Analytics-Con-301 Questions and Answers

To add a line showing the cumulative percentage of sales contributed by each product to the incremental sales in the Incremental worksheet of your Tableau Desktop, follow these detailed steps:

Open the CC Workbook and Access the Worksheet:

From the desktop, double-click on the CC workbook to open it in Tableau Desktop.

Navigate to the Incremental worksheet by clicking on its tab at the bottom of the window.

Calculate Cumulative Sales Percentage:

Create a new calculated field to compute the cumulative percentage of sales. Right-click in the Data pane and select 'Create Calculated Field'.

Name this field "Cumulative Sales Percentage".

Enter the following formula to calculate the running sum of sales as a percentage of the total sales:

(RUNNING_SUM(SUM([Sales])) / TOTAL(SUM([Sales])) [Sales]))

Click 'OK' to save the calculated field.

Add the Cumulative Sales Percentage Line to the Chart:

Drag the "Cumulative Sales Percentage" field to the Rows shelf, placing it next to the existing Sales measure.

Ensure that the cumulative line appears as a continuous line. Right-click on the "Cumulative Sales Percentage" field on the Rows shelf, select 'Change Chart Type', and choose 'Line'.

Adjust the axis to synchronize or dual-axis if necessary. Right-click on the axis of the "Cumulative Sales Percentage" and select 'Synchronize Axis' if it's on a dual-axis setup.

Format the Cumulative Sales Percentage Line:

Click on the "Cumulative Sales Percentage" line in the visualization.

Navigate to the 'Format' pane to adjust the line style, thickness, and color to make it distinct from other data in the chart.

Save Your Changes:

From the File menu, click 'Save' to ensure all your changes are stored.

When a client republishes a dashboard after making changes and users report broken bookmarks, the likely causes include:

The dashboard was published to a different project: Changing the project location alters the URL path, causing bookmarks to point to a now non-existent dashboard location.

The dashboard was published with a new name: Altering the dashboard's name changes its URL, resulting in broken bookmarks as the previous URL no longer leads to the intended dashboard.

For a consultant designing a dashboard to be consumed across multiple device types, the best approach is:

Multi-device Layout: Tableau provides the capability to design device-specific layouts within a single dashboard. This feature allows the dashboard to adapt its layout to best fit the screen size and orientation of desktops, tablets, and phones.

Fixed Size Layouts: By fixing the size of each layout, the consultant can ensure that the dashboard appears consistent and maintains the intended design elements and user experience across devices. Fixed sizes prevent components from resizing in ways that could disrupt the dashboard’s readability or functionality.

Implementation: In Tableau, you can create these layouts by selecting 'Device Preview' and adding custom layouts for each device type. Here, you define the dimensions and the positioning of sheets and controls tailored to each device's typical viewing mode.

References

This approach leverages Tableau’s device designer capabilities, which are specifically designed to optimize dashboards for multiple viewing environments, ensuring a seamless user experience regardless of the device used. This functionality is well documented in Tableau’s official guides on creating and managing device-specific dashboards.

The most user-friendly solution is to use Dynamic Zone Visibility in combination with a Show/Hide Button. This approach allows the dashboard to dynamically display only the relevant quick filters based on the viewer’s selection of shops or warehouses, thus reducing clutter and focusing the user’s attention on applicable filters. The Show/Hide Button further enhances the user experience by allowing viewers to toggle the visibility of the filter container, providing a clean and organized dashboard interface1.

For a client who needs a daily visualization of widget inventory but cannot modify the data warehouse structure, the best approach is to use Tableau Prep to add new rows. Tableau Prep can be used to manipulate the existing dataset by adding missing date entries and appropriately adjusting inventory counts based on available data. This allows the creation of a complete daily snapshot for visualization without needing changes to the underlying database structure.

To build efficient extracts from large data sources, it is crucial to minimize the load and optimize the performance of the extracts:

A. Keep only the data required for analysis by using extract filters: This best practice involves using filters to reduce the volume of data extracted, thus focusing only on the data necessary for analysis.

B. Use aggregate data for visible dimensions, whenever possible: Aggregating data at the time of extraction reduces the granularity of the data, which can significantly improve performance and reduce the size of the extract.

E. Hide all unused fields: Removing fields that are not needed for analysis from the extract reduces the complexity and size of the data model, which in turn enhances performance and speeds up load times.

These practices are endorsed in Tableau’s official documentation and training sessions as effective ways to enhance the performance of Tableau extracts and optimize dashboard responsiveness.

To improve the loading time of the pipeline dashboard, which primarily suffers from long query execution times due to a comprehensive Relative Date filter:

Relative Date Filter Issue: The existing Relative Date filter on "Created Date" covers a broad range (5 years), leading to significant data processing overhead as it includes granular date calculations over a large dataset.

Optimized Approach: By replacing the Relative Date filter with a Multiple Values (Dropdown) filter based on YEAR([Created Date]), the filter granularity is reduced. Filtering by year simplifies the query by limiting the volume of data processed and reducing the complexity of the filter condition.

Implementation Benefit: This approach still provides the flexibility to view data across different years but does so by reducing the load on the database during query execution, which is critical for improving the performance of the dashboard.

References

This recommendation aligns with Tableau performance optimization strategies, specifically regarding the management of date filters to minimize their impact on query load, as discussed in Tableau performance tuning sessions and guides.

The Explorer (can publish) site role in Tableau is designed for users who need to access, edit, and create visualizations based on published data sources, even when they are outside the company network. This role allows users to perform web editing and save their work, making it suitable for sales users who need these capabilities. It is also a cost-effective option as it does not require the full capabilities and associated costs of the Creator license.

When migrating content between Tableau servers, certain types of content may require special consideration or different tools for migration:

Tableau Prep Flows: These are specific to Tableau Prep and are not included in the standard content migration capabilities of the Tableau Content Migration Tool. Tableau Prep flows often require separate processes for migration due to their distinct setup and integration with data sources and workflows.

Published Data Sources and Workbooks: These can typically be migrated directly using the Tableau Content Migration Tool, which supports moving published data sources (both live connections and extracts) and workbooks without requiring additional tools.

To track which data sources are used most frequently across a site in Tableau Cloud, the client should use the GraphiQL engine and the Metadata API. The GraphiQL engine allows for interactive exploration of the metadata, making it easier to construct and test queries1. The Metadata API provides access to metadata and lineage of external assets used by the content published to Tableau Cloud, which is essential for tracking data source usage2.

The most efficient way to limit report visibility to specific user groups on Tableau Server is to manage permissions directly on the server. By granting access to the report only to the sales and marketing user groups, the client ensures that only members of these groups can view the report. This method is straightforward and does not require the additional steps involved in setting up row-level security or user filters.