You Don't Know, What You Don't Know

Are you struggling to master Tableau? You are not alone. Many self-taught users miss out on powerful features that can elevate their data analysis. As you may never have been exposed to certain features in Tableau.

Let's look at a couple of examples.

Example 1: A user may think they are an expert in the functions of Tableau but was never been exposed to creating Set Drill-downs or had use case for Set Actions.

Example 2: A user may think they know all of the calculation functions but have never had a need for a Level of Detail expression.

Both users in example 1 and 2 were just creating simple table reports or bar charts over and over again. They were never exposed to the more complex analysis or enhancements one can accomplish with Tableau.

So how can you overcome the training gap? How can companies do this?

The answer is to gamify training and to break your complex concepts into small digestible parts. (This also helps with learning any new coding language!) I proposed learning with the help of badges I created using Canva. Imagine earning badges for your Tableau skills just line in a game!

Why Badges? Are you aware of Credly? Credly is a online website that has Badges for many certifications. I didn't go with this site because of its cost.

Trailhead also has a lot of badges for Salesforce products, but not a lot for learning Tableau...yet.

Gamification also helps with engagement, motivation and can create a friendly competitive environment. You can have conversations with others in the breakroom such as "Did you get the Makeover Monday Badge? I did!"

I created badges in following areas where I think it can help users increase their knowledge / development skills.

Badge Categories and Requirements

Community Badges - Expire annually* and require evidence**

• Presenter Badge - have you presented for a TUG or other event and impacted multiple people?

• Contributor Badge - have you provided content in the community, videos, blogs word docs and it has impacted multiple people?

• Doctor Badge - have you helped others with design, data connections or something else with Tableau?

*Expire annually - this is to promote continually helping others in the community, New Year - New opportunity for design

**require evidence to submit such as print screens of meetings, blogs etc

Community involvement is HUGE in Tableau. It's rather famous and is called "Datafam". Google this term and see what I mean! Creating an internal datafam or engaged community is important for upskilling and provide support for others.

Developer Badges - need to submit a workbook to demonstrate knowledge

• Access & Controls - this is for users who can do the role level filtering and understand the permissions on the Tableau server

• Data Modeling - have you created a union, a join, a cross-database join, data blend and a pivot in Tableau?

• Date Calculations - do you know how to create calculations to display year over year or month over month analysis? Specifically the DATETRUNC, DATEPART, DATEADD functions?

• LOD Calculations - display your knowledge of using FIXED, INCLUDE, EXCLUDE and nested LOD calcs

• Parameters - have you used parameters to filter data, create a drill-down, use them in a reference line, use them in an action and/or create sheet swapping?

• Sets - have you created a dashboard with Set Actions, used them to drill-down, combine sets, use them for highlighting, proportional brushing and/or comparative analysis?

Challenge Badges - need to submit a workbook to demonstrate knowledge

• Pre-attentive attribute challenge - Create a workbook using all of the pre-attentive attributes Tableau describes in this article

• Best Practices - Have you created a dashboard displaying the following?

  • Padding

  • Using Minimal Color Palettes

  • Use Color-blind friendly palettes (alternative for RAG ratings?)

  • Title formatting

  • Axis formatting

  • Communication in titles

  • Helpful Tooltip design

  • Optimizing data / dashboard

• Chart Challenge 1 - Can you create a workbook with the following charts? Pie, Bar, Line, Map, Scatter, Text Chart with formatted subtotals and totals

• Chart Challenge 2 - Can you create a workbook with Lollipop, Shape / Bar, Donut, a chart using Measure Names / Measure Values, Gantt, Pareto, KPI, and a Trellis

• Makeover Monday - Do a makeover Monday exercise and post it on Tableau Public!

• Workout Wednesday - Complete a Workout Wednesday exercise and post it on Tableau Public!

I also have three other badges for the courses I teach. Want to see these examples? Look here > https://techtipsgirl/badges

I then created Master badges - think of acknowledging those that completed the categories of Challenges, Community, Developer and Courses.

Then of course a nod to a certain movie with one badge to rule them all....or the master badge.

I am sharing all of this as I want other developers to be empowered. There are so many resources out there, that sometimes its hard to focus on your learning gaps. Look at the badge requirements, can you do all the things in the Data Modeling badge? The Sets badge, etc.?