entry »
Business Analytics in Fortune Magazine – Pat Hanrahan, Tableau Co-founder
A nice article on Tableau and visual analytics appeared in Fortune magazine this week.
"Former Pixar engineer Pat Hanrahan has found a new calling organizing and analyzing business data, and bringing the information to life.
Mr. Incredible: Pat Hanrahan in his lab at Stanford
How many enterprise software executives can brag that they have been feted by Hollywood? At least one: Pat Hanrahan, a Stanford University professor and co-founder of Seattle-based Tableau Software, earned a Scientific and Engineering Academy Award for visual-effects technology..."
A few additional comments from Freakalytics follow.
It is indeed rare that an analysis product is both informative and addictive- Tableau has achieved this remarkable mix for regular business people, not just data geeks like me! I base this on the repeated feedback from the many people I have trained on Tableau in the past few years. Several reasons lie behind this including speed, flexibility and beauty of the results you can create in Tableau.
After reading this article a second time, I was surprised to see this did not include any links to the products listed:
Examples from Freakalytics
http://www.Freakalytics.com/examples
More examples and the free version from Tableau
http://www.TableauSoftware.com/public
While Tableau isn't a native app on the Mac, I have seen many people using it on the Mac with Windows running in Parallels. Most Mac people in the corporate world already have Windows installed in my experience. That is not to say that it wouldn’t be great to have it native on the Mac… Also, there is a sweet iPad app for viewing dynamic content from Tableau Server hosted analyses and dashboards.
In short, Tableau has redefined what business analytics software should look like and how it should engage the person using the data or reviewing the findings. It is akin to what Yahoo and Google did for finding information- it has put the analytic process in reach of the regular business user.
Add Your Comment HereWhy choose Complete Tableau Training by Freakalytics? A recent attendee’s perspective
This review of our 4 day training series was written on LinkedIn by a recent public training attendee, Danyelle. She works at the US Department of Health and Human Services as a Senior Data Advisor. I had the great pleasure of speaking with her outside of the class and was fascinated to hear how she is a change agent for her organization's use of data. They are undergoing significant changes in how their studies are analyzed, presented and shared- all with the goal of increasing the return on their investment in research. You can read her original post in the Tableau Software Group on LinkedIn, it was written in response to our upcoming training in Frankfurt.
"I went to Stephen and Eileen's 4-day Complete Tableau Training in Washington DC a couple weeks ago and it was WELL worth the time and money.
I was most impressed by their case study approach to teaching Tableau. The class ranges from people using Tableau every day at work to people like me who had only read about Tableau.
Reflecting back on the class, I am even more impressed by the quality of instruction and how well it worked for all in attendance. I was immediately able to go back to work and apply the skills I gained in the training to solve a problem that some thought couldn't be done in-house."
Thanks Danyelle for sharing your thoughts! Read all about our training at http://www.Freakalytics.com/training.
Quick tutorial on reference lines, bands and distributions – enhance your graph insights!
The following article features Tableau 6 
Reference lines, bands or distributions may be added to your views to emphasize particular values or areas that may be useful in interpreting your data. In particular, when comparing multiple groups or categories of data, reference lines and bands provide immediate feedback on the overall differences between the groups.
Reference lines
Reference lines are vertical or horizontal lines displayed on your view that mark requested values such as average, median, minimum, maximum, sum, total and constants (such as a line that separates the data points as being above or below a target). They can be added on any continuous axis.
1) Open the Sample - Coffee Chain (Access) data source included by default with Tableau 6
2) Place Sales on the Columns shelf and change the aggregate to Average.
3) Place Product on the Rows shelf,
State and Date on the Level of Detail shelf
and format Date to ‘MMMM YYYY’.
Read the rest of this entry »
Add Your Comment HereThe Seven Developers of Tableau 7 – Tableau Customer Conference 2011
Chris Stolte, Chief Development Officer at Tableau introduced
Six senior developers on stage for a preview of Tableau 7.
Chris Stolte
Tableau's mission is help people see and understand their data.
How much simpler can it get?
Tableau was started while Read the rest of this entry »
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