Learn how to use Tableau, a powerful data visualization tool, to create interactive and aesthetically pleasing charts, graphs, and maps. This course will teach you how to connect to datasets, analyze and structure data, customize visualizations, and publish your work.
Learn Tableau for data visualization and become a certified Tableau Desktop Specialist in this hands-on certification course.
Learn the essential skills needed to become a Data Analyst or Business Analyst, including data analysis, data visualization, and statistical analysis. Gain practical experience through real-world projects and prepare for a successful career in the field of data analytics.
Tableau is a data visualization and dashboarding tool designed to help users create rhetorically persuasive and easily understood representations of the data they have collected, regardless of the field in which they work. Founded in 2003, Tableau has established itself as one of the most significant data visualization and business intelligence applications commercially available. The application was acquired by Salesforce in 2019 at a price tag of over 15 billion dollars (reflecting how important the tool is in the professional world). For perspective on how significant of an acquisition that is, it was only recently surpassed by Salesforce’s acquisition of Slack at the height of the WFH trend as the most expensive acquisition in the company’s history. The application has several offshoots and different versions for a variety of operating systems and different platforms.
Tableau is primarily a data visualization and business intelligence application utilized to transform raw data into easily understandable and rhetorically persuasive maps, graphs, and tables. Raw data can be difficult to parse and work with, so adding an additional layer of customization and organization can greatly assist users who are hoping to make their data clear and concise, whether it is for their own use or for the sake of stakeholders who will need additional information on the inner workings of these projects.
In addition, one of the primary features of Tableau is its ability to create complex, interactive dashboards that allow you to shift variables, look at data from a range of different directions, and instantaneously modify your charts to respond to new input and information. This feature will allow for more dynamic data presentation and faster analysis on the part of users who can compare and contrast data points over long periods of time with ease. This training will help you work with data in a more fluid and responsive way, and it will make you better able to communicate your findings in ways that are easy to understand and persuasive.
Tableau classes will most likely focus on the application's data visualization and business intelligence aspects, though they will also likely cover data analysis and Data Science skills. Many classes that offer professional training in data analytics also offer Tableau training as part of the curriculum.
Since it is primarily a data visualization application, unsurprisingly, you’ll spend a lot of time working on data visualization projects during a Tableau course. This includes how and when to create various kinds of maps, charts, and graphs and how different data visualization techniques are better suited for certain tasks in any given project. You’ll also learn the practical process of creating and utilizing dashboards in your Tableau training.
Creating interactive dashboards is the primary use of Tableau relative to other BI and data visualization applications, so the creation and use of these dashboards will be an important focus of your Tableau training. You’ll learn how to import sets of data, either manually or through applications like Excel, and you’ll learn how you can customize your dashboards to best suit the needs of your present task.
Once you are comfortable with the process of making a dashboard, you’ll learn how the various features of these dashboards will let you dynamically create and alter existing tables and charts, perform easy side-by-side comparisons, and explore data in ways that might have otherwise been invisible to you without access to the dashboard features. This training will also help you understand how Tableau’s dashboard features can be used in collaboration with other members of your team, other departments, or other invested stakeholders.
Many Tableau courses take place as a part of a broader data analytics training program, since it isn’t very useful to understand how to visualize data if you don’t know what can be done with those visualizations. Data Analytics training will teach you how to read and interpret data, how to translate that data into actionable insights, and how to organize and query data in applications like Excel or using programming languages like Python and SQL. Learning these skills will help make your Tableau training more practical, and it will help you utilize the application more effectively and more easily.
An underrated component of data visualization is the use of data as a rhetorical tool. In order to actually leverage maps, charts, and graphs, you’ll need to know how to make your data tell the story you want it to tell (or that you think it tells). Learning how to use data as part of a sales pitch, recommendation to a boss, or evidence of the success of a project is vital to keeping stakeholders invested in your output and to help everyone involved in the process make smart, informed decisions based on the quantitative data that you’ve collected.
Tableau is a relatively intuitive program that has been refined to be fairly beginner-friendly, as far as dedicated BI tools are concerned. The program’s interface is easy to use, and it is easy to upload datasets from other locations to Tableau (which will then automatically handle the organizational process based on the file uploaded). This means that a user can very easily handle the basics of Tableau in just a few minutes and then begin experimenting with the more advanced features as they become necessary.
The most challenging parts of learning how to use Tableau are the fact that while the tool is easy to use on a theoretical level, it can be much harder to use on a practical one, not because the program is complicated, but because data analytics is complicated. It doesn’t help to know how to create a Tableau dashboard if you don’t have experience turning that data into usable insights that can help your team or project succeed. Similarly, you need to know how to collect and clean your data to avoid introducing biases into the dataset or making significant mistakes in your collection process that would lead to the data being less useful. Tableau is straightforward once you have an understanding of how to utilize it; you just need to know how to actually make use of the data you are visualizing through the application.
The amount of time it takes to learn Tableau will vary from person to person and will depend heavily on how much advanced training a given student thinks they will need. In most contexts, if you are just hoping to learn the basics of Tableau such as the interface, the basics of importing and exporting data, and the mechanics of creating a dashboard, you are unlikely to need more than a few days of training (potentially only one really focused afternoon). If you need more advanced training, you will likely want to enroll in a more accelerated bootcamp where you can learn some of the more complex features of the application in a much faster timeframe.
This, however, assumes that you already have a baseline understanding of data analytics and its component skills. If you need additional training beyond simply how to use the features offered by Tableau, you will likely need significantly more training in areas of data collection, Python programming, Excel, and interpreting qualitative and quantitative data. This training can take weeks or even months, depending on the kind of work that you need and the level of data analytics training you are pursuing.
When choosing to learn Tableau, if you are taking a live training program (which you should seriously consider), you’ll have the option to learn in-person at a dedicated training center or online through a live online training program. Each modality comes with its own set of advantages and disadvantages, and there is no one-size-fits-all answer to the question, so you’ll want to consider all of the relevant factors when you are making your decision on the subject.
Most students report that in-person training helps them stay focused and retain the most information, primarily because of the direct, face-to-face interactions they have with their instructors. They also benefit from being in the same room as their cohorts and the classroom design keeping them focused. The main drawback to these classes is related to logistics, since you will need to commute to and from the training center, which can add extra time and costs to your training. Plus, this assumes that you are located near a training center or that you are available to work on the schedule of the training center that is near you. If your schedule doesn’t align or you don’t live near a large city, it is possible that in-person training simply won’t be an option.
On the other hand, live online training greatly expands the options available to you, since you can take any class that suits your needs and aligns with your schedule. Regardless of where the class is being physically taught, you can enroll in an online version of it and attend from your home or office. This also offers students significant flexibility with their scheduling, since you can enroll in part-time classes or classes that fit your schedule more directly. Finally, since there is no commute, travel and other expenses like food won’t be an issue. By contrast, however, you may need to acquire the licenses for various software applications that would be provided for you if you were attending the classes in-person. Also, taking an online class will put more of a burden on the student to remain focused in class, do their work and be attentive (since their office isn’t built to help shut out distractions), which may not be an issue for many students, but is something that should be considered.
These are the important distinctions between an in-person and an online Tableau course, so it is worth considering what is most important to you and what issues you feel will give you the most trouble. Thanks to recent developments in online pedagogy, online classes are no longer going to be innately worse than an in-person option, so you should give both options a fair shake when deciding which path is best for you.
You may want to know if you can learn the basics of Tableau for free online, since that is a good way to get started and find out if learning the application is the right path to pursue. Between Tableau’s own online resources, free resources like the Noble Desktop YouTube page, and sample seminars offered by live and on-demand training centers, there are plenty of free resources to lean on when you are just getting started.
It should be noted that these resources are only really good as supplemental materials or for absolute beginners who only need to learn the very basics of an application. These resources provide cursory training and aim to get students to the point where they can easily segue into more in-depth, paid training programs. In addition, the content that is produced by sources other than the first-party developers runs the risk of being either out of date, inaccurate, or both. While this isn’t a particular concern that you should worry about for most content, it is worth considering that applications like Tableau are updated rather frequently.
Thus, while you can learn some of the basics of Tableau for free online, you will need additional training if you want to learn how to use the program in a professional capacity. Particularly dedicated students might be able to self-teach the application using paid on-demand services, but these cases are the exceptions rather than the rule, so students are advised to look for live, professional training support if they are looking to make data visualization a key part of their career.
The most obvious skill you need to complement your Tableau training is an understanding of data analytics, since creating data visualizations can only get you so far if you don’t understand what to do with that data. Thus, you’ll want to learn the hard skills (Python, SQL) and the soft skills (statistics, quantitative analysis) most commonly associated with data collection and interpretation projects.
You’ll also want to learn how to manage and organize databases to make your visualizations cleaner and easier to understand (and less prone to errors). This will most likely entail using applications like Excel and supplementing them with training in skills like VBA or SQL. Learning how to build and query databases is an essential skill for students looking to perform analysis of data that they have collected and build dashboards to examine and visualize that data.
Houston is a growing economy and has been one of the premier destinations for young professionals in a range of fields for over a decade. It is home to major corporations, smaller businesses, and growing and dynamic artistic and cultural communities. All of these take advantage of emerging data collection techniques and aim to leverage that data into actionable insights. These efforts are then made significantly simpler and more effective through the use of applications like Tableau.
Houston has one of the largest oil and gas industries in the nation and, as such, collects a lot of data about past and present energy prices and usage rates to predict future prices. They will then visualize that data (along with several other complex Data Science-related processes) to understand shifts in market valuation, potential energy prices, and historic data of energy usage. Experts will utilize this data to make recommendations on ways to more effectively and environmentally consciously extract resources and refine oil and natural gas. In addition, data analytics are used to make determinations about future resource extraction projects, and there are over 5,000 businesses that operate adjacent to the energy industry, making this a field that continues to grow.
No industry has been impacted nearly as much by the development of complex data collection and analytics tools as the financial industry. Investment Brokers, Bankers, Hedge Fund Managers, and even Retail Traders rely on data analytics to make informed decisions about the work they are doing and the decisions they are making with their or their clients’ capital. Being able to take this complex and detailed data and translate it into easy-to-understand graphics and dynamic dashboards makes comparing data points and looking for long-term trends incredibly easy. While you will need to know more than just data skills to thrive in this industry, it is essential that you understand how these applications are leveraged to various stakeholders’ advantage.
Retail and commercial sales make up a large portion of any urban economy, and Houston is no exception. Companies looking to maximize sales and reach customers in the most effective way possible will want to collect data and create complex, constantly updating dashboards in Tableau to make comparisons, look at trends in sales, explore correlations and results of initiatives that might not be immediately visible, and get up-to-the-minute data that can be used to modify and add more complexity to the dashboards. The retail industry moves trillions of dollars, and keeping up with the data produced by all of these transactions is vital to the success of any business.
As a major city in one of the largest states in the nation, there is a lot of investment in the political and social direction in Houston. There are hundreds of nonprofit advocacy and activist groups and institutions in the city, and they all rely on data collection and analysis to set agendas, determine the best course of action, judge the success of their initiatives, and communicate that success to donors and stakeholders. Tableau skills will help professionals in this field make their data easier to understand, more rhetorically persuasive, and deliverable to a non-specialist audience. If you are looking to transform raw data into a narrative that suits your institution's goals and needs, learning Tableau is a great way to get a grip on those skills.
Tableau is a skill that, while important to several different jobs, is not going to be enough to qualify you for any job on its own. It is an important supplemental tool, and there are lots of professional positions which stand to benefit from learning Tableau, but all of these jobs will require additional skills training to reach the expected level of skills mastery for professionals.
In terms of Tableau usage, the most significant and common job titles you’ll come across are those that fall under the broad banner of “Data Analyst, ” including Data Analysts, Business Analysts, Investment Analysts, and Business Consultants. While each of these roles will differ in key ways, they will all need to understand how to take raw data and create visually understandable representations of the elements of that data that allow themselves, their clients, or their stakeholders to make informed decisions about their coming course of action. These professionals will need training in more complex data analysis skills, but learning Tableau will greatly help them with the communicative part of their job.
If you are overseeing a project, regardless of field, it is useful to be able to track data on your progress and translate that data into working dashboards that can give you a fuller picture of the project being overseen. Tableau can make this visualization effortless, and all of the groups working on the project will be able to collaborate using the interactive dashboards. In addition to knowing how to work with data, Project Managers will need to understand the basic theories and strategies of leadership, and they will need to know how to organize and run projects, since collecting granular data on a project only goes so far.
Data Science is the more theoretical counterpart to the practical application of data analytics. In essence, while a Data Analyst looks at specific datasets with an actionable goal (like maximizing profits or ROI), Data Scientists are responsible for building the tools and applications that allow Analysts to handle and manage their data more easily. Data Scientists will also be working on high-level projects to better understand how data is collected and utilized in practical contexts. Knowing Tableau is important for Data Scientists, as it will allow them to create and examine their own data more easily, and many of them will be modifying aspects of the application to best fit their professional needs.
When looking to learn Tableau, there are plenty of options available to you, both offered in-person and online. These classes will provide students with hands-on training in the use of the tool for practical professional purposes, and they will ensure that students leave the course comfortable in their Tableau training.
If you are looking for an immersive, professional training program that covers more than just Tableau (since you’ll need to learn more than just Tableau if you are looking to make a career change), consider Noble Desktop’s live online Data Analytics Certificate program. This course aims to provide students with all of the training they need to start from scratch and leave the course with the confidence to find a professional Data Analytics career. The course begins with Excel training and covers everything from Python to SQL and Machine Learning. The course concludes with a Tableau Bootcamp that will teach students how to utilize the application and apply their data analytics skills in practical, hands-on exercises. As this is a career-focused program, students will also spend time working on individual project portfolios to add to their job materials, and they will receive one-on-one mentoring support from their instructors. Students enrolled in this course will also have an opportunity to take the Python for AI: Create AI Apps with Flask & OpenAI course free of charge.
Noble Desktop also offers the Tableau Bootcamp as an independent course that students can take to focus their attention on an accelerated set of Tableau lessons. In this course, students will learn the basics of Tableau and its primary functions in a data analytics project, how to create dashboards, use data maps, and prepare their work for publication and sharing. In addition, students will learn advanced data mapping techniques and how to use Tableau as a data manipulation tool. The course can also be taken in two parts, as the Tableau I and Tableau II workshops.
Finally, Noble Desktop offers a Tableau Certification Course, which covers all of the essential skills taught in the Tableau Bootcamp, with a focus on the content tested on the Tableau Desktop Specialist certification exam. This course will provide students with hands-on training that is designed to make sure that they are prepared for a host of professional Tableau tasks and, as part of the tuition, you will be able to take the official Tableau Certification exam and use your newfound training to add another line to your resume. This course also comes with one-on-one tutoring sessions to ensure that you are able to pass the exam, and the exam admission fee can be exchanged for additional tutoring sessions.
If you have a team that is working on a data-related project or you are hoping to make collaboration and communication between data analytics teams more effective, you may want to consider a private corporate Tableau training event. These events are a great way to get your team members accustomed to Tableau and its various professional uses, including those that focus on communication and collaboration. These events can be hosted at your corporate office or in a live digital classroom, but either way, you will get the focus and attention of a skilled instructor who can bring your team up to speed. If you want to offer an option for corporate training but want to be more flexible with your employees’ time, consider buying group vouchers (at a discount) for any of Noble’s open enrollment classes, including the Tableau Bootcamp and the Tableau Certification course. To learn more about pricing, options, and availability, reach out today and contact corporate@nobledesktop.com.