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Quick and dirty analysis with Tableau 6 (in thirteen lucky steps)

6_Manual_Rearrange_Items_Freakalytics_1_TableauLet’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.


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1 What question will you examine?

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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

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Top Freakalytics articles of 2011

#5 Examining data over time (7 ways with Netflix stock prices)

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#4 Bullet charts & enhancements: making Stephen Few's invention even better

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A dashboard to select high-quality stocks with high yield and low volatility

High yield high growth low beta dashboard by Freakalytics 2011 12 squareSelecting a "safe" stock with a solid dividend is quite popular in the current economic climate. The traditional "safe" investments are paying extremely low interest rates while many American companies are growing revenues while paying out strong dividend yields (4% and higher) that exceed those of government bonds. In late December, I selected a set of stocks with solid financial strength ratings, positive revenue growth in the past year, dividends of 4% or more and lower than average stock price volatility (also called the beta of a stock.)

 
 
 

After some data cleanup, I assembled this into a dashboard for quick review and exploration. This dashboard allows you to select higher yields, higher revenue growth or lower levels of volatility. By clicking on an individual stock, you are taken to MSN Money web site (below initial dashboard) for their current "StockScouter" rating.

 

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Helping a state government agency – a dashboard of poverty rates in Utah

Freakalytics_201111_Utah_Poverty_RatesWe 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

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Business Analytics in Fortune Magazine – Pat Hanrahan, Tableau Co-founder

Hanrahan imgA 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:

Freakalytics Netflix NFLX Stock Price Growth as barsExamples 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.

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Why choose Complete Tableau Training by Freakalytics? A recent attendee’s perspective

 
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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.

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The 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.

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How much simpler can it get?

Tableau was started while

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Cool video of animated Freakalytics logo opens Tableau Customer Conference 2011

Who said that analytics can't be a fun way to start your day? Tableau animated our dashboard at http://www.freakalytics.com/snp-pub-freak/ and set it to the music of Journey! Awesome job Tableau and a great way to kick-off the conference!






Click here to watch the video!

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