What is Tableau?
Tags: Python, Flatiron School, Tableau

Tableau was founded in January 2003. It was an academic spin-off by Christian Chabot, Pat Hanrahan and Chris Stolte where they took an idea from an academic paper they had been working on. It was a simple idea and it was ‘What if you had a tool that allowed you to view your business data in a visual way?’ At that time, Microsoft Excel already existed and allowed you to make charts, tables, and graphs so what would be different about Tableau? The entire vision around Tableau was to focus on one thing and that was visual analysis.

The typical workflow in every business that collects data has all of their data stored in a database. A small business might have it stored in a spreadsheet while a larger business might have a database program, or if you’re a web business then maybe in the cloud/API. At the end of every month or quarter, the business might want to review this data to see how they’re doing. They’ll typically hand this data over to an analyst to create charts and insights so that it can be reviewed by other employees at the company and decisions based upon them. These decisions will possibly be implemented and then the process starts again next month or quarter. So where does Tableau fit in?

Tableau makes it easier for people to explore and manage data as well as being able to share that data faster and securely. The technology that makes this so intuitive is their patented VizQL — which visually expresses data by translating drag-and-drop actions into data queries through an intuitive interface.

The best place to start learning how to use Tableau is actually their website. They have a whole slew of online videos and written content that are very well made, easy to understand, and easy to follow. https://www.tableau.com/learn/tutorials/on-demand/getting-started?playlist=296805

If you’re really hitting a wall while using Tableau and there is a problem that you can’t get over, then the best thing to do is to Google it. Chances are you will end up on the Tableau forums. This is a great place to learn and overcome any issues that you are having. There is a likelihood that the same question has been asked and answered already by some passionate users and if you ask an original question then it is probable that you will get an answer within an hour or certainly a couple of days. The forums really are amazing because it’s monitored by a bunch of really passionate users who want to help and share their knowledge with other people. If you would like to get a question answered successfully, you should follow this format given over by David Murphy https://datasaurus-rex.com/learn/tableau/how-to-successfully-ask-for-help-in-the-tableau-forums.

To give an example of Tableau being used in a real world context, I would like to show how Verizon used Tableau during the spike of the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the onset of the pandemic, Verizon customers were putting an increased demand on the Verizon network. During April 2020 alone, customers placed more than 800 million calls per day which is double the amount at the highest peak during a typical year. Customers were staying on the phone longer than average, texting more, using VPNs to do their office jobs, and clogging up the network with more gaming. With all this increased demand, Verizon needed to brainstorm to figure out how to meet the demand with the available resources.

Tableau actually had their own available COVID-19 Data Hub which Verizon was able to connect to. This helped Verizon adjust their resources accordingly. Through the data hub, they were able to blend the pandemic data from Johns Hopkins University with their own internal customer service operations data. With the blended data they could then correlate location-based spikes in service demand, with COVID-19 hotspots around the country. To quote Siddharth Dayama, Senior Manager of Data Analytics and Customer Service Operations, “This ability to seamlessly bridge insights from external world macro factors to our company’s internal operational metrics is a game-changer and helps us better understand the impact and make informed decisions.”

Tableau is constantly being maintained and updated. In 2019 Tableau was acquired by Salesforce for $15.7 Billion. Besides Salesforce, the Tableau community also maintains it with open source projects and ideas. As aforementioned with the Verizon example, Tableau was at the forefront of COVID with being able to import data and have it integrate/blend with a companies internal platform. This has proven invaluable in these times.

While Tableau does come at a cost for companies and organizations there is are special Academic Programs. Tableau provides qualified students and instructors worldwide with free licenses. I am not sure if FlatIron at this time qualifies. To note though, they do offer a teaching program through Canvas (same platform that Flatiron uses).

Tableaus best use seems to be to communicate the data that you’re working with. This can be with the marketing/sales team or even the general public. As a data scientist, Tableau does not seem to be the best option for data exploration and you should stick with Python for that since you can deal with much more complex data and do deeper research than available with Tableau.

Knowing how to use Tableau does seem like a really good skill and would really help presenting data. I will certainly be exploring this tool further in the future.