The Best Way to Learn Tableau

The best way to learn Tableau depends on your specific needs. Learning preferences vary among individuals, with more than one-third of students favoring interactive learning [1]. True to its name, interactive learning typically includes active components designed to enhance engagement and promote deeper understanding. Furthermore, a single learning style or preference may not meet all of your needs. Many people benefit from a combination of different learning styles, including visual, auditory, reading, writing, and kinesthetic experiences.

From short video tutorials to hands-on, project-based courses and online forums, you can find opportunities to learn Tableau that cater to various learning preferences. Explore options that may be the best way to learn Tableau for your needs, and consider roles where your knowledge of Tableau could be advantageous.

What is Tableau?

Tableau is a visual analytics platform for business intelligence that enhances analysis and makes data more accessible through visualization. By integrating machine learning, statistics, natural language, and smart data preparation, Tableau empowers you to analyze your data more creatively, leading to increased understanding and faster, more insightful analysis. 

Tableau’s user-friendly dashboards enable you to leverage your data to boost customer engagement, enhance the customer experience, manage employee key performance indicators, and quickly identify and resolve issues.

Who uses Tableau?

As a user-centric platform for analysts, data scientists, students, teachers, business professionals, and everyone in between, Tableau is used by organizations across various industries, from nonprofits to global corporations, to adopt a more data-driven approach.

Consider how professionals in the following roles use Tableau to enhance data-driven decision-making within their organizations.

• Analysts: Automate analytic workflow processes, discover and share insights across departments, and uncover trends. For example, as a data analyst in a health care setting, you might use Tableau to analyse data related to how long patients stay in a hospital, what their conditions and treatments are, and compare that to costs in an effort to uncover more efficient uses of time and resources.

• Information technology (IT) leaders: Improve management with administrative controls, usage monitoring, and AI-powered analytics; manage updates and changes to data assets; and simplify billing and procurement processes. JetBlue, for instance, used Tableau dashboards to analyze data and identify opportunities, such as reducing aircraft weight, that significantly improved fuel efficiency across its operations. 

• Developers: Process data rapidly, create visualization extensions that integrate features and data from other applications, and execute or import programming code and packages into Tableau. With the Einstein Discovery extension, for example, you can perform what-if scenarios by simply connecting your predictive model directly to Tableau parameters without having to write a single line of code, making for a user-friendly way to analyze data.

• Authors: Analyze data to identify trends, explore and interact with data to gain new perspectives, and connect to various data sources. For example, Tableau offers several ways for you to filter your data, including the ability to add your filter fields or exclude data points from your published view, providing flexible ways to view your data.

• Marketing: Foster cross-team collaboration, increase understanding of business challenges, highlight key details about customers, products, and competitors, automate data preparation and analytics processes, and identify impactful key performance indicators. Digital marketing agencies can use Tableau to streamline data reporting and preparation, thereby reducing the time spent on these tasks and enabling them to deliver customized, data-rich reports that help their clients make informed decisions and enhance marketing effectiveness. 

Is Tableau easy to learn?

Learning Tableau is typically an attainable goal with optimal conditions and appropriate practice. The company’s intuitive and user-friendly platform features a simplified drag-and-drop interface and automated dashboard narratives to support users at all levels. Tableau offers a variety of learning options, including e-learning lessons, training courses, how-to videos, and a robust online community, catering to almost every need. 

The best way to learn Tableau

The best way to learn Tableau will likely involve a combination of visual, auditory, reading, writing, and kinesthetic methods. This can include online forums and platforms, written and audio presentations, and online courses and certificate programs. 

In addition, Tableau's website offers various free training videos, live and on-demand webinars, and recordings of past events and conferences. You may also consider attending Tableau’s annual conference to gain expert guidance and network with other Tableau users.

Join a Tableau community.

The Tableau Community Forums offer an interactive platform for connecting and collaborating with other Tableau users. With over 300 user group boards, the community is a space to ask questions, browse ideas, and explore various Tableau-related topics [2]. It also hosts challenges and projects that help you learn and build skills while engaging with fellow Tableau users. 

Access Tableau Public.

Join Tableau Public to gain visual inspiration, enhance your data skills, and even create an online portfolio of your work. This free platform allows you to access and learn from others’ visualizations, providing insights into how they were created so you can try your own versions. You can find visualizations on social impact, such as internet access worldwide, health care, such as health and virus trackers; and business, such as sales or customer churn dashboards. You can even find dashboards dedicated to helping you learn Tableau and create your portfolio. Use Tableau Public to connect with other users to discover new features and receive feedback to improve your skills. 

Create a Tableau portfolio.

Building a portfolio of your work in Tableau is an excellent way to gain hands-on experience and develop your skills. You can create an online portfolio in Tableau Public to showcase your expertise and creativity to prospective employers. When making a portfolio, consider selecting a diverse range of data sets and incorporating various visualization types, such as bar and line charts, maps, highlight or text tables, and heat maps, to show potential employers your specific skills. You can also use Tableau Public templates to guide you in creating an effective portfolio. c

Read and listen to podcasts.

You can learn Tableau from a wide range of written content, which allows you to easily revisit the material. Active reading engages your brain with the text and can enhance retention. Look for books and online reading material that include helpful headings, subheadings, visuals, glossaries, and practice problems to promote active reading as you learn Tableau. 

Podcasts can also be valuable tools for learning, providing motivation, and aiding in content retention. Consider adding this auditory option to your Tableau learning toolkit. Podcasts can also serve as excellent sources of inspiration. For example, the Tableau Wannabe Podcast helps you stay informed about the Tableau community and learn about new features. Other podcasts, such as DataStories, and the Design Secrets from Historic Visualizations livestream, focus on design and visualization in general.

Take an online course.

If you prefer a more structured approach to learning, you can find an online course that suits your preferences. From self-paced e-learning courses at various levels to live, instructor-led training on numerous Tableau-focused topics, a course created or taught by Tableau experts may be the best way for you to learn Tableau. You can find Tableau Professional Certificates, Specializations, and courses on Coursera for convenient online learning at your own pace.

For example, Tableau’s Business Intelligence Analyst Professional Certificate program on Coursera provides a hands-on approach to learning Tableau and offers a career credential to showcase your expertise on completion. In this program, you’ll be able to use Tableau Public to manipulate and prepare data for analysis, craft and dissect data visualizations, and construct captivating narratives through data. 

In the Data Visualization with Tableau Specialization offered by UC Davis on Coursera, you can earn a shareable certificate in as little as two months. This Specialization covers topics such as examining, navigating, and learning Tableau features, assessing data quality and performing exploratory analysis, and designing visualizations and dashboards tailored to your audience. 

Get certified.

Whether you are just starting to learn Tableau or looking to level up your skills, you can likely find a suitable certification option. From Tableau Desktop Specialist to Tableau Certified Architect, Tableau’s certification exams offer a structured learning path and a recognized credential that validates your new skills. The following details on Tableau’s most entry-level certification options can help you select a certification option that best suits your needs. An exam guide, including specific information on the exam contents and recommended training options, is provided for each certification.

• Tableau Desktop Specialist: With no prerequisites, this certification exam is ideal for individuals with a foundational understanding of Tableau Desktop and a minimum of three months of experience applying their knowledge of the product. Covered topics include connecting to and preparing data, exploring and analyzing data, sharing insights, and understanding Tableau concepts.

• Tableau Server Certified Associate: Consider this credential if you have four to six months of experience with Tableau products and a solid understanding and skill base related to Tableau Server functionality. Topics covered on the exam include connecting to and preparing data, installation and configuration, administration, troubleshooting, and migration and upgrading.

• Tableau Certified Data Analyst: Although you can sit for this exam having completed no prerequisites, six months of experience with Tableau products is recommended. This certification may be suitable if your role involves understanding business problems, selecting data for analysis, and using data to uncover insights.

Jobs with Tableau

Professionals such as analysts, IT and business leaders, and developers from various industries, including financial services, health care, retail, and communications and media, use Tableau to support data-driven decision-making. Tableau-related roles are generally well-compensated, with salaries exceeding the average US salary. The following positions, along with their corresponding average annual salaries, may be an ideal fit for you after learning Tableau:

• Tableau analyst: $82,995 [3]

• Tableau developer: $93,607 [4]

• Tableau data engineer: $104,772 [5]

• Tableau architect: 111,193 [6]

• Tableau consultant: $106,749 [7]

Learn Tableau with Coursera

The best way to learn Tableau will depend on your learning preferences and motivations for learning the application. Explore using Tableau to collect, connect, visualize, and analyze relevant data in Meta’s Data Analyst Professional Certificate on Coursera. Also, the Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate, offered on Coursera, covers key analytical skills, such as data cleaning, analysis, and visualization, using Tableau and other tools.