If you’re fairly new to Tableau, chances are you’ll find Tableau’s repository of free training videos (free with registration) to be very helpful. Indeed, there’s enough there to help you go from zero to serious about as fast as you dare. The tutorials are really pretty great: efficient, helpful, and to the point. BUT their organization scheme needs a little help.
Here is my stab at organizing them, with links to take you directly to each respective video. I’ve tried to be fairly comprehensive — including most of Tableau’s training videos — but not exhaustive. (I’ve left out some highly niched videos.) That said …
Jump to your desired heading below:
- Tableau Fundamentals
- Sorting, Filtering, Hierarchy and Drill-Down
- Enhancing Visualizations
- Calculations
- Maps in Tableau
- Dashboards and Stories
Tableau Fundamentals
The following seven videos will get you up and running quickly.
From the Getting Started section
- Getting Started (25 min)
A little lengthy, but does a great job of giving an overview of what’s possible in Tableau. - The Tableau Interface (4 min)
From the Connecting to Data section
- Getting Started with Data (6 min)
- Managing Extracts (4 min)
From the Visual Analytics section
From the Why is Tableau Doing That? section
- Understanding Pill Types (5 min)
- Measure Names and Measure Values (5 min)
From this point forward, the best path depends on your needs. The following headings are intended to help you choose. Under each heading, I’ve sought to organize the videos in a useful sequence.
Sorting, Filtering, Hierarchy and Drill-Down
If you want to grow your filtering and sorting skills in Tableau, here’s your path!
From the Visual Analytics section
- Sorting (5 min)
- Ways to Filter (2 min)
- Using the Filter Shelf (7 min)
- Interactive Filters (4 min)
- Additional Filtering Topics (7 min)
- Drill Down and Hierarchies (5 min)
From the Why is Tableau Doing That? section
- Filtering for Top Across Panes (6 min)
Enhancing Visualizations
The following videos address a variety of ways in which you can enhance Tableau visualizations to help them communicate more effectively.
From the Visual Analytics section
- Basic Tooltips (7 min)
- Viz in Tooltip (6 min)
- Trend Lines (5 min)
- Formatting (7 min)
- The Formatting Pane (7 min)
- Parameters (5 min)
- Dynamic Parameters (2 min)
- Parameter Actions (7 min)
- Reference Lines (7 min)
Optional advanced topics from the Visual Analytics section
- Explain Data (5 min) – automatically generated analysis of a data point (sometimes of varying quality)
- Forecasting (6 min)
- Clustering (2 min)
Calculations
Depending on your data, you may need or want this section before some of the above.
From the Calculations section
- Getting Started with Calculations (3 min)
- Calculation Syntax (4 min)
- Number Calculations (2 min)
- Aggregate Calculations (4 min)
- Aggregation, Granularity, and Ratio Calculations (4 min) — from the Why is Tableau Doing That? section — ***Extremely important for correctly calculating things like profit margin***
- Date Calculations (3 min)
- Logic Calculations (3 min)
- Type Calculations (3 min)
- String Calculations (3 min)
- Intro to Table Calculations (3 min) — These can be handy for quickly generating helpful calculations.
Advanced Calculation topics as needed:
- Introduction to Level of Detail (LOD) Expressions — This can solve problems that crop up with calculations in certain contexts.
- Conceptual Topics with LOD Expressions
- Aggregation and Replication with LOD Expressions
- Nested LOD Expressions
- Modifying Table Calculations
Maps in Tableau
From the Mapping section
- Getting Started with Mapping (3 min)
- Maps in Tableau (4 min)
- Polygon Maps (4 min)
- The Density Mark Type (4 min) — aka Heat maps
- Editing Unrecognized Locations — can be helpful in trouble-shooting
Dashboards and Stories
From the Dashboards and Stories section
- Getting Started with Dashboards and Stories (4 min)
- Building a Dashboard (5 min)
- Dashboard Objects (4 min)
- Dashboard Formatting (4 min)
- Dashboard Interactivity Using Actions (5 min)
- Device Designer (5 min) — Adapting dashboards for various screen sizes.
- Story Points (5 min) — A user-friendly way to walk through multiple dashboards or visualizations.
From the Visual Analytics section