Tableau Interview Questions and Answers

Tableau software is one of the fastest growing data visualization tools which is currently being used in the BI industry. It is the best way to change or transform the raw set of data into an easily understandable format with zero technical skills and coding knowledge.Below we have listed the top 100 tableau interview questions & answers for fresher and experienced candidates to clear the job interview. 

1.What is Tableau?

Ans:

Tableau is a data analytics and business intelligence platform which is flexible and easy to use ensuring a smooth experience to the users. The main pillars of strength for Tableau are interactive dashboards, quick responsiveness, and real-time data analysis. Also, it offers a wide range of eye-catching graphics or visualizations to represent your data set pictorially like charts and graphs. Basically, Tableau provides all the capabilities that we require for a successful data analysis like data extraction, processing, representing/visualizing and sharing the final reports/dashboards/worksheets with others.

2.What are the advantages of using Tableau?

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Tableau is a tool that is designed to help the user to create visuals and graphics. One can do this without any technical help or prior knowledge of programming. 

There are a lot of advantages of Tableau such as:

• Speed
• Ease of use
• Beautiful and interactive dashboard
• Direct connection
• Easy publishing and sharing
• Growing market share and popularity

3.What are the main features of Tableau?

Ans:

The reason behind Tableau gaining immense popularity in little time is its attractive set of features and functionalities. 

Some key features of Tableau are:

• Drag-and-drop functionality
• Range of native data connectors
• Data highlights and filters
• Share dashboards
• Dashboard embedding
• Mobile-ready dashboards
• Data notifications
• Tableau Reader (for data viewing)
• Dashboard commenting
• Creating “no-code” data queries
• Queries to visualization conversions
• Import data of all sizes
• Creating interactive dashboards
• Creating guided stories
• Metadata management
• Automatic updates
• Security permissions at any level
• Tableau Public for data sharing
• Server REST API
• ETL refresh

4.What is Tableau Server? Discuss its components.

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Tableau Server is a communication tool that is used in sharing visualizations and data connection information with the end-users or clients. It is an important component in the working of Tableau because it is designed to manage and execute crucial processes.

Tableau Server consists of several components such as:

• Gateway
• Application Server
• Repository
• VizQL Server
• Data engine
• Backgrounder
• Data Server
• Search and License

5.Can you explain the Tableau design flow?

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The design or logic flow in Tableau is as follows:

• Connecting to the data source through the connectors available in Tableau.
• Create data views, that is, creating visualizations like charts, graphs, etc.
• Enhancing the data views using advanced Tableau methods.
• Creating different worksheets so that we can have different data views from the same or different data.
• After worksheets, we can create dashboards that are organizing different and relevant data views in a single view for reporting.
• Using these dashboards or workbooks we can create stories to express the language of data better.

6.What are data extract files in Tableau?

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The data extract files are the ones that contain a local copy of the entire dataset or in other words, we take a subset of data from the source. The Tableau Data Extract files have a “.tde” extension. They do not contain a file path or information about the data source, workbooks, dashboards, etc in them. Tableau Data Extract files are useful as they are highly compressed and optimized to improve Tableau’s performance especially when we are using data connections that are slow.

7.How to create a .tde file in Tableau?

Ans:

To create a Tableau Data Extract (.tde) file we have to,

• Go to the Data tab present on the top left of the Tableau toolbar.
• Select a data source.
• Click on the Extract Data option.
• Then, either select fields from the data source or just click on Extract to create a data extract file (.tde) of the entire data set from the data source.

8.What is a Tableau Dashboard?

Ans:

A dashboard is a collection of different data views. Different data views are different kinds of visualizations that we create on Tableau. We can bring together different elements from multiple worksheets and put them in a single view on a dashboard. In a dashboard, we can import and add charts and graphs from worksheets to create a dashboard. Also, on a dashboard, we can place relevant charts and graphs in one view and analyze them for better insights which help in informed decision making in business.

9.What are user functions in Tableau?

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The user functions in Tableau are unique functions that we use to perform operations on the registered users on Tableau Server or Tableau Online. We use the User functions to apply user-specific filters or row-level security functions on Tableau users. For instance, if we want to restrict a view to just one user we can do so by using one of the user functions. Some commonly used user functions are FULLNAME, ISFULLNAME, ISMEMBEROF, ISUSERNAME, USERNAME, USERDOMAIN, etc.

10.What is the difference between Tableau Workbook and Tableau Packaged Workbook?

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Both the Tableau Workbook and Tableau Packaged Workbook are file types used in Tableau.

The Tableau Workbook type of files contains information about worksheets and dashboards that are present within a Tableau workbook. That is, all the information related to fields, aggregation types, styles, formatting, filters, etc are present in these files.

The Tableau Workbook files have an extension as .twb. We can only create these files from a live data connection and share them with users having access to that live connection. So, the .twb files contain metadata related to the existing data connection and does not contain the actual data from the workbook.

The Tableau Packaged Workbook file type is different from the .twb files as it contains both the metadata or information about the data of a workbook and the data extracted from the data source. They have an extension .twbx. The .twbx file type is used in place of a .twb file when you want to share a workbook with a user who does not have access to the live data connection. Thus, in this case, your .twbx file contains data extracted from the source along with the other information about the workbook.

11.What are the different data types in Tableau?

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Tableau identifies and categorizes the incoming data in various categories of data. The different data types available in Tableau are:

1. 1. String values (Text): This data type consists of zero or more characters. The string values have the characters enclosed in a single or double quote (as known as single or double inverted commas).
2. 2. Integer values (Numbers): The values of this data type can be either an integer type or floating type numbers. It is a numeric data type.
3. 3. Date & Time values: This data type consists of date and time values in different formats such as dd-mm-yy, dd-mm-yyyy or mm-dd-yyyy, etc. for date and hr:min:sec for time. Tableau also has a separate Date data type which contains only the date values of different types like a year, month, quarter, week, day, etc.
4. 4. Boolean values (True or False; relational): The values of this data type are in the form of True and False that is a result of relational calculations. Therefore, boolean values are also known as logical values.
5. 5. Geographic values (Region, Postal code, etc): The data values of this data type are those which are used in a map. It consists of values related to country name, state name, city, region, postal codes, etc that belong to the geography of a region. This data type is denoted by a globe icon.
6. 6. Cluster group or mixed values: This data type is assigned to the fields having values of more than one data type.

12.What are measures and dimensions in Tableau?

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Measures: The measure values are the quantifiable values which we use in calculations. Thus, all the measure values are predominantly numeric values as it is only them that are processed and calculated to give results that can be analyzed. For instance, the sales field is a measure field as it will have a numeric value, that is, sales data that we can use in our analysis in a lot of ways like calculating the average sales, total sales, yearly sales, trends, sales forecast and much more.

Dimensions: The dimension values are the values of specific characteristics or attributes. The fields having dimension values known as the dimensions fields. We do not use them in calculations. They only assign specific attributes to fields such as date, product, area, category, city, etc. So, the dimension fields are descriptive fields describing what type of data does a field contains. One basic difference between measure and dimension fields in Tableau is that dimensions are not aggregated while measures are aggregated.

13.What are the different types of functions generally used in Tableau?

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In Tableau, we have a lot of processing and analytical freedom with the virtue of functions available. With the help of different types of functions, we can perform a lot of analytical operations on the data.

The main categories of Tableau function are:

1. 1. String function: These functions like ASCII, CHAR, FIND, ISDATE, LOWER, etc, are known as string functions because they work on the string values or characters to manipulate them.
2. 2. Date function: We use date functions to apply logical as well as arithmetic operations on date values present at the data source. Using the date functions we can manipulate the date values by changing the old values, creating new ones or searching data on the basis of specific dates. Some commonly used date functions in Tableau are DATEADD, MAKEDATE, ISDATE, MAKETIME, MONTH, MIN/MAX, TODAY, NOW, etc.
3. 3. Logical function: We use logical functions to perform logical or relational operations on data in Tableau. Some commonly used logical functions in Tableau are, CASE, IF, IFNULL, ISNULL, ZN, etc.
4. 4. Aggregate function: We use aggregate functions to apply aggregation on data values in different ways. Some important aggregation functions used in Tableau are; AVG, ATTR, MAX, MEDIAN, MIN, PERCENTILE, SUM, STDDEV, etc.
5. 5. User function: We use functions to manage the users registered on Tableau Server or Tableau Online. Commonly used user functions are, FULLNAME, ISFULLNAME, ISUSERNAME, USERDOMAIN, USERNAME, etc.

14.What do you understand by Data Extracts in Tableau?

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Data extracts are portions of data that we take from the data source. The data extracts are also called the subsets of data that we extract from the main data source. Using data extracts optimizes Tableau’s performance, speed and offers flexibility to handle large sets of data easily.

A local copy of that portion of data gets saved in Tableau’s memory when we create a data extract. Working and managing data in the form of such extracts is much easier than having to manage the entire data from a live connection as extracts are saved offline in Tableau’s memory.

15.What is data blending in Tableau? How is it different from joins?

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The data blending brings data from two different data sources together in a single view or in a single Tableau worksheet. For data blending in Tableau, there are two data sources; a primary data source and a secondary data source. The relevant data of the secondary data source is taken and added with the main data of the primary data source and a blended table is displayed.

Blending is different from creating joins because blending only combines relevant data from different data sources, whereas joins work on a row-level and often duplicates data that is repeating in several rows. Also, both data blending and joining create a left join between two data tables. But the main point of difference is when the aggregation takes place, that is, when a join is created, the data is combined first and then aggregated. Whereas, in data blending, the data from primary and secondary data sources are queried independently, aggregated, combined and then used for visualization. So, the order of operations are different in both.

16.What are custom data views in Tableau?

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The custom data views in Tableau are views that a user can customize according to their analysis needs. A custom data view is made from a normal data view by making some modifications in it or adding advanced functionalities and features in it. In other words, custom views are views that represent a set of data in different ways.

Custom data views are alternate views of the same underlying data which presents a different story in every new view. We can create custom views by making a drill-down dimension with predefined hierarchies. In this case, every time you drill-down the next level, you will find data at a different level of granularity.

Another way of creating a custom view is by simply swapping the position of fields or dimensions in the Columns or Rows sections. By swapping the position of dimensions, we can view our data in a new way.

17.What are the different field operations we can perform in Tableau?

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Fields are the most important element in managing data as well as analyzing it. All the data values are sorted and kept accordingly in the fields of particular data tables. In Tableau, we can perform a variety of operations on the data fields like:

• Add new fields to a worksheet.
• Combine two or more fields.
• Create a calculated field.
• Make parameters from fields.
• Create a set of two fields.
• Group multiple fields.
• Search for existing fields.
• Rename or reorder fields.

18.Can we create custom territories on a map in Tableau?

Ans:

Yes, we can create custom territories on Tableau maps. We can create custom territories on a map by grouping existing locations or territories together. Do you know? We use custom territories in Tableau as a separate geographic cluster field without modifying the existing geographic fields.

For instance, if on a map of India, we have sales for different states like Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujrat, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, we can group all of these to create a single sales territory which will be a custom territory.

19.What are the different kinds of filters in Tableau?

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Tableau offers a good range of filters that we can apply on the data for better analysis. Filters allow us to view our data at different levels of granularity and detail. We can exclude unnecessary data through filters and conduct our analysis on only the required data.

There are five different types of filters available in Tableau.

1. 1. Extract filters: These filters create an extract or subset of data from the original data source. In other words, the extract filters extract a portion of data from the whole from its source. We can use the data extract anywhere in the analysis once it is created.
2. 2. Data Source filters: The data source filters are the filter conditions that we can directly apply at the data source level. Using the data source filters we can apply filters on the data present in the data source itself instead of first importing it into Tableau.
3. 3. Context filters: The context filters are used to apply a context for the data that we are working on. Once we apply a context filter on a worksheet or workbook, the entire analysis is done in that applied context only.
4. 4. Dimension filters: Dimension filters are applied specifically on individual dimensions present in the Dimensions section on a Tableau sheet. We can easily apply dimension filters on the dimension fields by dragging and dropping the field into the Filter card present on the sheet.
5. 5. Measure filters: Such filters are applied on individual measure fields present in the Measures section on a Tableau sheet. We can easily apply the measure filters on the measure fields by dragging and dropping the field into the Filter card present on the sheet

20.What do you understand by context filters?

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Context filters are used to apply context on the data under analysis. By applying a context we set a perspective according to which we can see the charts and graphs. For example, we have sales data of an electronic store and we want to conduct our analysis only for the corporate sector or segment. To do this, we have to apply a context filter on our Tableau sheet. Once we add the context for the Corporate segment from the Add to context option, all the charts present on the sheet will only show data relevant to the Corporate segment. In this way, we can apply a context to our analysis in Tableau.

21.What is Quick Sorting in Tableau?

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Tableau gives us the option to Quick Sort data present in our visualizations. We can instantly sort data from the visualization by simply clicking on the sort button present on the axes of a graph or chart. An ascending sort is performed upon one click, the descending sort is performed on two clicks and an applied sort is cleared on three clicks on the Quick Sort icon.

22.What does Tableau Show Me?

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The Show Me option in Tableau is one of the most important features of Tableau as it is a showcase of all the available visualizations in Tableau. It has a variety of graphs and charts that we can use in our analysis in Tableau. The Show Me menu has charts such as pie chart, bar graph, horizontal bar graph, stacked bar graph, histograms, scatter plots, treemap charts, whiskers plot, area chart, maps and much more. The charts get activated in the Show Me menu according to the dimensions and measures that we select.

23.What are the different kinds of formatting operations that we can perform in Tableau?

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One reason why Tableau is a much preferred Business Intelligence tool is that it offers a wide variety of formatting options on its charts and graphs. The formatting options gives a lot of flexibility to create visualizations of our choice as per our requirements. We can format a visualization in a lot of ways like formatting the axes, changing the font, formatting the shade and alignment, formatting the borders, changing the color scheme, etc.

24.What is a Tableau worksheet?

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A Tableau worksheet is a single view sheet that can contain numerous visualizations. A typical Tableau worksheet consists of elements like shelves, cards, Show Me menu, legends, filters, Data and Analytics pane, and a blank area to create the visualizations on. Anything that we create on Tableau starts with creating a basic Tableau worksheet. We can use one or more worksheets to create workbooks, dashboards, stories, etc.

25.What is a paged workbook in Tableau?

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A paged workbook in Tableau consists of different pages based on certain criteria. For instance, if we want to see sales performance based on different regions, we can create a separate page for each region in a workbook. In this way, a single workbook, that is, a paged workbook will show sales based on every region making the workbook more detailed and insightful.

26.In what ways can you connect to a data source in Tableau?

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We can connect to a data source in Tableau mainly in two ways; a live connection or creating an extract from a data source. In a live connection, we get to connect directly to the data source via a connector. So, the live connections are online connections. Whereas when we create an extract, data is taken offline and stored into Tableau’s memory.

27.What is the maximum number of tables you can join in Tableau?

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The maximum number of tables that we can join in Tableau is 32.

28.What are shelves in Tableau?

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Shelves: The Shelves on a Tableau worksheet are demarcated areas used for specific purposes. There are several shelves on a Tableau sheet like, Page shelf, Filter shelf, Marks shelf, Rows and Column shelf. Each shelf has a specific purpose or functionality assigned to it that you can use to make your analysis better.

29.What do you understand by groups and sets in Tableau?

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Sets: Sets are subsets of data created according to specific conditions or criteria. Once created, we can use the sets in analysis. A set can have data based on a condition like sales values greater than 50,000.

Groups: Groups in Tableau refer to the group of dimensions brought together to create a category. For instance, if we are analyzing test scores for different majors, we can create a group called Major that will contain all the majors for a test.

30.What are hierarchical fields in Tableau?

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The hierarchical fields are those which have data arranged in hierarchies. Hierarchies organize relevant data on different levels. We can dive deep into data and analyze it at a finer level by doing a drill-down into hierarchical fields.

31.How is the Context Filter different from other Filters?

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• Whenever we create a Context Filter, Tableau will create a temporary table for this particular Filter set and other Filters will be applied on the Context Filter data like cascade parameters.
• Suppose, we have created a Context Filter on countries, USA and India, Tableau will create a temporary table for these two countries’ data and if we have any other Filters other will be applied on these two countries’ data if we don’t have any Context Filter, each record will check for all Filters.

32.What is the disadvantage of Context Filters?

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• The Context Filter is not frequently changed by the user—if the Filter is changed, the database must be recomputed and the temporary table has to be rewritten, slowing performance.
• When we set a dimension to context, Tableau creates a temporary table that will require a reload each time the view is initiated. For Excel, Access, and text data sources, the temporary table created is in an Access table format. For SQL Server, MySQL, and Oracle data sources, we must have permission to create a temporary table on our server. For a multidimensional data source, or cubes, temporary tables are not created, and Context Filters defined which Filters are independent and which are dependent.

33.What are the five main products offered by Tableau?

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Tableau offers five main products:

• Tableau Desktop
• Tableau Server
• Tableau Online
• Tableau Reader
• Tableau Public

34.What is the latest version of Tableau Desktop?

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Tableau Desktop 2020.3 (as of August 11, 2020)

35.Why Tableau?

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Whether our data is in an on-premise database, a database, a data warehouse, a cloud application, or in an Excel file, we can analyze it with Tableau. We can create views of our data and share it with colleagues, customers, and partners. We can use Tableau to blend it with other data, and we can keep our data up to date automatically.

36.What are Filters? How many types of Filters are there in Tableau?

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A Filter restricts unnecessary data; it shows the exact data we want. Basically, Filters are of three types:

• Quick Filter
• Context Filter
• Datasource Filter

37.How to remove the Show All option from a Tableau Auto Filter?

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Right-click on Filter > Customize > uncheck the Show All option

38.Can we use unused columns (columns that are not used in reports but used in data source) in Tableau Filters?

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Yes! For example, in a data source, if we have columns like EmpID, EmpName, EmpDept, Emp Designation, EmpSalary, and in reports we are using EmpName on columns and EmpSalary on rows, we can use EmpDesignation on Filters.

39.What is the benefit of Tableau Extract file over the live connection?

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Extract can be used anywhere without any connection, and we can build our own visualizations without connecting to a database.

40.What are dual axes?

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To display two measures in one graph, Tableau uses dual axes.

41.What is the blended axis?

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Here, multiple measures are shown in a single axis and all the marks are shown in a single pane.

• Drag a dimension in a column
• Drag the first measure in the column
• Drag the second measure in the existing axis
• Us/multiplemeasures_blendedaxes.html

42.What makes Tableau stand out?

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Tableau stands out for several reasons:

• First, most of the BI tools are pricey, but Tableau has a free offering (Tableau Public) and a very popular (also free) academic distribution.
• Tableau is well recognized by firms like Forrester Research to be one of the most easy-to-use and agile products currently available.
• On the other hand, unlike some of the other BI tools, Tableau is not a complete technology stack; It is mostly useful for visualization and analytics. We will need other products in addition to Tableau for heavier enterprise data ETL, maintenance, storage, etc.

43.How do we do testing in Tableau?

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We can’t perform testing in Tableau. It is a data visualization software.

44.Can you get values from two different sources as a single input into parameters?

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Tableau currently does not support the multi-valued parameters. Case Study: The “dynamic parameter with a blend” technique can be used to highlight a single value, but not multiple values because of the way it works. As Tableau parameters are not dynamic, we cannot “filter” the list of values at runtime.

45.How do we use parameters in Tableau?

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We can use parameters with filters, calculated fields, actions, measure-swaps, changing views, and auto-updates.

46.What is the use of the new custom SQL query in Tableau?

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Custom SQL query is written after connecting to data for pulling the data in a structured view. For example, suppose we have 50 columns in a table, but we need just 10 columns only. So instead of taking 50 columns, we can write a SQL query. The performance will increase.

47.What are the differences between Tableau and other traditional BI tools?

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Tableau provides easy to use, best in class, visual analytic capabilities, but it does not help with plumbing (data foundation). We could, for example, marry SQL Server with Tableau to get the complete package. Tableau licenses are relatively expensive if we are looking to scale.

Traditional BI can handle it all but with significant upfront costs, higher consulting, hardware, and software costs. Among the mega-vendors, only Microsoft can provide a reasonable value proposition. Open-source vendors like Pentaho and Jaspersoft do not have an abundant-enough talent pool, yet.

48.What are the similarities and differences between Tableau and Palantir?

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Palantir and Tableau are very different. Palantir has its roots in large data computer science problems involving security, payments, fraud detection, and the like. Its customers/investors include PayPal, CIA, and others.

Tableau is a visualization player, with roots in Stanford University Research. Its Visual Query Language (VizQL) allows users to build visualizations on top of the standard data warehouses or spreadsheets.

49.How to create cascading filters without using context filters?

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Here, say, we have Filter1 and Filter2. Based on Filter1, we need to use Filter2 on the data. For example, consider Filter1 as ‘Country’ and Filter2 as ‘States.’

Let’s choose Country as ‘India’ and hence Filter2 should display only the states of India.

Choose options of Filter2 states:

select option of ‘Only relevant values’

50.Is Tableau good for a strategic acquisition?

Ans:

Yes, for sure! It gives us data insights much more than the others. It helps us plan and point the anomalies and improvise our process for betterment.

51.How to display the top five and the last five sales in the same view?

Ans:

Using filters or calculated fields, we can display the top five and the last 5 sales in the same view.

52.Suppose, without using a line/bar chart, I want to design a view to show the region-wise profit and sales. How should I go about doing it? Explain.

Ans:

• Generate a map using cities
• Then, drag the profit and sales to Details
• Add the state as Quick filter

53.Design a view in a map such that if a user selects any state, the profit and sales in the cities under that state would show up.

Ans:

If we want to show the sales and profit of each and every city under the states in the same worksheet, first, we should have State, City, Sales, and Profit fields in our dataset.

1. 1.Double-click on the State field
2. 2.Drag City and drop into Marks card (under the State field)
3. 3.Drag Sales and drop into Size
4. 4.Drag Profit and drop into Color
5. 5.Click on Size legend and increase the size (75%)
6. 6.Right-click on the State field and select Show Quick filter
7. 7.Select any state and check whether we got the required view or not.
8. 8.In this, the view size indicates the number of sales and the color indicates the profit values.

54.How to add custom color in Tableau?

Ans:

Create Custom Color code in ‘Preferences.tps’

Then, add custom color code

55.How can we combine a database and the flat file data in Tableau Desktop?

Ans:

• Connect data twice, once for database tables and then for the flat file. The Data->Edit Relationships
• Give a Join condition on the common column from DB tables to the flat file

56.What does Tableau do?

Ans:

Tableau’s major goal is to help people see and understand data. Its software products put the power of data into the hands of everyday people, allowing a broad population of business users to engage with their data, ask questions, solve problems, and create values.

57.What is Tableau Public?

Ans:

Tableau Public is a free service that lets anyone publish interactive data to the web. Once on the web, anyone can interact with the data, download it, or create their own visualizations for it. No programming skills are required here. We can also check out the gallery to see some of the things people have been doing with it.

58.What is data modeling?

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Data modeling is the analysis of data objects that are used in a business or other context and the identification of the relationships among these data objects. Data modeling is the first step in performing object-oriented programming.

59.What is your daily work process in Tableau?

Ans:

• get the required data, 
• create a storyboard, 
• create visualizations in Tableau, and 
• then present it to the client for review.

60.What are the parameters in Tableau? How do they work?

Ans:

Parameters are dynamic values that can replace constant values in calculations, and they can serve as filters.

61.How does Tableau work with huge datasets?

Ans:

Tableau’s performance is based on the performance of the data source. If the data source takes more time to execute a query, then Tableau must wait up to that time.

62.How will you publish and schedule a workbook in Tableau Server?

Ans:

• First, create a schedule for a particular time and then create Extract for the data source and publish the workbook on the server.
• Before we publish it, there is an option called ‘Scheduling and Authentication’. Click on that and select the schedule from the drop-down and then publish. Also publish data sources and assign the schedule. This schedule will automatically run for the assigned time and the workbook will get refreshed on a regular basis.

63.Distinguish between Parameters and Filters.

Ans:

• Parameters are dynamic values that can replace constant values in calculations. Parameters can serve as Filters as well.
• Filters, on the other hand, are used to restrict the data based on a condition that we have mentioned in the Filters shelf.

64.How to view a SQL generated by Tableau Desktop?

Ans:

Tableau Desktop Log files are located in C:UsersMyDocumentsMy Tableau Repository. If we have a live connection to the data source, we need to check the log.txt and tabprotosrv.txt files. If we are using Extract, we have to check the tdeserver.txt file. The tabprotosrv.txt file often shows detailed information about queries.

65.What is a Page shelf?

Ans:

Page shelf is a powerful part of Tableau that we can use to control the display of the output and the printed results of the output.

66.What are the major differences between Tableau 7.0 and Tableau 8.0?

Ans:

1. 1.New visualizations are introduced like treemap, bubble chart, and box and whisker plot.
2. 2.We can copy worksheet directly from one workbook to another workbook
3. 3.Introduced R script

67.How to create filled maps?

Ans:

• Step 1: Build a Map View, double-click on a geographic field such as State, Area Code, Zip Code, etc.
• Step 2: Select the Filled Map Mark Type The Automatic mark type will show this type of view as circles over a map. On the Marks card, select Filled Map to color the geographic areas.
• Step 3: Drag a Field to the Color shelf, define how the locations are colored by dragging another field to the Color shelf.

68.Does a parameter have its own drop-down list?

Ans:

Yes, it may have its own drop-down list. The entries we make in the Parameter while creating it can be viewed as items in the drop-down list.

69.How to rectify SQL performance for developed dashboards?

Ans:

After the creation of dashboards, if we get a problem from the SQL side it means Custom SQL….How to Rectify the SQL performance from custom SQL.

70.How is data blending different from data joining?

Ans:

Data blending is the combining of data from two or more different sources. We can combine the data between two sources, such as Oracle, SQL Server, Excel, and others.

Example:

Consider the admission data given in a relational database and the admission target data given in an Excel spreadsheet. Now, to compare the actual admissions with the target admissions, we can perform data blending. Here, we will blend the data based on some common dimensions of both sources to access the measure of the Admissions target. We list the two sources involved in data blending as the primary and secondary sources of the data. A left join is performed between the primary data source and the secondary data source, wherein all the data rows from the primary data source and only the matching data rows from the secondary data source are fetched.

Each data source in data blending includes its own collection of dimensions and measures. Data blending is useful when combining data from a variety of sources.

Data joining, on the other hand, is also combining data but from two or more tables or sheets within the same data source.

Example:

Combining two tables from the same SQL Server or Oracle Database or DB2 or any other data source. Combining two worksheets or more in the same Excel package will also fall under data joining.

Data joining is useful when combining data from a single source with several tables, sheets, or others.

71.Is it possible to store a huge amount of data in a memory engine using Tableau? If yes, how can we achieve that?

Ans:

Yes, it is possible.

Yet, this question doesn’t have a straight answer since we can store massive amounts of data differently on the basis of the different configurations of Tableau Server implementation (such as 8 cores, 16 cores, etc.). Not just if Hyper is used or not, but other factors like server memory may also affect the amount of the data we can store. When dumping large amounts of data on Tableau Server, we have to make sure that this data volume should not affect the dashboard’s performance and the response time, and also, the processing time for extracts. This is where Tableau’s efficiency is enhanced by Hyper.

72.How is Tableau different from traditional reporting/BI tools?

Ans:

Traditional BI solutions are powerful and can provide scaling and reliability. Various well-established software firms have endorsed them. These solutions provide ample security for data. Although, they need good BI technical knowledge and skills to work with them. Oracle BI and Qlikview are just two simple tools used among them.

Tableau is one of the top BI tools used in the industry today, providing easy operation and understanding without much knowledge of BI competencies. It has simple drag-and-drop functionality and a smart way to categorize the fields of data. However, in Tableau Public, data security is not provided, while in the Professional version, security is enabled.

73.What is the difference between INDEX and RANK in Tableau?

Ans:

RANK and INDEX come under table calculations in Tableau. INDEX mainly deals with a record’s physical position. Incremental numbers are assigned according to the record’s physical order.

Whereas, RANK deals with a record’s value. The highest value gets the highest rank and the lowest value gets the lowest rank.

74.How to automate reports in Tableau?

Ans:

We will see the option to schedule reports when uploading a report on Tableau Server. We can click on this button to set the time to refresh the data.

75.Suppose, my license expires today. Can my users be able to view the dashboards or workbooks that I published on the server earlier?

Ans:

If our server license expires today, our user name on the server will have the role ‘unlicensed’ which means that we cannot access but others can. The Site Admin can ‘Change Ownership’ to another person, so Extracts if enabled do not fail.

76.Assume that I am using Tableau Desktop and have a live connection to Cloudera Hadoop data. I need to press F5 to refresh the visualization. Is there any way to automatically refresh the visualization every x minutes instead of pressing F5 everytime?

Ans:

Here is how we can refresh the dashboard in every 3 seconds:

• Replace api src and the server URL with yours. 
• The interval below is for 3 seconds.
  Tableau JavaScript API

77.What is Tableau Desktop?

Ans:

Tableau Desktop is based on breakthrough technology from Stanford University that lets us drag and drop to analyze data. It is a great data visualization tool, with which we can connect to data in a few clicks, then visualize and create interactive dashboards with a few more clicks.

78.What are the differences between Tableau, GoodData, and the other traditional BI tools (BusinessObjects, etc.)?

Ans:

We can talk about the features and functionalities of them for days, but at a high level, there are four major differences:

• Speed: How fast can we get up and running with the system, answer questions, design and share dashboards, and then change them? This is where systems like Tableau and GoodData are far better than the old-school Business Intelligence tools like BusinessObjects or Cognos. Traditional systems took months or years to implement, with costs running to millions. Tableau has a free trial version that gets installed in minutes, and GoodData is cloud-based, so they are faster to implement by orders of magnitude. They are also faster in giving results: traditional BI requires IT and developers to make any changes to reports, so business users are mostly stuck in a queue waiting to get anything done. Tableau and GoodData provide more of a self-service experience.
• Analysis: This is where Tableau excels. It has a powerful and flexible drag-and-drop visualization engine based on some technology from Stanford. GoodData and traditional BI tools typically provide some canned reports but changing them requires significant time and money.
• Enterprise readiness: Traditional BI and Tableau do well here, with enterprise-level security and high scalability.

79.Explain the integration of Tableau with R.

Ans:

R is a popular open-source environment for statistical analysis. Tableau Desktop can now connect to R through calculated fields and take advantage of R functions, libraries, and packages, and even the saved models. These calculations dynamically invoke the R engine and pass values to R via the Reserve package and they are returned to Tableau.

80.Are Auto Scrolling Filters Supported in Tableau? Explain. 

Ans:

Auto scrolling filters are not supported in Tableau Server, but they can be consumed in Tableau Desktop or Tableau Reader.

Step by step process of adding auto filters can be described below:

• Go to “worksheet”
• Select “action” (this could be select, hover, menu etc.)
• Click “add action”
• Select “filter” (basically there are 3 options under add actions – filter, highlight and URL)

Selecting filter here adds filtering action to the set of data used.

• Give the name of the “filter”
• Select “source sheet”

Essentially auto filters are useful when some action is triggered in the source sheet, then that reflects in the target sheet where there is a correlation of data shown or linked.

When using “action”, hovering filters automatically get applied to the target sheet if we have defined the “hover” option, and so on.

81.What are trend lines and reference lines? Are they similar? Explain to support your view point.

Ans:

Both of them are different and not similar.Reference lines in Tableau are used to show visual comparisons to benchmark certain figures, constant or values. These can be added at a constant or computed value on the axis. For example, we are showing sales of Firm 1, Firm 2 and Firm 3; the reference line can be set as an “average sales figure” which could act as a benchmark.

Trend lines on the other hand can be used to represent patterns of the trends in the data. For the same above example of Sales of a Firm 1, we can use different trend lines to represent if it is following a particular trend. These can be linear trend, logarithmic trend, exponential trend, polynomial trend, power trend etc.

82.It is not important to build cascaded dashboard designs in tableau inorder to improve load speeds true or false. Explain to support your answer.

Ans:

False. It is critical and important to build cascaded dashboard design.

Typically if input source data is huge, it will always be challenging to display the same in a dashboard. Hence it is advisable to have cascaded dashboard design where multiple views can be defined and cascaded in a dashboard to be able to provide summary view on top, other aspects on bottom left, bottom right etc with actions / filters to display required data appropriately.

83.What does ‘tabcmd’ and ‘tabadmin’ do in Tableau?

Ans:

tabcmd” and “tabadmin” are command line tools that Tableau uses.

“tabcmd” provides functions for performing workflow tasks like publishing workbooks, adding users, exporting workbooks, exporting data files etc.

“tabadmin” is used for server administration where tasks could be configuration of server options / server parameters, activating users, resetting passwords, managing deployments etc.

84.How to create a dashboard? Can you explain the life cycle?

Ans:

A dashboard is an information collection that is shown in one location and that supports information so that a range of data can be compared and monitored concurrently. You may have a number of opinions, for instance, which you review each day. You can generate a dashboard that displays all opinions at once, instead of flipping through each worksheet. In the same way, you create a new worksheet, you can create a dashboard. 

Select Dashboard > New Dashboard 

Alternatively, on the bottom of the workbook, press the New Dashboard tab. The bottom of the workbook contains a fresh dashboard tab. To add opinions and items, move to the fresh dashboard. The dashboard window on the left-hand side of the workbook replaces the Data Window. The dashboard window lists the sheets in the workbook. When you build fresh worksheets, you can always update the Dashboard window to include all worksheets on a dashboard. The worksheet is labeled with a control mark in the Dashboard window when a picture is added to the dashboard. Any legends or rapid filters on the board are automatically added to the dashboard. By default, dashboards use a Tiled design that allows for a single-layered grid for each perspective and item. To overlap opinions and items, you can alter the design to Floating.

85.What is the difference between quick filter and normal filter in tableau?

Ans:

Quick Filter

The Quick Filter always seems to the correct side of your window and shows which elements that you select, whichever u filter is used, if you wish to offer the user an opportunity to dynamically change data members at the moment this would be helpful. Quick Filter shows you what components you select. Only unrestricted data members can be seen in this case.

Normal Filter

Normal filer is something that, under certain circumstances, you can confine list alternatives, or restrict field or value information. The database data is restricted by the use of both measurements or sizes selected. Normal filters always. U can filter information when you drag a dimension into the filter rack by choosing a set of values. When dragging by measurement, you can select a range of values.

86.How to improve Performance in Tableau?

Ans:

• Use extract. 
• Limit your dashboard to respond to only one situation completely. 
• Limit the information entered on each worksheet.
• Remove any value-added parts.
• Remove from visualization any non-essential elements. 

87.What is the difference between treemap and heatmap

Ans:

Heat Map: Heat map is a sort of viewing instrument that is very suitable for comparing various categories. With the help of colors and sizes, it allows you to compare one or several sizes and up to two measurements against dimensions. The design is comparable to a text table with color-coded values. A broad range of data can be found rapidly on the thermal map. In a heat map, a color can be determined by one criterion and the size can be allocated by another.

Tree Maps: Treemaps in Tableau, which appeared in release 8.0, are a fairly fresh function. A “treemap” is a sort of diagram that shows the relations through rectangles in a hierarchy and/or in part. These rectangles are nestled in the event of hierarchy (tree-structured) information. The view room is split into large and ordered rectangles. The measurements are ordered. Nested rectangles mean that hierarchic concentrations in the information are expressed in bigger (above hierarchical) rectangles that contain lower (below hierarchical) rectangles. The rectangles on the treemap range between the top-left corner of the diagram and the lower right-hand corner, with the biggest rectangle located at the top-left corner.

88.What is disaggregation and aggregation of data?

Ans:

Aggregation is referred to as the method of viewing numeric values or measures at greater and more resumed information rates. When a measure is placed on a shelf, Tableau adds the information automatically, normally by adding it in sum. The aggregation applied to a field can be determined easily, since the feature always appears on the shelf before the field name. Sales become, for instance, SUM(Sales).  You can only add measures for relational data sources using Tableau. Only aggregated data is contained in multidimensional data sources. Only Windows supports multidimensional information sources in Tableau.

According to Tableau, the disaggregating of your information allows you, when evaluating steps that you may want to use separately and dependently in the perspective, to see every line of the information source that is helpful. For instance, you can analyze the results of a product satisfaction survey along a single axis with the age of participants. You can add the age to determine the median age of respondents or broken down information to determine the age of respondents with the item most satisfied.

89.How can we generate Tableau stories?

Ans:

Tableau offers numerous methods to generate a story. Each point of story may be based on a different view or dashboard, or the whole story may be based on the same visualization, seen at various stages, with filtered marks and annotations. It is possible to create a business case with story or simply tell a series of occurrences.

• Click the New Story tab. 
• Select a size for your story in the lower-left corner of the display. Select or set custom pixel-size from one of the predefined dimensions.
• Your story receives its title by default from its name. Double click on the headline to edit it. You can alter the font, color, and alignment of your title too. To see your modifications, click Apply.
• Drag a sheet from the story tab at the left and put it into the middle of the view to begin constructing your tale. Click add a title in order to summarize the story.
• Drag a text item into your story worksheet and type your review to highlight the main takeover for your spectators.
• You can alter a filter or type a field on the viewer in order to emphasize the primary concept of this tale by clicking on Update in the navigator box and then save your modifications

90.How to integrate view into Web Pages?

Ans:

• Get your embed code with a perspective: The Share button at the beginning of the perspective contains embed code that you can copy and paste into your site. 
• Customize the embed codes: The embed codes can be customized using parameters that control the toolbar, tabs and more (The Share button doesn’t appear in the embedded views when the showShareOptions parameter is changed to false). See Embed Code parameters for additional data.
• Use the JavaScript tableau API: In web applications, web developers may use JavaScript tableau objects. See the Tableau Developer Portal for access to the API, paperwork, software examples and the developer community.

91.If we have Tableau Desktop and have a live connection to Cloudera Hadoop data. We need to press F5 to refresh the visualization. Is there any way to automatically refresh visualization every ‘x’ seconds instead of pressing F5?

Ans:

The following is an example of the dashboard that refreshes every 5 seconds.

You just need your API src and your URL server to match.

92.Mention the difference between connect live and import all data and importing data.

Ans:

The following heads can be studied to understand the difference between the given:

Connect live – This creates a direct connect to the concerned data. The speed of the data source will determine performance.

Import all data – This imports the entire data source into Tableau’s fast data engine as an extract. The extract is saved with the workbook.

Import some data – This imports a subset of the concerned data into Tableau’s fast data engine as an extract. This option requires the user to specify what data the user wants to extract using filters.

93.Explain the concept of Ad-hoc reports in Tableau?

Ans:

An Ad-hoc report points to the spot based on the client requirement by connecting to a live environment that the user can create reports. Such reports are called Ad-hoc reports in Tableau.

94.How does Tableau work on a Mac?

Ans:

Macintosh users can view the Tableau Public content in their browser. Tableau Desktop Public Edition used for authoring content is a Windows application only. If the user is using a Macintosh computer that has an Intel processor, he/she can use virtualization software such as VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop to install Windows and run Tableau Desktop Public Edition. Alternatively, a user can use a built-in utility called Boot Camp to install Windows and run the Tableau software.

95.Does Tableau allow the automation of reports?

Ans:

Yes. In order to automate any report in Tableau, the user needs to publish the concerned report to the Tableau server. While publishing, the user will find one option to schedule reports. Here, the user just needs to select the time when he/she wants to refresh the concerned data values.

96.What are the components of the dashboard in Tableau?

Ans:

Some of the components of a dashboard in Tableau are Horizontal, Vertical, Text, and Images.

97.What do you mean by the Tableau reader?

Ans:

Tableau Reader is a free viewing application that lets anyone read and interact with packaged workbooks created by Tableau Desktop.

98.Mention the cases when the horizontal and vertical components are used in Tableau.

Ans:

Any user can use the horizontal and vertical components when he/she wants to have all sheets or filters to move in a single shot. However, Tableau allows user to still create the dashboard without this also. This allows the users to make our work simple

99.What do you know about table calculations?

Ans:

Table calculations are inbuilt calculations exclusively available in Tableau which the user normally uses to calculate the percentage from or to perform the YTD operation and other calculations like the measure across table, below table and etc.

100.How can the user find the Tableau Report Rendering Time?

Ans:

The following formula can be used to find the Tableau Report Rendering Time:

Report rendering time=Network time(request from URL to Report server) +Query execution time + Network time(response from SQL Server)+calculations(table column)+time taken to display the report in desired format(HTML/ pdf/ excel)

101.What do you know about VizQL?

Ans:

VizQL is a visual query language that translates specifically drag-and-drop actions into data queries and then expresses that data visually. VizQL delivers dramatic gains in people’s ability to see and understand data by abstracting the underlying complexities of query and analysis. The result is an intuitive user experience that lets people answer questions as fast as they can think of them. We believe that VizQL represents a foundational advancement in the area of data analysis and visualization.

These are some of the popular questions that are asked in tableau interviews. Always be prepared to answer all types of questions — technical skills, interpersonal, leadership or methodology. If you are someone who has recently started your career in this field, you can always get certified to understand the industry-related terminology, skills and methodologies.