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Home / Blog / Interview Questions / Top 60+ Tableau Interview Questions and Answers 2024
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Tableau Public is a free version of the Tableau Desktop tool with a few limitations.
Whereas, using Tableau Desktop we can connect to hundreds of data sources including Big Data connections like Hadoop.
Whenever we establish a connection with any data source in Tableau, it will scan through the initial few records in the data source, and try to identify Geographic data based on Geographic Roles.
Different Geographic Roles in Tableau are:
Airports, Area Codes for US, CBSA/MSA for US, City, Congressional District for US, Country, County, NUTS Europe, State/Province, Zip Code/Postal Codes.
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Airport: All International Airports from across the world are recognized by Tableau. IATA - International Air Transport Association or ICAO - International Civil Aviation Organization airport codes are recognized.
Area Code: Telephone Area Codes in the US.
CBSA/MSA: US Office of Management and Budget has defined certain Statistical areas in the US, which are Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSA)/ Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA). Tableau recognizes both the CBSA/MSA Codes and Names.
City: All worldwide cities with a population of fifteen thousand or more.
Congressional District: All the Congressional Districts present in the US.
Country/Region: All the Countries, and regions present across the world. Tableau recognizes not just the names of the countries but also the codes given to them. It recognizes FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standard) Codes, and also ISO (International Organization of Standardization) codes which are both 2-alpha (2 characters) and 3-alpha (3 characters) codes.
For eg: India, IN, IND; United Stated, US, USA, etc.
County: County is a second-level administrative division, Tableau recognizes them for select countries like US, UK, France etc.
NUTS Europe: NUTS (Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics) levels 1 - 3 codes. Codes and names are supported. This geographic role was introduced in version 10.3.
State/Province: All the states across the world are recognized.
ZIP Code/Postcode: ZIP Code/Postcode for select countries are recognized.
Filled Maps: These are Maps where the area is filled in with a color representing the Measure Value. It can be created by taking the Geographic data to the ‘Detail’ shelf and Measure Value to the ‘Color’ shelf.
Symbol Map: These are Maps where the information is represented in the form of a symbol, which by default is a Circle. 2 Measures can be represented on these Maps visually, one through ‘Color’ and the other through ‘Size’.
Density Maps: These Maps are used to represent the Density or Concentration of the Data values. This can be created by taking the geographic data to the ‘Detail’ shelf and using the Mark type as ‘Density’. The heat or temperature of the Map would talk about the concentration of the data values.
Combination Maps: These are Maps which can be created using the concept of Dual Axis, by combining a Filled Map with a Symbol Map.
Polygon Maps: These Maps are used to represent non-standard Geographic areas. They can be created using Polygon data.
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Yes, it would be possible.
In Tableau, the first and foremost requirement to start creating the reports is to establish a connection with an Input Data Source.
It supports 2 types of connectivity options -
Live Connection: There is a direct connection with the Data present in the data source.
Advantage: We will always get the latest data into the workbook automatically; while we are interacting with the workbook, or every time we reload the Dashboard.
Disadvantage: Performance might be slow, as there is going to be network dependency and the performance of the data source will determine the performance of Tableau.
Extract Connection: This is where we can fetch a copy of the data from the data source and save it locally (either on the local machine or a shared folder in a drive) and access the data from there.
Advantage: We get off-line access to the data, and as we would be accessing the data from our own machine or folder on the Intranet, the performance will be better than Live connection.
Disadvantage: No “Live” data. As we would be working with the data that has been extracted in the past, we may miss out on the latest updates to the data.
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The data in a Tableau Data Extract (.hyper or .tde) file can be kept up to date by refreshing it periodically.
There are 3 ways to do this.
When you publish a Tableau Data Extract file to the Tableau Server or Tableau Online, you will be prompted to schedule a refresh. Just click on the button to set up a job, based on which the Extract will be refreshed.
When you click on the button to Schedule Extract Refresh, you will be prompted to choose the schedule from a list of available schedules.
Select a frequency of your choice and click on “Schedule Refresh”.
You will be able to find it under the list of scheduled tasks with information about the last update date and time and the Next update date and time.
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We can create the Tableau Data Extract files from the Data Source Page and from the Data Pane.
From the Data Source Page: Click on the “Extract” radio button on the top right corner of the screen.
By default, the extract will include all the data. We can also choose to extract only a subset of the data by applying filters, or by aggregating the data to a higher level, or by choosing to extract only a few records.
From the Data Pane: Right-click on the name of the data source whose data needs to be extracted and navigate to the “Extract Data” option.
While extracting the data to create an ‘Extract’, it is possible to set up an Incremental Refresh. It will be possible to perform Incremental Refresh only when all the records are extracted and not just a few records.
If we choose the option to extract only a few records, the option to perform “Incremental Refresh” is disabled.
When we choose the option to perform an Incremental Refresh, we need to identify the field based on which Tableau can identify the new records being inserted into the data. This field is usually a key field or Timestamp field.
Incremental refresh will only include the new records inserted into the data source, i.e. only “Inserts”, it will not handle “Updates” or “ Deletes”.
To make sure that the updated and deleted records are also updated in the extract, we need to perform “Full Refresh”
The default LOD (Level Of Detail) expression is “Fixed”.
The statement {FIXED : SUM(Sales)} is the same as {SUM(Sales)}.
When we do not mention any LOD in the formula, Tableau will take the default LOD as “FIXED”.
It is very simple, just click the drop-down icon of the interactive filter, and choose “Customize”, then uncheck the “Show “All” Value” option.
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Tableau Supports the following data types:
It also identifies Geographical data and represents it by putting a Globe icon against the field.
Yes. Just right-click on the field and navigate to the “Change Data Type” option and choose the desired data type.
Alternatively, we can also click on the visual cue of the data type and change the data type.
Dimensions are categorical fields. They include all the non-numerical fields and also Pseudo Numbers (numbers used for identification).
Measures are values which when aggregated give a meaningful result. There are many aggregation options available in Tableau like - Sum, Average, Median, Minimum, Maximum, Count, Count Distinct, Percentile, Variance, and Standard Deviation.
Numerical data except Pseudo numbers are all treated as Measures and are given a default aggregation property.
Blue Pill represents “Discrete Data”, whereas a Green Pill represents “Continuous Data”.
When there is a Blue Pill on the canvas, its values will appear as “Labels” referred to as “Field Labels”.
When there is a Green Pill on the canvas an Axis is formed with a “Range of Values” on it.
The filter is a process of eliminating the values which are not required.
Filters in Tableau can be defined at the “Data Source” level while creating “Extracts” and at the worksheet, dashboard, and story level.
Data Source Filter is used to limit the amount of data that we connect to.
Extract filters are applied only when extracts are created, to limit the number of records that need to be extracted.
Worksheets/Dashboard/Story Filter: Used to limit the amount of data that we display on the graph and also to bring in Interactivity.
The filter can be created on Measures, Dimensions, and Dates; in short on all the fields.
Context filters are an independent filter applied on dimensions (categorical data), which is applied before any other filters in the worksheet.
It creates a temporary table that holds the information obtained by the Context filter. The rest of the filters in the workbook are applied on a Sub-Set of the data fetched by the context filter, this improves the performance significantly.
This can be done by using the concept of “Combined Sets”
On the ‘Help’ menu go to “Settings and Performance” and then navigate to “Start Performance Recording”.
After interacting with the workbook, follow the same path to “Stop Performance Recording”.
Tableau will create a workbook showing the performance of main events while recording the performance. This will give an understanding of the performance of the workbook.
Index function will just tell about the position of a member in a partition. Whereas ‘Rank’ will provide a rank to the members based on the value that they hold.
For Example: Create a calculated field using “Index” and “Rank” functions.
Notice the difference in data present in the Index column and Rank column.
The index is just telling the position of each member in the table, Accessories 1, Appliances 2, etc.
Whereas Rank is giving a rank to each sub-category based on its profit, Copiers with the highest profit has a rank of ‘1’ and so on.
However, if the data is sorted in descending order, both the fields convey the same information.
Tableau Online is a secure cloud-based solution for sharing and collaborating the work done on Tableau Desktop. It has a lot of features like:
Workbooks created using the Tableau Desktop tool can be published to Tableau Server or Tableau Online using the “Server” menu option.
Choose the option to “Publish Workbook”.
You will be prompted to enter the server details and the login credentials.
Once the authentication is completed, you will now be able to choose the “Project” under which the workbook is to be published.
There are many options that we may configure here.
You can choose to publish all the worksheets (which is the default) or “Edit” that option and publish only selected worksheets.
We can set Permissions to different users.
We can embed the data source in the workbook etc.
Finally, click the “Publish” button to publish the workbook to Server/Online.
View Access: In which the user will be able to “View” the reports in the workbook, use the interactive filters and parameters, view and add comments, and Download the workbook as an Image or a PDF and also Download the Summary Data.
Explore Access: In addition to the access that a viewer has, an explorer will be able to also Download Full Data, Share Customized view, and Web Edit the contents in the workbook. But, an Explorer cannot overwrite or save a copy of that workbook.
Publish Access: A Publisher will be able to do all the things that an explorer does, in addition to it, a Publisher will be able to Download/Save a Copy of the workbook after editing it and also Overwrite the charts in the original workbook.
Administer Access: A person with this access has full control over the workbook. He/she can move the workbook from one Project to another, Delete the workbook, and also Set Permissions on that workbook for other users.
Embedded Data Source: It contains connection information and is associated with a workbook.
Published Data Source: It contains connection information that is independent of any workbook and can be used by multiple workbooks.
Yes. Choose the option to create a new workbook from the “Home” page or the “Explore” page to create a new workbook. You will be able to choose a data source and proceed to create a workbook.
* You may connect to a data source that was earlier published to the site, and is present on the site, using the “On This Site” tab
* You may connect to files from your computer, using the “Files” tab
* You may connect to the data present on Server or Cloud data sources, from the “Connectors” Tab
You may use data from “LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Marketo, Oracle Eloqua, Salesforce, ServiceNow ITSM from the Dashboard Starters tab to quickly create reports.
After connecting to the data source, the next step is to configure the data connection on the Data Source Page, similar to Tableau Desktop, after which we reach the Canvas/View Pane. Create all the charts, dashboards, and stories, again similar to the way it is done on Tableau Desktop, post which we need to save our work.
To save the workbook, go to File -> Save As
Give a name to the workbook and choose the “Project” to save the workbook in.
Yes. Click on the drop-down icon against the name of the data source to be published or saved, and choose the option “Save As Published Data Source”.
You will be prompted with the following message.
Click yes, and the data source will be saved.
This data source can further be used to create another workbook, or your team members can use that data for their own analysis.
Open the View and click on the “Subscribe” option.
The dialog box to select the users who should receive the “viz” in an email can be chosen, the format of the view to be sent should be selected (Image or PDF or both Image and PDF) and the frequency can be set up.
While going through the charts, when you come across any point that you would like to bring to the attention of other people, comments can be created and sent to them
For this, click on the “Comment” option.
You can mention your comment and include people who need to know about it. It is also possible to attach a snapshot of the view in the comment.
When someone mentions a person in a comment, that recipient will receive an email in the inbox with a snapshot of the comment and also a link to open the comment on the server and view it.
Metric is a feature available on Tableau Online, it is used by clients to track a value (their business data) closely. Metrics can also be optimized to be monitored from Tableau Mobile, so that the users may track their data on the go. Metrics get updated automatically to display the latest value of the measure being tracked.
Data-driven alerts were introduced in Tableau Online in version 10.3. This feature enables us to set up a condition and trigger an alert when the condition is met, the alert will be sent as an email to the business users.
Open the view and click on the “Alerts” option:
Select the numerical axis and click on the “Create” option
Set up the condition to trigger the “Alert”.
When the condition is met, an email with the alert will be sent to the recipients.
Data details option is present at view level on Tableau Online will help users to check the numbers of views received by the chart. It provides details about when the worksheet was last modified, who created it, in which workbook it is present, and the Project information.
We also get information about the data sources used in the workbook, and the fields used to create the chart in the workbook.
Following are the different options available to download the chart.
We need to group customers by the year of their first purchase order date. The minimum order date per customer will give the first purchase date, by which we can understand the year of acquisition of the customer.
Use a LOD Expression to fix the minimum order date per customer.
{ FIXED [Customer Name] : MIN([Order Date]) }
Build a chart that shows the total number of customers acquired in a particular year, and the break up of how many of those customers belong to which customer cohort (group).
Here is a Stacked Bar graph displaying the Total Sales of Superstore, across different years, by Ship Mode. It is labeled by Sum(Sales). But, the labels show the sales for each ship mode.
The requirement is to show the overall Sales per year as a label on the top of the Stacked Bar Graph. For this, add a “Cell Scoped” reference Line and label it with the Value.
Final Result :
For this requirement, just apply a Quick Table Calculation, “Percent of Total”, on the Sales Pill present in the Label Shelf. Then, change the “Compute Using” option to “Table Down”.
For this requirement, create a calculated field with the formula as “WINDOW_COUNT(1)”
Place this field in the “Detail” shelf of the chart, make it discrete. This way, the information will be available to the graph, and hence, can be inserted into the Title.
Edit the Title and update as per the requirement.
We can now see the count of the number of records on the view displayed in the title.
This number will get updated based on the number of marks in the view.
For this, there is a very simple solution. Just click on the drop-down icon of the pills, for which the Sub-Totals need not be computed, and uncheck the “Subtotals” option from the drop-down menu. The result will look as follows:
After creating the Pie Chart, just take all the fields by which you wish to label it to the “Label” shelf in the Marks card. Apply Quick Table Calculation “Percent of Total” on the measure pill (Profit in this case). Now, drag Profit again from the data pane into the Label shelf.
After creating the chart, drag and drop the measure on the “Label” shelf. Then click on the Label shelf and select the “Marks to Label” option as “Min/Max”. You can then select options like Scope and the Field.
Groups as Static. They can be created on both Measures and Dimensions. Sets can be defined based on conditions, and hence are dynamic. They can be created only on Dimensions.
First, identify the last order date for every customer. For this, a LOD is required.
{ FIXED [Customer Name] : MAX([Order Date]) }
For this date, obtain the profit made by the customer.
IF [Order Date] = [Customers last Order] THEN [Profit] END
Display this value in the graph.
To combine 2 sets, the criterion is that both sets should be created on the same Dimension.
Let's say we have a Set A with members {1,2,3,4} and a Set B with members {2,4,5,6} in it.
We can combine the data in the given 2 sets using one of the following options:
AՍB = {1,2,3,4,5,6} - All the Members from both the Sets
A∩B = {2,4} - Shared/common members in both the Sets
A - B = {1,3} - Members present only in Set A
B - A = {5,6} - Members present only in Set B
The work done in Tableau can be saved using different options.
A Tableau Workbook is the one in which we save the sheets (which include worksheets, dashboards, and stories) created in Tableau. Also, the connection details to the resources used in the workbook get saved in a .twb file.
A Tableau Packaged Workbook is one in which all the details saved in the .twb are saved, but in addition to that, all the local resources are internally packaged in the workbook. Local resources could be data files like excel, access, text, pdf, etc., shapefiles, custom geocoding data, cube files, etc.
When you would want to save only a single sheet present in the Tableau Workbook to quickly share it across with others, this option comes in handy. To save a sheet as a bookmark go to Window -> Bookmark -> Create Bookmark. The bookmark file will be saved in the “My Tableau Repository -> Bookmarks” folder.
Extract files are a local copy of the data set that you can use to share data with others when you need to work offline, and improve performance.
Tableau Data Source files are the files that contain the connection details to the data sources. They don’t contain the actual data, but only the information required to connect to the actual data. At the same time, any modifications made to the data fields, like changing the data types, creating hierarchies, folders, calculated fields, groups, all such information is saved in the .tds file.
A Tableau Packaged Data Source file contains the .tds itself, in addition to that it will also contain any local data files used, like hyper text files, excel files, pdf files, local cube files, etc.
Tableau Prep is a tool used to prepare the data for analysis. It is used to clean, shape, and combine data from multiple data sources.
Tableau Flow Files created on Tableau Prep Builder can be saved in 2 ways.
All the steps created in the flow to clean the data will be saved in this file, also connection details of the data sources are saved in it.
All the information saved in the .tfl will be saved here as well. Along with that, any local data files used will be internally packaged inside the .tflx file.
After the data is cleaned using Tableau Prep Builder using different steps, the final cleaned output file can be saved in the following ways -
Group and Replace is a method of identifying and correcting the mistakes in the data, especially data entry mistakes.
There are 4 different techniques available in this category:
Dashboards are reports where we can place different worksheets together with interactivity. It is a collection of different charts created in the Tableau workbook. By adding Actions to the dashboard, it can be made interactive. We don’t just look at the content, but can also do slicing and dicing of data and draw meaningful insights.
Extensions are web applications that can interact with worksheets and data in Tableau. Extensions add new capabilities to Tableau.
There are numerous extensions available in Tableau.
To get the complete list of extensions, visit the “Extension Gallery” of Tableau. Some extensions are free, while some need to be purchased.
For example:
It is used to replace any single or multiple value quick filters with a series of clickable buttons.
The following graph shows the Sales of different products being sold by Coffee Chain. There is a Product Type Filter here.
Now, the Button Filter Extension will help us show the product type members as clickable buttons.
First, download the “Button Filter” extension from the extension gallery. Then, click on “My Extensions” and select the .trex file.
Now “Configure” the filter.
Hit Save and Apply. The values in the Product Type filter appear as clickable buttons.
This extension adds 10+ visualization types to Tableau toolkit that are not present in “Show Me”.
You need to use the “Web Page” Object from the Dashboard Pane for this. Drag and drop the Web page object in the dashboard and give the link to the web page in the URL box. The Web page will get embedded.
Filter action will help us to zoom in or zero in on the data that we are interested in. All the remaining charts in the dashboard can be updated based on the selection made in the worksheets. We can narrow down our analysis to the point of interest.
Highlight action highlights the point of interest and dims the rest of the data.
It is used to create a Hyperlink to a browser. This is helpful when you want the user to be able to see more information that is hosted outside of Tableau.
We can also use a Web Page object and show the web page in the dashboard itself.
For Example, here is a screenshot of the URL action configured to show the Wiki page for the State selected in the Map. The result can be seen in the web page object.
Parameters are dynamic values that replace constant values in Tableau. They can replace constant values in Calculated fields, Filters, Sets, Reference Lines, Bins, and Custom SQL Queries.
For example, here is a Histogram, whose Bin size is provided through a Parameter.
Parameter:
Parameter used in Bin Size:
Histogram with Bin Size = 25
Histogram with Bin Size = 50
Histogram with Bin Size = 100
This can be done by configuring “Change Parameter” action.
For example, let us say we need to do a selective drill down on the Category that is selected, and display the subcategories under it. It can be done using a parameter.
Step1: Create a parameter displaying the members in the “Category” dimension
Step2: Create a calculated field to do the Selective Drill Down
Step3: Create a report displaying the information
When the value on the parameter is changed, the graph will get updated.
Step4: To change the value of the Parameter based on user interaction with the report, configure the “Change Parameter” action.
Worksheet -> Action -> Add Action - > Change Parameter
Now, based on the Category that the user selects in the Table, the Sub-Categories under that category will be displayed.
Stories in Tableau are “Guided Analytics” or a “Narrated Walk-through”. It is a series of Worksheets and Dashboards put together in a logical sequence, to convey the information.
Story -> New Story.
Tableau is a business intelligence software that allows you to visually represent data from various sources to create interactive dashboards. Tableau interview questions and answers should revolve around analyzing data and checking to see if you are a market and industry fit. Here are a few sites that provide more Tableau interview questions with answers:
An interviewer tests your knowledge of this business intelligence software with multiple sets of real-life questions on Tableau to assess if you are job-ready. Here are a few examples:
Tableau interview questions for experienced candidates are primarily based on the fundamentals, dimensions, and Measures. Get acquainted with other practices and dashboards that are used for visualization. Understand why Tableau is different from similar tools like IBM Cognos or QlikView. There are a lot of websites online that allow you to prepare for Tableau interviews for free. Check them out to know more.
Online training platforms provide you with the best Tableau interview questions and answers. Tableau interview MCQ questions are available in various standard job search engines like LinkedIn, Naukri, Glassdoor, etc., categorized based on your experience level. So, explore these websites online and get relevant questions for both freshers and experienced candidates.
Tableau certification or self-learning period is roughly less than 90 days. In the same way, a candidate appearing for the interview must be well-versed in the concepts of Tableau. You must block 5 to 7 hours a day for a week to prepare for the interview.
You can also open the community forum of Tableau and learn about recent trends, tips, and hacks, as it will give you an upper edge over other candidates.
There is no exact formula that you have to answer all interview questions. There are circumstances and situations wherein you don't get selected even if you answer all the interview questions correctly.
So, express your knowledge about Tableau and ensure that the interviewer understands that you're a perfect fit. Avoid second-guessing yourself from the interviewer's point of view; instead, be positive and portray confidence to ace the interview.
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